Srila Narrottama Dasa Thakura
The devotees in the Gaudiya Vaisnava sampradaya, follow the original six Gosvamis of Vrndavana. These six devotees, who were all in the renounced order of life, were most illustrious disciples of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu. About these Gosvamis Srinivasa Acarya has written:
The six Gosvamis Sri Rupa, Sri Sanatana, Sri Raghunatha Bhatta, Sri Raghunatha Dasa, Sri Jiva, and Sri Gopala Bhatta are worshipable because they renounced their aristocratic family life as insignificant and became mendicants to preach and deliver the fallen souls. They are always bathing in the waves of ecstatic love for Krsna.
Thus the six Gosvamis set the ideal example of pure devotional service.
To follow in the footsteps of the six Gosvamis, one must strictly follow the rules and regulations of devotional service, as explained by Srila Rupa Gosvami in his Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu (The Nectar of Devotion).
Sometimes, however, persons who neglect these devotional principles claim to be gosvamis simply on the basis of heredity. They have inherited the name Gosvami but not the consciousness of a gosvami.
Without proper devotional training, such jata-gosanis, or caste gosvamis, disregard the regulative principles, neglect the devotional service of the Lord, and use the temple as a place for their own family comforts.
As Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati used to say, such untrained persons use the worshipable form of the Lord as "stones for cracking nuts" (that is, as a means of income for sense enjoyment).
On the other hand, in India there are still families that are learned and devoted by tradition and training. They strictly follow regulative principles, they render excellent service to the Lord, and they foster Krsna conscious devotional service generation after generation.
Those born in such gosvami families have the fortunate opportunity to serve the Lord, and when properly trained they may also become pure devotees. They are then to be accepted as gosvami not only in name but in fact.
The essential consideration, therefore, is pure devotional service. Whether born in a high family or a low family, anyone, from any part of the world, can become a pure devotee of the Lord. As stated by Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu:
kiba vipra, kiba nyasi, sudra kene naya
yei krsna-tattva-vetta, sei 'guru' haya
The pure devotee is one who knows the science of Krsna and follows its principles. Such a person can be accepted as a bona fide spiritual master.
What is objectionable, therefore, is the claim that pure devotional service can be performed or spread only by a particular caste or clan. This idea is contrary to Lord Caitanya's teachings.
An example of such a clan is the so-called Nityananda Vamsa, who claim to descend from three grandsons of Lord Caitanya's great associate Lord Nityananda. The members of the Nityananda Vamsa sometimes say that Lord Nityananda's divine essence is carried in their family blood line.
This is mendacious on two counts. First, the ancestors of the Nityananda Vamsa were actually disciples, not sons, of Lord Nityananda's only and childless son, Sri Virabhadra Gosvami. Second, a person is known to be a Vaisnava not by birth from a particular womb but by his character.
Up until the early part of this century, the Nityananda Vamsa held the lower-caste Vaisnavas in a thrall of superstition and wrong teachings.
But beginning in the late 1800's, Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura challenged them in his popular Bengali-language books like Jaiva Dharma and Hari Nama Cintamani. He proclaimed that it is not enough to accept a spiritual master merely on the basis of caste. Before taking initiation, the candidate must be sure that the initiator is fully conversant with the scriptures and can lift his disciples out of ignorance. The guru should be of spotless character: if he is addicted to sinful acts, then even those he may have already initiated must reject him.
Bhaktivinoda's books unleashed a wave of reform in Bengal that pushed the jata-gosani into a defensive stance. But the confrontation came to open war when his son, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, took over the Gaudiya mission.
Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati publicly smashed the arguments placed before him by those who held that devotional service was a monopoly of their own caste. Such ideas, he said, were products of "skin disease."
The basic misunderstanding in materialistic life is that the body is the self. Under illusion, one thinks of oneself as American, British, or Indian, young or old, man or woman, white or black. In fact, however, these are merely bodily designations, labels for the skin. And so too are designations of family and caste. To take birth in a high family may offer one an opportunity to become Krsna conscious. But the birth itself is not an automatic guarantee. Nor does birth in a low family exclude one. Anyone who performs pure devotional service to the Lord, regardless of jati, or birth, becomes a member of the transcendental family of Lord Sri Krsna. This is Lord Caitanya's teaching.
