46. KNOWING HOW TO LOOK

Since this section is primarily meant for devotees who have a basic understanding of karma, we are not going to go into detail here to explain these intricacies. The idea is that if one is sincere, then Krsna will send the bona fide guru, and if one is sincere Krsna will send the bona fide spouse. But this does not mean that we don'thavetomakeanyefforttounderstandwhatisthebonafideguru,andwhatisthebonafidespouse."God helps those who help themselves." So the first qualification for getting a bona fide mater is to carefully study the philosophy and have a good idea of what real spiritual life means. There are many bogus men posing as sincere but who have ulterior motives, and you must be able to spot them. There are ways to tell. A history of the persons past is usually a very good indicator. Fools try to say that a person's past does not matter for devotees, but that refers to the devotees who are strictly on the path without deviation. Most devotees are in the neophyte stage. That means they have bad tendencies and qualities that have not gone away yet.