HH Rtadhvaja Swami and HH Giriraj Swami spoke on success in the grihastha ashrama, Giriraj Swami with reference to Srimad-Bhagavatam 5.5.18.
âOrdinarily, the spiritual master, husband, father, mother or superior relative accepts worship from an inferior relative, but here Rsabhadeva forbids this. First the father, spiritual master or husband must be able to release the dependent from repeated birth and death. If he cannot do this, he plunges himself into the ocean of reproachment for his unlawful activities. Everyone should be very responsible and take charge of his dependents just as a spiritual master takes charge of his disciple or a father takes charge of his son. All these responsibilities cannot be discharged honestly unless one can save the dependent from repeated birth and death.â âSrimad-Bhagavatam 5.5.18 purport
Interesting! Two sannyasis, who have never been married, speaking of "success in the grihastha ashram." I suppose I can speak about "success in the sannyasa ashram" as a grihastha, as one who has never been a sannyasi? Why not! This is only possible because all of us, as Srila Prabhupada's children, are ultimately not grihasthas or sannyasis, as Mahaprabhu Gauranga has emphatically stated. We are first and foremost Bhaktas of ÅrÄ« ÅrÄ« RÄdhÄ and Krishna.