Acarya 

All Glories  to HDG Srila Bhakti Promode Puri Goswami Maharaj

All  Glories  to HDG Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati  Goswami Prabhupada

The Lord had declared to Uddhava, ' know the Acarya to be my very form.' The Lord is the controller of the illusory energy which  can never able to influence  Him at all. The illusory energy binds the ordinary living entity but the confidential associates of the Lord remain above the  influence of  the illusory energy. They are similar with the Lord in being able to overcome the illusory energy while being  established in  their original constitutional form. The Lord advents in the world to perform His manifold pastimes using His inconceivable energy which involves the illusory energy to  act in various roles in order to sustain these  pastimes . This can be as the demoness, Putana  representing  the form of the false guru desiring enjoyment and liberation  ,sometimes in the false role as the cart demon who stands for false prestige and wrong spiritual conclusions.  As the Trnavarta demon who demonstrates argumentation and with  egoism posing as a great scholar, As the Baka demon  exhibiting , false prestige, crookedness and falsity in dealings .As in the pastime with the Yamalarjuna trees with encompasses  the cruelty springing from opulence, violence to one's servants with also the different  obstacles faced. As in the forest fire pastime which caused much suffering to the devotees .As when  the Brahmins performing sacrifices  while  engaged in fruitive actions being very proud of their high caste ending up  insulting both the Supreme Lord and His beloved devotees. As in the pastime of the sacrifice for King Indra which implies  the worship of many demigods and worship which is  independent of the Supreme Lord are the many roles the illusory energy was involved in a contrary way but acting so that the Lord's pastimes can be sustained in completion. There is the liberation of Nanda Maharaj pastime which is akin to bestowing pure devotion from  the clutches of the snake of impersonalism. Then the killing of Sankachuda demon which likened to freeing oneself from the effects of illicit association with women  as also involved  freeing the attachment to jewels. The killing of the Kesi demon is where one is being freed from the egoism that he is a great devotee and a great Acarya wherein the effects of the illusory energy are curtailed by the Lord. The Lord in order to instruct the devotees and to maintain the staunch faith of the surrendered devotees exemplify the mysteries of the material energy while in the end curtailing it altogether .The pure devotees being non different from the Supreme Lord advent  to solve the chaos that spring from irreligion. At that  time, the illusory energy  may take different forms to oppose their preaching of the Absolute truth. The Acarya is never bewildered by the strange transformations of the illusory energy as he understands its form and is able to counteract this illusory energy. The Acaryas with their sword of discrimination and with the evidence of the revealed scriptures are  able to cut ever all such  demoniac illusion and hence protect those surrendered souls. Such evidence of these incidents is easily obtained in examining the histories of our predecessor gurus. Acarya Sankara was incidental in performing this service as mentioned in Padma Purana. He actually came to this world by the Lord's order which was to bewilder the demoniac class of people. The Buddhists doctrine is that they  do not believe in the Vedas nor the  word of God, further they were not very susceptible to idea of  the divinity of the form of the Supreme Lord vying rather for the complete non existence or void. It was then that Sankara appeared to neutralize such a fallacious doctrine. It would be pointless to present the idea of the transcendental form of the Lord to these  atheistic believers of the Brahman void because of their disqualification  instead attempts were  then made to establish the Vedas or revealed scriptures where the first surmise was the existence of  the non differentiated Brahman (God without form). Gradually the minds of such votaries can by faith become  attracted to the inconceivable, transcendental blissful form of the Lord always hidden by the material energy. Thus Sankara was able to transform those completely opposed to the existence of God to accept like wise. In this way His appearance as an Acarya was incidental just as the appearance of the Lord to bewilder those of demoniac mentality. The surrendered devotee is able to understand the subtle reason for the Lord's existence while the rest  remain bewildered. After the disappearance of Sankara ,four great Acaryas emerged who crushed all vagaries of mental speculation by preaching  the true religion of the indomitable soul. But in their preaching they had to face opposition and calumny  due to various concurrent beliefs that stemmed from the previous preaching. So much so Acarya Ramunuja had his very existence threatened many a time by these opposing people. The scriptural texts of Madhavacarya was stolen by these same envious  people. The speciality of these great present Acaryas were that they never gave any indulgence to the mental speculation proposed by the antagonists. After hundreds of years of false beliefs and customs with the various mental ideologies nevertheless the prominent Acaryas cut through all these to establish the pure conclusions which had been covered even though the contenders were unwilling to accept all these. Only  these pure messages were able to enter the ears of those recipients  who by their pious activities to their credit and with belief in the Supreme had  loosened their  material attachments .These Acaryas in spite of hundreds of opposing unfavourable circumstances did not budge in their preaching of the pure ,undistorted message. We have seen in the life of Mahaprabhu or SriKrishna Chaitanya where  all scriptural conclusions tainted with mental speculation were crushed by him in order to preserve or preach the  pure religion of the soul. As mentioned in the Chaitanya Charitramrta ,sarva mat duse prahu kare kanda kanda. The Acaryas never does allow even a segment of the mood of the material energy to surface. In their pure preaching, they were not affected by  people in general ,their disciples ,their relatives nor the  trend and opinions of society or country. The reason is they were the unalloyed servants of the Absolute truth. .We can see how Mahaprabhu   rejected his pure disciple Chota Haridasa without hesitation for a  fault ,Advaita Acarya rejected his own sons who had strayed away from the pure path  nor did  he  flinch  from offering  the first honor to Haridas Thakur instead of the assembled great brahmanas in the ceremonial offering of  his deceased father without any regard for the customary society etiquette. Haridas Thakur did not hesitate to give up the constrictions laid by society norms and his own relatives considering them unfavourable for devotional service. Narottama das Thakur and Syamananda Das  reputed to be from a lower caste  initiated a large number of high caste Brahmanas as disciples thus proving them to be in the caliber of highly situated Vaishnavas. At one time ,the smart Brahmanas were insulting  the pure Vaishnavas and denigrating them due to their lower caste .However, the disciple of Syamanander Prabhu or Rasikananda Prabhu not only initiated many high caste Brahmanas with  proving to them  the evidences from Narada Pancharatra ,Brhdvaja Samhita ,second Vilas of Hari bhakti Vilas  with the Sat Kriya Dipika of Gopal Bhatta Goswami ,the Mahabharatha and with Puranas like Bhagavatam, that those who were initiated by the  pure Vaishanvas were not at all less than other Brahmanas of that stature  irrespective of birth. That is why in Gopivallabhapur  ,Rasikananda Prabhu's dynasty ,Navami Hoder Dynasty in Baragacchini, Raghunandan's dynasty in Srikhanada,  where these types of initiation are in continuation till now. SriBaladeva Vidyabhusan though  born from the  Karan caste did  undergo the rituals of  brahmana initiation. In the modern times, by the influence of western tradition through media and communication, the rays of the age old religion became gradually  diminished . The preaching of the age old religion took a twist as it now laid emphasis on the subject of   non dual Brahman  in imitation contrary to the ideal. In gross opposition now there rose disrespect for the holy form of the divine deity, Proper behavior became stunted, spiritual advancement became reduced to dependence on the society norms at large, people did not believe in reincarnation anymore, Fruitive work thrived  just as in the times of the predominance of Buddhist era where no proper accord  were shown for the limbs of pure devotion  with dry propagation of the atheistic Buddhist philosophy. In many places, hard core Buddhists and those advocating the philosophy of Sankara  without following  any proper succession began creating an all is one universal philosophy which was how the Sankara impersonal philosophy was preached after the Buddhist era. In that respect, the holy Deity became viewed as the transformation in the mode of goodness .The original ancient Vaishnava religion now simply  taken as very narrow ,limited branch .The spiritual path or pure devotion now became propagated as one  involving  the mind and body instead contrary to solely the soul  with  dependence on both knowledge and works .In course of time .this original pure religion denigrated with  more shallowness  with many opposing factions  being part of  the disciplic succession. These people conjured their own mentally speculated beliefs forming deviant groups as Aul, Baul, Kartabhajan ,Nera, Daravesh, Prakrta Sahajiya, Karmaja Smarta, Jaat Gosai,Atibari, Gauranganagari, Lamapat Babaji succession, Mataji sampradaya. These deviant groups succeeded in reducing the pure soul religion to that also in the realm of the mind and body and began to accept that this was the accepted  Vaishnava religion by their own outward actions ,blatant following of  only certain regulations and mundane ,erratic  behavior .It was at that time by the grace of God , that a certain aristocratic gentlemen ,highly educated and working in the higher echelons of society emerged and in a devastating note declared to society 'asat sanga tyaga ei vaishnava achar This was the eminent personality Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur who emphasised the proper behavior of the Vaishnava is to reject what is not proper to pure devotion. He was the author of more than  hundreds of spiritual treatises, being also engaged in the restoration of the holy pilgrimage spots with preaching the pure message of Mahaprabhu  exemplifying his impeccable pure character. It was at that time that the original religion of Mahaprabhu began to again become effulgent. But in turn, this  tacit, great personality  and preacher handed the reins of preaching to another lion like personality where in essence the power of Mahaprabhu became manifested as epitomized by his lion like roar against the trembling atheists. It was that time the society  became infected with  Babaji sahajiyas  who were immersed with the esoteric love songs as sung by Rahaikanu, meditating on the high love sports of the Supreme Lord, as being immersed in enjoying household life ,living on the Holy Bhagavtat for sense enjoyment, collecting money for showing the Holy deity and using such  gain for enjoyment, These people  who were entrenched in women ,wealth and fame  pretended to exhibit all symptoms of  the highest ecstasy. Even though of higher birth but were  bent on criticizing the pure Vaishnavas of the Acyuta dynasty. There was general non- acceptance of the Vaishnavas as belonging to  brahmana order. Many were using the title of Goswami to maintain their family ,they although claiming to be from a reputable Acarya line but still maintained indulgence in sinful activities. In that position of Acarya ,these people were  attached to the body and maintained mundane business for monetary gain .These people hence were not only cheating  their disciples but  were themselves  cheated. It was then this  tragic situation  struck deep in the heart of the pure devotee  who not able to tolerate the injustice to the devotees of the Lord  and that society had to grovel at the feet of these imposters . Mahaprabhu accepted the highest order of renunciation in order to teach those lost in impersonalism. In the same way, at that time the household order was simply lost in gratification  and the highest order of renunciation were being misused by many . Therefore, the great personality by the evidence of the verse of the Bhagavatam  accepted that renounced order then embarked on curtailing the  lewd debauchery going on in the name of religion . This renounced order was similar to that accepted by Acarya Ramanuja a long time ago and in contemporary times by Prabhodananda Saraswati. Gaura Sundara had declared that in all towns and villages His name will be heard and chanted. We sincerely pray this will take place. Those who are fixed at the lotus feet of the Acaryas to carry out these task will understand that in every way that the material energy will present  obstacles to them in their quest, still the Mercy of the Acarya, all such hurdles will be whittled away and He  with scriptural evidence will crush all opposition while exemplifying genuine self realization to the surrendered devotee. Such a devotee will never be implicated in the least by society, disciples nor followers .But those who are in the realm of mental speculation are in opposition to the pure preaching of the divine message. Those supposedly great souls in these category of mental ideology who have been established as  great exponents of work or religion or even presently renowned have very little knowledge of the Absolute truth and the genuine Acharya  can be easily prove this fact  without any doubt .The Srimad Bhagavata with its verse on rejecting all types of cheating religion up to liberation stands as a second example as to the highest path of devotion. The Bhagavat is firmly situated on the foundation of the absolute truth. In that regard ,many of the highly regarded  saints like Jamini,Atri,Manu,Parasara e.t.c. because of being deeply enmeshed in fruitive action were unable to understand the  actual devotional characteristic of the soul. In that respect ,their  proper discrimination and intelligence have been  unwittingly stolen by the illusory energy. The flowery words of the Vedas have entranced them completely. The Gudiya Acharya, Srila Prabodhananda Saraswati has written a verse accordingly which means as follows: Woe to those  material fruitive workers ,Woe to those materially orientated worshippers of brahman or knowledge seekers ,Woe to the so called  austere yogis .All of them as those materialist workers ,yogis and mundane scholars are compared to four legged humans and there is nothing to lament about them as they never can relish even a drop of loving devotional ecstasy. But he who is Acarya and Jagad guru remains completely indifferent and the unalloyed worshipper of the absolute truth with his actions in an  impeccable scriptural stance.