So as Arjuna . . . we are reading Bhagavad-gītā; you can understand that Arjuna is a friend. Why he's accepting Kṛṣṇa as guru? Why? He's a friend. He's talking equally, sitting equally, friend and friend, sometimes talking nonsense. Kṛṣṇa . . . in the Eleventh Chapter he was begging Kṛṣṇa, "Forgive me. As a friend I have misbehaved with You." Friend has got right that. Kṛṣṇa did not mind for that. But he knew that, "Kṛṣṇa, although He is my friend, He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore, He is the proper person to become my guru." And he says also that, "The perplexity which I have been put into now in this battlefield, this cannot be solved by anyone else except Yourself." That he said also.
So this is instruction we get from Bhagavad-gītā—everyone reads Bhagavad-gītā—that we have to accept Kṛṣṇa as the guru, or Kṛṣṇa's representative as guru. Tad viddhi praṇipātena paripraśnena sevayā (BG 4.34). And we have to give service to such guru and we have to surrender ourself. Not that I accept you guru just to know how much you are learned, how much you can talk with me. Not with that spirit. Surrender that, "I surrender to you, sir." Śiṣyas te 'ham, "I have become śiṣya." Śiṣya means voluntarily accepting his ruling. Whatever guru will say, he will accept. That is called śiṣya. Śiṣya means ruling, who accept disciple, means disciplinary measure. Whatever guru says, one who accepts, he becomes disciple. He . . . "I don't care for my guru's order, and still I am disciple," that is not accepting guru. Of course, it has become a fashion like that, to have a guru but don't care for guru. That is not . . . that will not help. Śiṣyas te 'haṁ śādhi māṁ prapannam (BG 2.7).
And immediately Kṛṣṇa, as we . . . as soon as He accepted to become guru of Arjuna, He immediately chastised him:
- aśocyān anvaśocas tvaṁ
- prajñā-vādāṁś ca bhāṣase
- gatāsūn agatāsūṁś ca
- nānuśocanti paṇḍitāḥ
- (BG 2.11)
"My dear Arjuna, you are not talking like a learned man. You are thinking that you are very learned man, that you are talking with Me, that 'What will happen to this, to that, if I fight?' You have wasted so much time. But actually I find that you are a fool number one. You do not know anything," aśocyān anvaśocas tvam, "because you are lamenting for things for which one should not lament. What is that? This body. You are thinking of this body of your relative, and because they will be in the war, they will be killed. You are thinking like that. But actually this is not the subject matter of pondering. The real subject matter is how to save the soul." Therefore He began instructing that, "We are not this body; we are soul." Dehino 'smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā, tathā dehāntara-prāpti (BG 2.13). In this way He gave first instruction that we are not this body.