Vaisnavanam yatha sambhuh. Lord Siva showed so many examples on so many levels. Daksa was blaspheming him, actually historically it is like this. He was pointing out things about Lord Siva but putting them in the wrong context. "You associate with ghosts and demons and frequent crematoriums and you have skulls all over your body." The great Vaisnavas understand that these are the great ornaments of Lord Siva. He was explaining it in such a way to blaspheme. He was saying the most horrible things. He cursed Lord Siva, "Because you are such an abominable rascal who shows no respect to his superior like me I curse you, you will not be given any share with the rest of the demigods of sacrifices."
Lord Siva is a great Vaisnava he was not disturbed. He was being blasphemed like anything he was just sitting there calmly. He was taking it in a positive way. "Now I don’t have to associate with all these materialistic demigods to get shares of the yajnas." He was taking a curse as a blessing.
Tolerance! trinad api sunicena, [3rd stanza of Mahaprabhu’s Sri Siksastakam] Siva is the embodiment of gentleness.
In
Vrindavan he is
Gopisvara Mahadeva. He is the guardian of the rasa-lila in the form of a gopi. He wanted to be in the rasa-lila so he was told by one of Radharani’s associates, "You go to Mana-sarovara and bathe." In speartion from Krishna, Radharani filled these kunds with the tears of Her love in separation and Lord Siva bathed in the tears of Srimati Radharani in Mana-sarovara and came out in the form of the gopi and was given the role of guarding the rasa-lila. What an intimate Vaisnava! Gopi Siva!
At
Govardhana he showed a beautiful example of how he loved the association of devotees as
Cakalesvara Mahadev. Sanatana Goswami was living right next to him at Manasi-ganga. At that time so many mosquitoes were eating up Sanatana Goswami day and night. It was disturbing his service because he was trying to write books, do his bhajan and there were swarms of mosquitoes. So he was thinking, "I can better do my service somewhere else. I will leave this place.
When Lord Siva understood he was thinking like this and he was his next-door neighbor as Cakalesvara Mahadev deity he couldn't bare the thought of separation from Sanatana Goswami. So he appeared in a beautiful brahmana form and told Sanatana Goswami to stay one more night and see. Sanatana Goswami said, "I will stay one more night." And then Lord Siva went to the demigod in charge of mosquitoes (Laughter) and said tell your mosquitoes not to bother Sanatana at all. So not a single mosquito came that way after that.
So in so many ways - vaisnavanam yatha sambhuh!
Lord Siva is a mahajana teaching us how to follow by his example. Prabhupada warns that as far as his smoking ganja and that stuff you cannot imitate.
You can follow but you cannot imitate. If you can drink poison ocean then you can do this. The spirit of his love and attachment to the devotees, the spirit of his humility and tolerance and most of all his spirit of compassion, this is what we must be cultivating if we actually want to make spiritual advancement, if we actually want to please Krishna.
Srila Prabhupada who walked among us he showed these principles in such a divine extraordinary way and it is that example of Srila Prabhupada that is the divine power that can help us to remain together on the basis of the higher principle of bhakti despite all inevitable reasons to fight and disagree. It is that divine power of Srila Prabhupada’s example that can empower any of us to do extraordinary things in this world.
