Different devotees are empowered in different ways and therefore different devotees are fulfilling different purposes. And of course sometimes there is a pure devotee, like Srila Prabhupada, who had been chosen to lead the world. But otherwise many pure devotees who are all serving the great acaryas and who need each other to improve the quality of service. In this way a vaisnava is never independent. A vaisnava is ready to hear from the other vaisnavas, to be corrected by other vaisnavas. But still a vaisnava has to keep his own integrity. Especially in maturity one has his own responsibility to represent Krsna and the parampara. One cannot say, ‘oh everyone is doing it in this way, then that must be alright so I will follow the majority.’ No, a brahmana is responsible to personally understand the scriptures, assimilate it and put it into practice. So with time we have greater and greater responsibility, to become representatives of the will of Krsna. But when coming before a greater vaisnava, we must be willing to bow down
(Kadamba Kanana Swami, August 2011, New Vraja Mandala, Spain)
