Wednesday, 03 March 2010 19:59
Written by Tulasi Vallabha Das
Sometimes serving God, the Supreme Lord is understood to be something like slavery, where one is forced to serve. The experience of being servant in this material world can condition us to such an understanding. But when one factually understands the supreme position of being a servant of Lord from authorative books like Srimad Bhagavatam, one cannot stop engaging in the loving service of Lord without expectation, which is our natural condition. Srila Prabhupada in one of his purports explains this difference.
"The Lord is not like the mundane lord. The mundane master or lord never enjoys equally with his subordinates, nor is a mundane lord immortal, nor can he award immortality to his subordinate. The Supreme Lord, who is the leader of all living entities, can award all the qualities of His personality unto His devotees, including immortality and spiritual bliss.
In the material world there is always anxiety or fearfulness in the hearts of all living entities, but the Lord, being Himself the supreme fearless, also awards the same quality of fearlessnessto His pure devotees. Mundane existence is itself a kind of fear because in all mundane bodies the effects of birth, death, old age and disease always keep aliving being compact in fear. In the mundane world, there is always the influence of time, which changes things from one stage to another, and the living entity, originally being account of changes due to the influence of time, which changes things from one stage to another, and the living entity, originally being avikara or unchangeable, suffers a great deal on account of changes due to the influence of time.
The changing effects of eternal time are conspicuously absent in the immortal kingdom of God, which should therefore be understood to have no influence of time and therefore no fear whatsoever. In the material world, so-called happiness is the result of one’s own work. One can become a rich man by dint of one’s own hard labor, and .there are always fear and doubts as to the duration of such acquired happiness. But in the kingdom of God, no one has to endeavor to attain a standard of happiness. Happiness is the nature of the spirit, as stated in the Vedanta-sutras: anandamayo ’bhyasat. Happiness in spiritual nature always increases in volume with a new phase of appreciation; there is no question of decreasing the bliss. Such unalloyed spiritual bliss is nowhere to be found within the orbit of the material universe, including the Janaloka planets, or, for that matter, the Maharloka or Satyaloka planets, because even Lord Brahma is subject to the laws of fruitive actions and the law of birth and death. "
Friday, 26 February 2010 18:07
Written by Tulasi Vallabha Das
In this life where we have very little time to understand greatest things of this world, sometimes out of ignorance we get caught up in things, which in reality have no value to us. The layers of misidentification which we duly carry, keep us in the deepest ignorance of our own self. The true nature of spirit is one which is full of love and bliss. One can truly realize this by acceptance of divine grace. When we start accepting the mercy of Lord and see in the light of that knowledge and become grateful, then we get closer to the reality and see the world and its interactions in a transcendental vision. Then, we can really percieve the ignorance by which we were once covered and when one see others entangled in the same, one feels great compassion towards them. This is the nature of a saintly person (devotee) and his only mission is to lead people towards the real knowledge.
Lord Caitanya who is none other than Supreme Lord Krsna Himself, is full of this compassion. Though He is beyond material contamination being Supreme Lord, still to show His incomparable compassion He appeared in the role of a teacher, to teach this world how to perfect oneself by the simple process of devotional service. The following beautiful heart-melting song written by Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura shows this mood of the Lord and His true devotee.
Translation of Song - Sri Krsna Caitanya Prabhu
1-2) Out of compassion for the fallen souls, Sri Krisna Caitanya came to this world with His personal associates and divine abode to teach saranagati, surrender to the almighty Godhead, and to freely distribute ecstatic love of God, which is ordinarily very difficult to obtain. This saranagati is the very life of the true devotee
3-4) The ways of saranagati are humility, dedication of the self, acceptance of the Lord as one’s only maintainer, faith that Krishna will surely protect, execution of only those acts favorable to pure devotion, and renunciation of conduct adverse to pure devotion.
5) The youthful son of Nanda Maharaja, Sri Krishna, hears the prayers of anyone who takes refuge in Him by this six-fold practice.
6) Bhaktivinoda places a straw between his teeth, prostrates himself before the two Goswamis, Sri Rupa and Sri Sanatana, and clasps their lotus feet with his hands. “I am certainly the lowest of men.” he tells them weeping, “but please make me the best of men by teaching me the ways of saranagati”
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