Should we live our devotional life in a comfortable or adventurous mood? Why Krishna allows that even his high-class devotees have to pass through many turmoils? What to do if we do not have much association of devotees and we feel alone? Class from Nabadvip, 22.12.2023
Audio for download:
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We have visited Vrindavan, but it was very austere…
We need to be adventurous. In the process of cultivation of spiritual life sometimes we also need to have some holy adventurous spirit besides the comfortable ways of cultivations. Both are equally important and both are found in the lives of pure devotees. They had their life of sadhana in more or less comfortable, happy, joyful ways but sometimes also happy ways but with an adventurous mood. They felt happy not through so much comfort, but they have adjusted themselves and got entuned to another frequency with some spirit of adventure.
The same thing would be very austere for us if we relate from a very comfortable, normal level of life. But the same thing can be really enjoyable to us when we relate with an adventurous spirit – whether in the forest or mountain… we enjoy it when we prepare a different mindset up and then we feel happy and we can enjoy that. So when we are entuned with that spirit of adventure, we might not like the general normal comfortable habituated way, but we enjoy something special.
We have to understand that often Lord´s grace manifests in typical and also in exceptional ways – His grace and mercy appear in our lives through well and ough, through pleasures and pains, through normal, comfortable pleasant ways and also sometimes a little bit powerful ways, giving us the experience of adventure in spiritual life. So His grace and mercy manifest in both ways – thats what we also find in the field of life experience of the lives of great devotees. They have received the manifestation of the Lord´s mercy in both ways and they knew how to relate to it, how to connect to it and how to embrace it – to both ways of manifestation. They are telling to the Lord: „Oh Lord, You are so gracious!“ While they have embraced the adventures of their spiritual life and spiritual practices, they say: „Oh Lord, now You want to make me more powerful, therefore You are putting such tests. Although You are not actively involved with us always, but sometimes by Your passive will, all such austere adverse experiences of our lives are being allowed for some better purpose, for the purpose of some betterment, higher improvement of my life. You want to make us like the elite commando. If we would continue to live our life of spiritual cultivation in just a normal, happy, comfortable way, I might not be as powerful as when I go through the experience of spiritual training to become a spiritual elite commando. Therefore You are allowing this to happen in my life because You want me to pass through it, making me more powerful. Lord, You are not only beautiful, but You are also so powerful. Sometimes You also may like Your devotees to become powerful, not just beautiful, full of joy and happiness, but also full of power alongside natural happiness and joy.“ Power and joy – both should be combined in one´s life. Power and beauty and joy should be unified in the ideal devotee´s life.
So the higher devotees know how to relate to the situation of so-called adversities and even turmoils. They never fluctuate, they never even move an inch from their faithful stand in relation to the Lord. They continue to be maintaining very firm and deep faith in the Supreme Lord with a prayerful heart, with natural devotional prayer and with full faith and reliance ultimately in His mercy and grace, knowing, that ultimately, their Lord will take care of them. „My Lord is putting me through some elite commando training. But the ultimate result will be that I will come out with some higher power and ability. I will enjoy the power of my victory. He is so powerful Lord so He wants me to be more powerful in my devotional life. He is also testing my faith – whether it is too vulnerable and fragile or if I will continue with my faith and devotion to Him not only through comfortable ways but also through pains. If I am a real faithful devotee not only while following the pleasant path but also walking through a path of taling some penance and austerity for Him.
When Vraja gopis ran towards Krishna in the darkness of the midnight, in the rain, through the dense dark forest, with thorns and sharp stones on the road, their feet became wounded, they did not care about that. They didn´t care about their physical pain. That was the real test of devotional love, loving devotion. But if only as long as we are happily and pleasurably relating to our Lord, we love that, but as soon as we need to make any sacrifice in order to serve Him, we do not like it – then we have to understand that the quality of our devotion is not sufficient, is not better to best. It can be good, but it cannot be more than that. But while we will be able to feel happiness knowing that the ultimate result will be so good and full of victory and goodness and excellence, understanding that it is some training period to become stronger instead of just remaining average. When a devotee can relate to the path of devotion to Radha and Krishna also through the experience of austerity and continue to have pure loving dedication with full faith, even while passing through that stage, then the Supreme Lord knows that it is the real quality of devotion.
We have to feel pleasure and happiness to serve Krishna. We should serve Him through pleasure and pain. Ultimately, everything is pleasurable, no pain is there. But there is a testing time and preparation time, and when we are able to feel great happiness even while making some austere sacrifice for Krishna, then, at some point, we will start to win His heart. „He is a real devotee of Mine, he is happy to relate to me not only through pleasure but also through pain. He is relating to me with so much loving devotion even through a sacrifice!“ then special attention and mercy of Krishna is drawn towards that devotee and that pain no more remains at some point, it is all dissolved and removed by the special merciful interference of the Lord in the life of that devotee. And that is what we mostly find in the great devotee´s lives. If we look into them, we will noo see any smooth, happy lifestyle from the beginning to the end. On this mundane plane, you never see that. Rather their life is also filled with pleasures and pains while they are engaged in their sadhana and life of Krishna consciousness. They experience both with a positive spirit. With a high-class, transcendental higher adventurous spirit of happiness. Because they can see the holistic picture of the prospect. „My Lord is allowing it and ultimately it is for my good. I will become like an elite commando, I will become victorious. Krishna wants to see me in a higher victory. The ultimate result will be so good, full of pleasure and happiness, not of painstaking experience.“
It is like when the great Olympians win the medal in the Olympic Games, all their experience of past suffering and austere training will turn into happiness, they become ornamental. It is no more experience of suffering, but it brings them heroic feelings, which ordinary, comfortably living people cannot experience. Sometimes devotees have a lot of questions around why Krishna is making them so sad and sending so many tests – they want to be just joyful, because, after all, they got attracted to Krishna consciousness as life of a great joy and happiness and pleasure. Krishna is supremely beautiful, He is the personification of all bliss and beauty… so they got attracted to it but suddenly they are experiencing some pain of sacrifice. So how to adjust to that? So this is what I have just explained. Ultimately – everything is happy, no doubt about it.
Sometimes we forget to see the whole picture. I am trying to do regular Bhagavad Gita classes, but not many people are coming.
Your service endeavour is glorious, no matter how many people are coming and how much are they listening, but you are endeavouring to do that service for your benefit and their benefit. That is very valuable in the eyes of the Lord. A devotee is making sincere efforts to serve Him for His cause and He appreciates that. What have I just explained, that even high-class pure devotees move through the experience of pains and pleasures in their lives of Krishna consciousness… This is nicely explained through this verse of Srimad Bhagavatam:
tat te ’nukampāṁ su-samīkṣamāṇo
bhuñjāna evātma-kṛtaṁ vipākam
hṛd-vāg-vapurbhir vidadhan namas te
jīveta yo mukti-pade sa dāya-bhāk
My dear Lord, one who earnestly waits for You to bestow Your causeless mercy upon him, all the while patiently suffering the reactions of his past misdeeds and offering You respectful obeisances with his heart, words and body, is surely eligible for liberation, for it has become his rightful claim.
Srimad Bhagavatam 10.14.8
When a sincere devotee can relate to the supreme merciful Lord Krishna while passing through some adverse circumstances of life or even turmoils, still relates to Him with full faith and positive feelings and loving devotion, taking it as some other form of grace of His coming into his life. What to speak more of accusing the Supreme Lord of being unkind, cruel or unjust, rather they relate to Him in the opposite way – „Since You are allowing this test in my life, my Lord, I know You are always the protector of Your devotee. But since You allow it to happen in my life, it might have some greater beneficial purpose for me, so I am sure there is some higher divine positive purpose which will bring so many more divine benefits in my life. Therefore You are allowing it to happen, so let me accept it as another kind of Your mercy, another kind of Your grace which is appearing in my life through the test. You are playing with me. You want to test the quality of my devotion and faith in You – whether it is so conditional, limited and fragile, easily removed or broken by the circumstances or if I still can continue with my faith and devotion to You. Then Krishna becomes conquered. The Supreme Lord becomes defeated by such power of faith and devotion of His devotees. Then, at some point, He interferes and through His merciful intervention, He removes all the miseries and painful experiences from the life of His devotee who will again become filled with happiness. When He sees that His devotee has achieved this level of profoundly established, irresistible faith and devotion, He becomes almost defeated by the power of that devotion. His heart is conquered and He immediately takes care of that devotee, no more allowing this adverse situation in his or her life. That devotee already passed through it and became an elite commando so no more austere training is required. And that is what we see in the lives of great devotees. The ultimate truth in their life is full of victory and victory. That reality has been described and explained through this verse of Srimad Bhagavatam.
So next time, when you go to Vrindavan, relate with a higher adventurous spirit and then you will discover it in an enjoyable way, even when relating to the outward aspects of Vrindavan. The inner aspects and inner flow of Sridham Vrindavan is always filled with beauty, but sometimes the external situation is a little bit rough, tough and dusty. One can even have a cultural shock when comparing it to the Western ways. But when we know how to relate to all that with a higher adventure, we can enjoy that.