It is unthinkable that I can even speak at least this minimal amount about the Gita or any spiritual topic without the grace of my teachers.

Head of Iskcon? Can you clarify? You are referring to Srila Prabhupada?

You knowing your gotra, caste and what not has NOTHING TO DO with identifying the sampradaya you belong to… and are NOT prerequisites. And you did not mention what response you got!

As to your other ideas like a true Guru has no need to read any spiritual texts, I am not sure from where you got such a conception. Yes, by the mercy of Lord Krishna, there have been people who have been illiterate who are celebrated as exalted devotees. But your idea is the root cause why so many pseudo-spiritualists exist now… “no need for any sastra or books, just look in to yourself because the truth is in you”. True, truth is in us… as Paramatma, but it easily makes people misidentify themselves as God.

“Scriptures are just some books which lie around but they can never satiate a persons quest without the express permission from God.”

So if someone says that reading scriptures is boring, is it because “God” doesn’t want him to?

Well, one can use a holy book as seat or pillow (and reap the karma for it), but bottom-line is this: I read the scriptures (whatever little it was) because my Guru told me to under his guidance. And his Guru told him to… and so on. THAT is sampradaya. And that is how it becomes authoritative, since the chain of teachers goes all the way to Lord Krishna himself, who says this in the Gita:

BG 16.23: He who discards scriptural injunctions and acts according to his own whims attains neither perfection, nor happiness, nor the supreme destination.

BG 16.24: One should therefore understand what is duty and what is not duty by the regulations of the scriptures. Knowing such rules and regulations, one should act so that he may gradually be elevated.

Read through chapter 11, and read this too… http://vedabase.net/bg/9/11/en.

I request you to read through “Bhagavad Gita AS It Is”… right from the first page to the last one.

You can find it online… at http://vedabase.net/bg/en and http://www.krishnamedia.org/e-books/Bhagavad-gita_As_It_Is.pdf.

But I strongly suggest that you get a hard copy of the book so that you need not strain your eyes by sitting in front of the computer for reading the entire book.

If that would be too heavy for you (in terms of the philosophy ), you can read through any of the other books from the link http://www.clubs.psu.edu/up/vedicsociety/ebooks.html. I specifically recommend starting of with the title “Perfect Questions, Perfect Answers”.

A true siddha would definitely knows some aspect of the absolute truth and surely has some mystical powers. They would be and are worthy of everyone’s respect. But I don’t think that would qualify them as, or they would be willing to be, an ‘Acharya’.

“…but are not part of Krishna Consiousness. They preached Yoga and other means of self-realization. How do we really treat them? Are they qualified gurus?”

When I say Krishna, I mean and refer to ‘God’, who, by definition, can only be ‘one’ and is NOT some vague, impersonal, bright light up somewhere there which manifested in human form. This is a point of friction for many but this is not a conclusion made by my own speculation. So, feel free to disagree and debate with me if you feel otherwise.

In any case, any path or technique or Guru would and must help a person to come to knowledge about one’s true relationship with the Supreme Lord and come to full consciousness of the Supreme Lord (and hence the word ‘Krishna Consciousness’, please don’t make it out to be some esoteric sounding stuff based on speculation).

If not, then the path or Guru cannot be bonafide.

Standard of living is a funny concept. Here’s my definition of it. It is a measure used by well-off people to see how well-off they are now compared to the past and compared to people who are below that standard.

I am just ranting, ain’t I?