Category:Empowered Devotees of God
Theme Analysis
The Supreme Lord empowers specific devotees to execute His mission of reclaiming the fallen souls. Srila Prabhupada explains that without this specific potency (krsna-sakti), it is impossible to spread the holy name throughout the world. These empowered souls, often acting as acaryas, function under the direct inspiration of the Supersoul. While they possess extraordinary power to deliver sinful people and establish religious principles, they remain deeply humble, attributing all success to the Lord within. Srila Prabhupada warns that one must never be jealous of such empowered Vaisnavas, nor should one attempt to correct or advise them, as they are situated above the ordinary material platform. Their primary focus is often on advanced tasks like writing and publishing books to preserve the science of bhakti.
- The Necessity of Potency: Ordinary qualifications are insufficient for global preaching; one must be specifically empowered by the Lord (krsna-sakti vina nahe tara pravartana) to distribute the holy name effectively.
- Higher Duties: While temple construction engages the general populace, the specific business of advanced, empowered devotees is often to write and publish books to establish the philosophy of Vaisnavism.
- Humility in Power: Despite their great achievements, empowered devotees see themselves as the lowest of men, feeling that they are merely instruments acting under the inspiration of the Lord in the heart.
- Etiquette and Offenses: It is strictly forbidden to view an empowered acarya as an ordinary human being, to be jealous of them, or to try to offer them advice or correction.
- Explore the synthesized essence of this category in this Vanipedia article: Empowered Devotees of God.
Subcategories
This category has the following 7 subcategories, out of 7 total.
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I
Pages in category "Empowered Devotees of God"
The following 22 pages are in this category, out of 22 total.
A
- A pure devotee like Narada can give assurance to any sinful man because by the grace of the Lord such a devotee is empowered to deliver any sinful person if that person follows the principles set forth
- A sincere devotee can therefore be empowered by the Lord regardless of his situation. In the preceding verse (CC Madhya 19.134) from the Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, Srila Rupa Gosvami has described how he was personally empowered by the Lord
- Advanced and empowered devotees
- An empowered devotee sees and feels himself to be the lowest of men, for he knows that whatever he does is due to the inspiration given by the Lord in the heart. This is confirmed by Lord Krsna in the Bhagavad-gita - BG 10.10
- As stated in the Caitanya-caritamrta (CC Antya 7.11), krsna-sakti vina nahe tara pravartana: Unless a devotee is specifically empowered by God, he cannot preach the holy name of the Lord all over the world. This is an explanation of the word avesa-rupa
D
- Devotees are empowered by the Lord to distribute devotional consciousness, or Krsna consciousness, to the people in general. They are known as authorized spiritual masters & it is by their mercy that a conditioned soul gets the seed of devotional service
- Devotional service to the Lord is so powerful that it can cleanse the hearts of the people in general by the devotional service of the pure, empowered devotee
I
- In 1434 Sakabda (A.D. 1512), when Lord Nityananda Prabhu was empowered by Lord Caitanya to preach the sankirtana movement in Bengal, Sri Gadadhara dasa was one of Lord Nityananda's chief assistants
- In order to become an empowered preacher, one must be favored by Lord Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu or His devotee, the spiritual master. One must also request everyone to chant the maha-mantra
- It is also an offense to consider an empowered Vaisnava an object of disciplinary action. It is offensive to try to give him advice or to correct him
S
- Sanatana Gosvami was empowered to establish the cult of Vaisnavism
- Sarvabhauma Bhattacarya was undoubtedly a great scholar, & after receiving the causeless mercy of the Lord, he was empowered to explain the Lord's activities in different ways. Indeed, he was able to express the method of chanting Hare Krsna Maha-mantra
T
- Temple construction is meant for the general populace and neophyte devotees, but the business of advanced and empowered devotees is to write books, publish them and distribute them widely
- The Lord also empowers a special devotee to teach people their constitutional position
- The Lord delivered the fallen souls in some places by meeting them directly, in other places by empowering a pure devotee, and in still other places by appearing before someone Himself
- The Personality of Godhead always does good for one and all, by empowering His devotees to preach and propagate the transcendental process of devotional service to Godhead everywhere in accord with the specific time, place, and audience
- The process by which a devotee is thus empowered (by Krsna to broadcast the holy name of the Lord) is called avesa, or sometimes it is called sakty-avesa
- The two categories of avataras are empowered devotees and tad-ekatma-rupa (the Lord Himself)