Is it a sin to change one's spiritual preacher?

[Reply of Swami to a question by Kum. M. Meenakshi] The true spiritual preacher is identified as the personification of correct spiritual concepts and not as a certain physical personality. Shri Shirdi Sai Baba, Akkalkot Maharaj and Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa were the Human Incarnations of the same God Datta. They were present at the same time in different places; in different physical forms. The spiritual concepts preached by them were one and the same. If you change your spiritual preacher from Sai Baba to Akkalkot Maharaj, it is not really a change of your spiritual preacher. Then, if you go from Akkalkot Maharaj to Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, it is also not a change of your spiritual preacher. The reason is that the same concepts are preached by all the three Human Incarnations simultaneously. Even the disciples of any one of these three preach the same spiritual concepts. So, if you become a follower of such a disciple, you have not changed your spiritual preacher because the disciple is explaining the same spiritual concepts with new and different examples. As long as you are following any of these four, you are still following the same spiritual preacher.

But if you go to a fifth new spiritual preacher, who preaches new spiritual concepts which appear sweet to you, but are actually not in the interest of your soul’s spiritual welfare, you have changed your spiritual preacher. Such a change is a sin because following the wrong teaching of that preacher, you are going to commit sin. Your inner consciousness tells you which knowledge is the correct spiritual knowledge. It is the knowledge that convinces you from inside even though you may not like it. God always speaks to you through your inner consciousness. Your real welfare always lies in the truth and the truth is always bitter. Your fall always lies in the twisted lie and the lie is always sweet.

The fifth spiritual preacher aspires for some benefit from you. So, he speaks sweet lies to you in order to attract you to him. He expects you to pay him some offerings which provide temporary worldly benefits to him. A true spiritual preacher only speaks the bitter truth. He does not care for the offerings from the followers which provide only temporary worldly benefits to him. He only relies on God, who will grant him a permanent reward that is millions of times more valuable than the offerings from followers. Some of the false preachers actually know the truth, but they still preach sweet lies for the sake of momentary benefits from the public. They do not have faith in God, who is going to reward them tremendously for preaching the bitter true spiritual knowledge of God.

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