A Journey of Surrender and Love
The ultimate goal of every individual soul is only supreme divine bliss; to attain that, we exert constant effort every moment. But until now, we have not received that bliss. There are only two fields: the field of maya, the material power, and the field of God. We have attained a lot in the mayic field, even up to the extent of becoming Indra, the king of the celestial abodes, hundreds of times.
You always experience happiness in the world from your mother, father, child, wife, husband, or wealth. You have experienced these kinds of happiness a lot, but it has all amounted to zero. From this world, one only gets tension and anxiety. It is therefore proven that in the mayic field, there is no true happiness. So where is it? The only option remaining is God’s field. It could be there. It is not necessary to apply your intellect a lot to understand this.
For example, two people are together and you only know their names: Ramesh and Dinesh. If someone were to point out to you, “That is Dinesh,” then you could understand that the other person is Ramesh. Thus, if we were to firmly decide, “There is no happiness in the world,” then we could know it is in the divine field. But we have not decided on this. Instead, we think, “This situation with my wife, husband, or friend is not good. But everyone else’s wife, husband, or friend is good.” We have not determined that it is the same everywhere, whether it relates to a prime minister’s home or Indra’s home. Everyone is unhappy, suffering, and tense.
Thus, how could we find God’s bliss? This is a big question because if someone tries hard his whole life to earn a million or a billion dollars, he might be successful, or he might not. So how does one get unlimited, spiritual happiness and supreme divine bliss? We cannot visualize God. There are deities of God, but we want to see His actual form so we can ask Him for that bliss, but we cannot. How then can one receive divine bliss from God?
There are three methods to attain something from someone. You can grab him, tie him up, and forcibly snatch it from him. You can quietly steal it from him or you can humbly beg him for it. Which one will you choose? It is impossible to threaten God and tie Him up. There is no one equal to Him; who could be greater than Him? And stealing from Him? He is omnipresent and omniscient. Stealing is only possible when the other person does not know what you are doing. Even before you stole, when you were still planning to steal, God made a note of your thoughts from inside; this will not work.
The third option is to beg Him. How should we do this? Should we beg him in Sanskrit, English, Hindi, Oriya, Bangla or Punjabi? No, not at all. Ask Him like a newborn baby. You might not remember that when you were an infant, you could not speak a single word, indicate anything, or even recognize your mother. How did you survive? You had a weapon: you simply cried. When your mother heard your cries, she ran to you, “Why is my baby crying?” Your first few months passed like this. We have to get back to this stage of an innocent child who has no strength and no means to help himself, who does not even recognize his own mother, who cannot demand or ask anything of his mother. What will such a child do? Just cry.
God says, “Do not come to me with strength. Become powerless, destitute, without any means, be humble.” Feel more humble than a blade of grass. Be more tolerant than a tree. Respect all and do not desire respect for yourself. These are the three axioms of devotion given by Gauranga Mahaprabhu. If you have any pride, how are you able to recognize this? If a Saint asked you, “How many tears have you shed in devotion?” If your response is, “Tears? I have not shed any tears.” Then what did you do in the name of devotion? It amounts to nothing. Shed tears. God is pleased only with tears. No ability or power of yours will otherwise produce this effect.
When Duhshasan was trying to disrobe Draupadi by snatching away her sari, she held her sari between her clenched teeth. Shri Krishna was watching internally, “She is still applying her own strength.” But Duhshasan had the strength of 10,000 elephants; what strength could a powerless person apply in the face of this? Her sari was pulled from her grip. Draupadi then closed her eyes and called out, “O Krishna! Dvarikavasan!” Shri Krishna knew the moment of her complete surrender and performed a miracle that endlessly extended her sari.
Therefore, do not go to God with your own strength. We do not have any strength anyway. With what strength are you going to go to God? What strength do you have? Uncountable gods of wealth are His servants. How do you measure up to that? You might be a billionaire. What could be more than this? A wealthy person in this world cannot even buy a city. Just a city! So what is this pride of “I am so rich?”
Kamadeva (the celestial god of beauty) has the most beautiful form in our world. If you were to see him, you would immediately faint. You would not be able to tolerate the ecstasy of that vision. How do you measure up to that? Yet, whenever you see your own reflection you become absorbed. What do we have in comparison to celestial beauty? The intellect is in an even worse state. You listen to the teachings of thousands of Saints and then you forget them all.
So understand one thing about the world: no one can do anything for the happiness of another. Everyone loves for the sake of their own happiness. Whatever things you want – whether it is a nice house, a wife, children, this or that – why do you want them? For happiness. So you will get happiness. But when all these things are made of maya and within maya, and happiness is not in the mayic realm, how will you get happiness from them?
A blind person announces, “Oh anyone who is blind! Come here! Take my hand!” Another blind person hears this and thinks, “He definitely can see.” So he takes his hand. This same kind of acting is happening in our world. We want happiness from our mother and our mother wants it from us. We want happiness from our children; our children want happiness from us. This is a bond of selfishness. As long as our self-interest is being served by that mother, father, wife, husband, and child, our love lasts. If our self-interest is being served less, our love reduces. If our self-interest is not being served at all, our love ends. This is a simple account of our selfishness.
Thus, tearfully ask God for His love. Tearfully call out to God in whatever language is dear to you, but you have to shed tears. With shedding tears there is one condition: do not bring any worldly desire before God. There are two kinds of desires: bhukti and mukti. Material happiness of any kind up to Brahma’s abode is called bhukti and attaining liberation is called mukti, apavarga, kaivalya, moksha. Throw both of them far away from you. They are both like demonesses. Leave anyone who is under their influence.
Simply cry and beg Him for His divine vision and do not ask for the world. Do not have any pretense or deception. But you are, go like that. If you lie about anything, God will do a left about-turn from you. You have to become like an innocent child.
You were all innocent at the beginning. As you got older, your elders taught you all this contrived behavior in your own home so you could deceive others. Now, if you meet a Saint, you also apply your intellect. “Is this Saint genuine or just a devotee or a fraud?” What is the situation of the intellect trying to determine this? You cannot even tolerate hearing one word from someone. Some say you are a donkey, a fool, lustful, angry, greedy; deluded. Your heart starts burning just from hearing these words. Alright, so tell me, have you attained God-realization? “No.” So then you are still under the control of maya, right? “Yes.” So then you are still lustful, angry, greedy, and so on; accept it! You might say, “I am listening to what you are saying and I do not feel lustful, angry, and greedy.” But if someone were to accidentally shove you, you would shout, “Hey!” From just one action you lose control, even though you have the human body’s highest class of intellect. For this reason, always regard yourself as possessing these qualities. It is a fact we are like this. We have to realize this and accept it.
Before God, we have to become like babies who are without artifice, hypocrisy, pretense, and deceit and beg Him for His love. Whatever form is pleasing to you, imagine Him in that form. Whatever name is pleasing to you, use that name. Whatever virtues, pastimes, or decorations are pleasing to you, imagine those. Do not be scared. Dress Him in pants and throw a ball to him, “Come on Shyamasundara! Let’s play cricket!” Just think, if Shri Krishna were to appear today, would His mother and father dress Him in a pitambara and send him off to school?
Whatever style of decoration a mother and father find pleasing, that is how they are going to dress their child. It has always been like this in every age. So whatever you like, imagine Him dressed and decorated accordingly. Do all this with your mind, because if you do external deity worship, you will feel inadequate, “If I were a billionaire, I could decorate Shri Krishna with a 10 million dollar diamond necklace.” But you do not have money. Why think like this?
In the Bhagavatam, eight kinds of deity worship are described. One of these is called manomaya. Do it from your mind wherever you are. If you have to take a deity from here to there and there to here, it is a problem. But the deity you imagine in your mind can be adorned with a 10-million-dollar diamond necklace. Whatever clothing you like, whatever decorations you prefer, you can keep changing these and that too, without spending any money.
To purify our mind, service is done in three ways: with the body, the mind, and with one’s wealth. The highest class of service is mental service. Naturally, we serve physically, and whoever has wealth serves with that. But the foremost form of service is mental service. The cause of bondage or liberation is the mind. The performer of action is only the mind, not the senses or body.
In the Mahabharata War, Arjuna committed millions of murders on the battlefield, but where was his mind? It was constantly attached to Shri Krishna. (Gita 8.7) This does not mean sitting and thinking of God for just one hour. During the time of war, Arjuna remembered Shri Krishna continuously. Even though Arjuna physically committed murders, Shri Krishna did not make a note of these. Did he commit any sin? Forget about sin, Arjuna did not even think critically about anyone. His mind was absorbed only in thoughts of Shri Krishna, so how could he think of anything else? This is called karma yoga. This will happen slowly with practice.
Shri Krishna cannot come Himself and do this directly for the souls. He even sent Uddhava (the greatest jnani) to the gopis. Why? To receive divine love. He will send his bhakta Saints for this; He will not have direct contact with the souls. God’s rules are like this. He gave all this work to his devotee Saints. So right now, ask God for devotion, ask to receive His divine vision and if you have not met a genuine Saint, also ask God for this. “Please send someone to me who has practical divine experience, who has divine love, and who has found You. He can do everything with His grace.” A few of your tears will melt Shri Krishna’s heart. This is His weakness. Everyone has a weakness and this is God’s weakness. If you shed even a few tears, then He will say, “Alright, a Saint is coming.”
Have faith. Do not be scared and wonder, “How will I meet God?” After all, you were the one who took God out of your life to begin with. Why do you now think, “I won’t find Him?” If God is the purifier of fallen souls, then the more sinful we are, the more He will love us. Gauranga Mahaprabhu said, “When I hear Your names, Dinabhandhu (friend of humble souls) or Patita Pavana (purifier of sinful souls), then I have the confidence that I will also find You. But when I hear Bhakta Vatsala (friend of the true devotee), I become scared. How am I a true devotee? This is not within my control.”
The Supreme Lord is the purifier of the sinful, the friend of the humble, the uplifter of the fallen - we should be without doubt and have firm confidence in this. When you sit for devotion every day, you should increase your faith, “Today I will meet Him. Oh, I didn’t find Him? I am so sinful right now that He does not want to meet me!” Feel this. On the next day, “Today, I will meet Him.” Your love should increase. Your humbleness, your feeling of powerlessness, and your tenderness should increase. Through this practice, your heart and mind will purify. After this, a Saint will grace you with divine love without even asking. Then your senses, mind, and intellect will all be made divine. You will attain senses just like Shri Krishna’s. If you wish to see Him during His descension or experience His omnipresence, you will visualize this.
Shankaracharya, who believed in the impersonal aspect of God said, “Shri Krishna came as the son of Yashoda and was seen at one place by everyone. Still, this is just an illusion. He is present in each particle of the universe.” If He were not omnipresent, then who would govern this physical creation? Creation could not happen.
For a long time, Shri Krishna did not manifest this material creation. Then He compassionately thought that the souls were in a state of pending. They could not do any devotion. So with His grace, they were manifested in this material world. He gave them the rules of the Vedas which state, "Do this, do not do that or you will receive punishment." This is all written in the Vedas. We have forgotten the Vedas and if we come to know of them through a Saint, we say, “I will do what I want and see what happens after I die.” What will you see? You will suffer. See now in the present moment.
Even one moment before death, if your intellect decides, “Only Shri Krishna is mine,” then when you die, do not worry. Your life would have been a success. Then in your next lifetime, you will be born in such a favourable situation that you will be able to continue the devotion that is necessary to attain your ultimate aim.
An English translation of a discourse delivered in Hindi by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj, 2002
A Journey of Surrender and Love
The ultimate goal of every individual soul is only supreme divine bliss; to attain that, we exert constant effort every moment. But until now, we have not received that bliss. There are only two fields: the field of maya, the material power, and the field of God. We have attained a lot in the mayic field, even up to the extent of becoming Indra, the king of the celestial abodes, hundreds of times.
You always experience happiness in the world from your mother, father, child, wife, husband, or wealth. You have experienced these kinds of happiness a lot, but it has all amounted to zero. From this world, one only gets tension and anxiety. It is therefore proven that in the mayic field, there is no true happiness. So where is it? The only option remaining is God’s field. It could be there. It is not necessary to apply your intellect a lot to understand this.
For example, two people are together and you only know their names: Ramesh and Dinesh. If someone were to point out to you, “That is Dinesh,” then you could understand that the other person is Ramesh. Thus, if we were to firmly decide, “There is no happiness in the world,” then we could know it is in the divine field. But we have not decided on this. Instead, we think, “This situation with my wife, husband, or friend is not good. But everyone else’s wife, husband, or friend is good.” We have not determined that it is the same everywhere, whether it relates to a prime minister’s home or Indra’s home. Everyone is unhappy, suffering, and tense.
Thus, how could we find God’s bliss? This is a big question because if someone tries hard his whole life to earn a million or a billion dollars, he might be successful, or he might not. So how does one get unlimited, spiritual happiness and supreme divine bliss? We cannot visualize God. There are deities of God, but we want to see His actual form so we can ask Him for that bliss, but we cannot. How then can one receive divine bliss from God?
There are three methods to attain something from someone. You can grab him, tie him up, and forcibly snatch it from him. You can quietly steal it from him or you can humbly beg him for it. Which one will you choose? It is impossible to threaten God and tie Him up. There is no one equal to Him; who could be greater than Him? And stealing from Him? He is omnipresent and omniscient. Stealing is only possible when the other person does not know what you are doing. Even before you stole, when you were still planning to steal, God made a note of your thoughts from inside; this will not work.
The third option is to beg Him. How should we do this? Should we beg him in Sanskrit, English, Hindi, Oriya, Bangla or Punjabi? No, not at all. Ask Him like a newborn baby. You might not remember that when you were an infant, you could not speak a single word, indicate anything, or even recognize your mother. How did you survive? You had a weapon: you simply cried. When your mother heard your cries, she ran to you, “Why is my baby crying?” Your first few months passed like this. We have to get back to this stage of an innocent child who has no strength and no means to help himself, who does not even recognize his own mother, who cannot demand or ask anything of his mother. What will such a child do? Just cry.
God says, “Do not come to me with strength. Become powerless, destitute, without any means, be humble.” Feel more humble than a blade of grass. Be more tolerant than a tree. Respect all and do not desire respect for yourself. These are the three axioms of devotion given by Gauranga Mahaprabhu. If you have any pride, how are you able to recognize this? If a Saint asked you, “How many tears have you shed in devotion?” If your response is, “Tears? I have not shed any tears.” Then what did you do in the name of devotion? It amounts to nothing. Shed tears. God is pleased only with tears. No ability or power of yours will otherwise produce this effect.
When Duhshasan was trying to disrobe Draupadi by snatching away her sari, she held her sari between her clenched teeth. Shri Krishna was watching internally, “She is still applying her own strength.” But Duhshasan had the strength of 10,000 elephants; what strength could a powerless person apply in the face of this? Her sari was pulled from her grip. Draupadi then closed her eyes and called out, “O Krishna! Dvarikavasan!” Shri Krishna knew the moment of her complete surrender and performed a miracle that endlessly extended her sari.
Therefore, do not go to God with your own strength. We do not have any strength anyway. With what strength are you going to go to God? What strength do you have? Uncountable gods of wealth are His servants. How do you measure up to that? You might be a billionaire. What could be more than this? A wealthy person in this world cannot even buy a city. Just a city! So what is this pride of “I am so rich?”
Kamadeva (the celestial god of beauty) has the most beautiful form in our world. If you were to see him, you would immediately faint. You would not be able to tolerate the ecstasy of that vision. How do you measure up to that? Yet, whenever you see your own reflection you become absorbed. What do we have in comparison to celestial beauty? The intellect is in an even worse state. You listen to the teachings of thousands of Saints and then you forget them all.
So understand one thing about the world: no one can do anything for the happiness of another. Everyone loves for the sake of their own happiness. Whatever things you want – whether it is a nice house, a wife, children, this or that – why do you want them? For happiness. So you will get happiness. But when all these things are made of maya and within maya, and happiness is not in the mayic realm, how will you get happiness from them?
A blind person announces, “Oh anyone who is blind! Come here! Take my hand!” Another blind person hears this and thinks, “He definitely can see.” So he takes his hand. This same kind of acting is happening in our world. We want happiness from our mother and our mother wants it from us. We want happiness from our children; our children want happiness from us. This is a bond of selfishness. As long as our self-interest is being served by that mother, father, wife, husband, and child, our love lasts. If our self-interest is being served less, our love reduces. If our self-interest is not being served at all, our love ends. This is a simple account of our selfishness.
Thus, tearfully ask God for His love. Tearfully call out to God in whatever language is dear to you, but you have to shed tears. With shedding tears there is one condition: do not bring any worldly desire before God. There are two kinds of desires: bhukti and mukti. Material happiness of any kind up to Brahma’s abode is called bhukti and attaining liberation is called mukti, apavarga, kaivalya, moksha. Throw both of them far away from you. They are both like demonesses. Leave anyone who is under their influence.
Simply cry and beg Him for His divine vision and do not ask for the world. Do not have any pretense or deception. But you are, go like that. If you lie about anything, God will do a left about-turn from you. You have to become like an innocent child.
You were all innocent at the beginning. As you got older, your elders taught you all this contrived behavior in your own home so you could deceive others. Now, if you meet a Saint, you also apply your intellect. “Is this Saint genuine or just a devotee or a fraud?” What is the situation of the intellect trying to determine this? You cannot even tolerate hearing one word from someone. Some say you are a donkey, a fool, lustful, angry, greedy; deluded. Your heart starts burning just from hearing these words. Alright, so tell me, have you attained God-realization? “No.” So then you are still under the control of maya, right? “Yes.” So then you are still lustful, angry, greedy, and so on; accept it! You might say, “I am listening to what you are saying and I do not feel lustful, angry, and greedy.” But if someone were to accidentally shove you, you would shout, “Hey!” From just one action you lose control, even though you have the human body’s highest class of intellect. For this reason, always regard yourself as possessing these qualities. It is a fact we are like this. We have to realize this and accept it.
Before God, we have to become like babies who are without artifice, hypocrisy, pretense, and deceit and beg Him for His love. Whatever form is pleasing to you, imagine Him in that form. Whatever name is pleasing to you, use that name. Whatever virtues, pastimes, or decorations are pleasing to you, imagine those. Do not be scared. Dress Him in pants and throw a ball to him, “Come on Shyamasundara! Let’s play cricket!” Just think, if Shri Krishna were to appear today, would His mother and father dress Him in a pitambara and send him off to school?
Whatever style of decoration a mother and father find pleasing, that is how they are going to dress their child. It has always been like this in every age. So whatever you like, imagine Him dressed and decorated accordingly. Do all this with your mind, because if you do external deity worship, you will feel inadequate, “If I were a billionaire, I could decorate Shri Krishna with a 10 million dollar diamond necklace.” But you do not have money. Why think like this?
In the Bhagavatam, eight kinds of deity worship are described. One of these is called manomaya. Do it from your mind wherever you are. If you have to take a deity from here to there and there to here, it is a problem. But the deity you imagine in your mind can be adorned with a 10-million-dollar diamond necklace. Whatever clothing you like, whatever decorations you prefer, you can keep changing these and that too, without spending any money.
To purify our mind, service is done in three ways: with the body, the mind, and with one’s wealth. The highest class of service is mental service. Naturally, we serve physically, and whoever has wealth serves with that. But the foremost form of service is mental service. The cause of bondage or liberation is the mind. The performer of action is only the mind, not the senses or body.
In the Mahabharata War, Arjuna committed millions of murders on the battlefield, but where was his mind? It was constantly attached to Shri Krishna. (Gita 8.7) This does not mean sitting and thinking of God for just one hour. During the time of war, Arjuna remembered Shri Krishna continuously. Even though Arjuna physically committed murders, Shri Krishna did not make a note of these. Did he commit any sin? Forget about sin, Arjuna did not even think critically about anyone. His mind was absorbed only in thoughts of Shri Krishna, so how could he think of anything else? This is called karma yoga. This will happen slowly with practice.
Shri Krishna cannot come Himself and do this directly for the souls. He even sent Uddhava (the greatest jnani) to the gopis. Why? To receive divine love. He will send his bhakta Saints for this; He will not have direct contact with the souls. God’s rules are like this. He gave all this work to his devotee Saints. So right now, ask God for devotion, ask to receive His divine vision and if you have not met a genuine Saint, also ask God for this. “Please send someone to me who has practical divine experience, who has divine love, and who has found You. He can do everything with His grace.” A few of your tears will melt Shri Krishna’s heart. This is His weakness. Everyone has a weakness and this is God’s weakness. If you shed even a few tears, then He will say, “Alright, a Saint is coming.”
Have faith. Do not be scared and wonder, “How will I meet God?” After all, you were the one who took God out of your life to begin with. Why do you now think, “I won’t find Him?” If God is the purifier of fallen souls, then the more sinful we are, the more He will love us. Gauranga Mahaprabhu said, “When I hear Your names, Dinabhandhu (friend of humble souls) or Patita Pavana (purifier of sinful souls), then I have the confidence that I will also find You. But when I hear Bhakta Vatsala (friend of the true devotee), I become scared. How am I a true devotee? This is not within my control.”
The Supreme Lord is the purifier of the sinful, the friend of the humble, the uplifter of the fallen - we should be without doubt and have firm confidence in this. When you sit for devotion every day, you should increase your faith, “Today I will meet Him. Oh, I didn’t find Him? I am so sinful right now that He does not want to meet me!” Feel this. On the next day, “Today, I will meet Him.” Your love should increase. Your humbleness, your feeling of powerlessness, and your tenderness should increase. Through this practice, your heart and mind will purify. After this, a Saint will grace you with divine love without even asking. Then your senses, mind, and intellect will all be made divine. You will attain senses just like Shri Krishna’s. If you wish to see Him during His descension or experience His omnipresence, you will visualize this.
Shankaracharya, who believed in the impersonal aspect of God said, “Shri Krishna came as the son of Yashoda and was seen at one place by everyone. Still, this is just an illusion. He is present in each particle of the universe.” If He were not omnipresent, then who would govern this physical creation? Creation could not happen.
For a long time, Shri Krishna did not manifest this material creation. Then He compassionately thought that the souls were in a state of pending. They could not do any devotion. So with His grace, they were manifested in this material world. He gave them the rules of the Vedas which state, "Do this, do not do that or you will receive punishment." This is all written in the Vedas. We have forgotten the Vedas and if we come to know of them through a Saint, we say, “I will do what I want and see what happens after I die.” What will you see? You will suffer. See now in the present moment.
Even one moment before death, if your intellect decides, “Only Shri Krishna is mine,” then when you die, do not worry. Your life would have been a success. Then in your next lifetime, you will be born in such a favourable situation that you will be able to continue the devotion that is necessary to attain your ultimate aim.
An English translation of a discourse delivered in Hindi by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj, 2002
Read Next
The Power of the Mind in Devotion: A Lesson from Ajamila’s Story
People are confused by the story of Ajamila, not just in India, but all over the world. It is said that at the time of his death, Ajamila called out to his son. His son’s name was Narayana. In the world, when someone is close to death, he will
Eternal Freedom from Suffering
The Eternal Struggle Between the Material World and God We all have a mind that is responsible for all the actions that we perform. Firstly, it is the mind that constantly creates desires. The question is, “Why do we have desires?” The answer is that all souls desire true happiness,
Knowledge and Acceptance
The scriptures tell us that the individual soul has endeavoured to know God in every moment since eternity. No soul can remain inactive even for a second. And we know this to be true from our own experience. Wherever we are and whenever it is, we are engaging in some
Faith: The Ultimate Gamechanger
You must have heard the word shraddha which means “faith”. The Vedas say: shraddhatsva tata shraddhatsva “O humans! Have shraddha, have shraddha." agyashchashraddhadhanasheha sanshayatma vinashyati nayam lokosti na paro na sukham na para gatim There are three kinds of people who fall from the spiritual path due to doubts.