Question: How to understand the meaning of a sincere devotee?
You instructed us that It is very important to read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books. I also heard that our movement is not about training scholars, but about training devotees. Please explain.
Answer by Romapada Swami：
In the English dictionary, the word “sincere” comes from the Latin word “scire” which means “be aware of; to learn; to know”, and also has a history of describing marble that has no lines in it. Sincere means being like white marble without streaks of any other color within it; sincere means for us as individuals to be singularly focused in life without any other purpose or mission than one sincere objective: “I sincerely want, from the bottom of my heart, to come to the position where there is nothing else in my life but one thing.”
Having the aspiration to come to that position is sincere.
When we read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books, we are not attempting to be scholars or jnānīs or fill up our information basket with more information.
Our reading of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books is to sincerely nourish bhakti.
The purpose of the sound vibration of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s teachings, whether audibly recorded or transcribed into the form of a book, is to nourish our bhakti. That was his interest, and for sincere devotees, that is also our interest.
To train devotees, their hearts have to become pure and they have to know who Kṛṣṇa is. Otherwise, how are you going to train devotees?
My experience from visiting China is that people that do not sufficiently read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books (those devotees that do not read Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books) are easily swayed by the latest fad and fashion — some innovated idea, or some group, or some unqualified teachers — because they are not grounded in scripture. They are tossed here and there like a ship in the wind.
