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My dear friendly readers: I am speaking to you as a fellow traveler on the road of life. I chose long ago to define my walk on this road as meant for spiritual attainment, or the road to waking up to my soul and its relationship to God. If you think this might be plausible, please read on. Our ultimate goal or our constant intention creates a powerful influence in our life, like tinted glasses, or a constant scent. If you strongly believe in something, or have strong feelings not to believe in something this will influence your perceptions.
(this blog is recorded on the full page: quick time player needed)
My dear friendly readers: I am speaking to you as a fellow traveler on the road of life. I chose long ago to define my walk on this road as meant for spiritual attainment, or the road to waking up to my soul and its relationship to God. If you think this might be plausible, please read on. Our ultimate goal or our constant intention creates a powerful influence in our life, like tinted glasses, or a constant scent. If you strongly believe in something, or have strong feelings not to believe in something this will influence your perceptions.
This can be explained psychologically in regards to ordinary things, or spiritually in regard to the Universe, or God. Krishna teaches us in the Bhagavad Gita, that he, or God, reciprocates with our type approach, or faith in him. He says, as an official policy, that He reciprocates proportionally, yet behind the scenes, he goes out of his way to help us. This is why it is said that if you take one step toward God, he takes 1,000 toward you.
There is ordinary karmic justice, and then there is the law of God’s love and desire for us to come to him. (Please note that God, although referred to as a “He” has nothing to do with material gender—there is some correspondence since he is the original source—but it is not biologically functional. In God’s world all bodies are spiritual and meant for loving exchanges, with no need for reproduction as we understand it.) And while on our path we say Krishna is God, which he is, his position as God is secondary to our mutual loving exchanges. His position as God, does not negate the fact that He has unlimited expansions and is known variously on this planet and throughout the Universe.
Please know that I am speaking to myself as much as to you. I am not calling down from the top of the mountain, but from the tempest in the storm. Though I hold on for dear life, I have found the strength and shelter to keep on my journey toward the mountain peaks, which represent my highest aspiration. This storm will pass and the sun will shine to help us on our way to fly through the clouds of serenity and service and then to eternal home–not to rest in unending sleep, but to dance to the music from Krishna’s flute.
I hope and pray that your day or night is going well and that you are hopeful to go forward toward your destination. One of the benefits of the aging process is that at a certain point one realizes that everyday in this body could be our last. The occupier of this bodily house—the soul, the symptom of which is consciousness—will move on to another. Our current conventional sense of self, or how we presently define ourselves, such as through our parents, upbringing, history, current family, past generations, material possessions, status, or lack thereof, will also be lost in the oblivion of time.
So what
if we have the perfect relationships,
the perfect spouse and children,
the most pleasing personality that everyone adores,
the ideal satisfying occupation,
the ideal childhood or parents,
no anxiety about money,
and success in every area we could imagine—
or whatever we now think is lacking in our lives—
without our enthusiasm for
Krishna and his holy name,
(even a spark of hope)
without a daily spiritual practice,
hearing the ambrosia of the scriptures,
without service to our Deities,
our gurus, and the Vaishnava saints,
or without the ideal in our heart
to love and serve Krishna—
the whole world would be void
and our material perfections and satisfaction
would only be so many zeros
without our actual spiritual life,
instead of merely a decoration of a dead body.
My dear spiritual seekers: what this is meant to remind us of is what our real assets are, and what will be lost by the waves of time! Many people want to acquire some or all of the goals on the above list, yet even if these things are obtained, that doesn’t guarantee happiness. The soul requires spiritual things for lasting happiness, not external, foreign matter, which is constantly changing into other forms, sometimes before our very eyes.
What we share with others we all need to carefully listen to. If we truly want to progress in self understanding, then we have to increase our faith and realization of where our true shelter and lasting achievements are, and what is only like the “will of the wisp” (do look it up in the dictionary!)—which seems to exist but then disappears. There is day dream and night dream, and reality, which appears like a dream to the ordinary people of the world—and to some extent to us, or part of us, at least during certain times!
Thus we, who are guided by the path outlined by Shri Chaitanya and his followers, are on the road of increasing our faith, realization and love for Radha and Krishna’s holy names, their service and service to our gurus, and the Vaishnava devotees. With the highest realization this view is the sustaining spiritual perspective, and that which is true and lasting. One may simply fanatically assert this, or actually know it to be true by experience.
Our ideal is to travel the spiritual road with the help of our physical body guided by the highest transcendent truth and not merely on the basis of our conditioned personality. We must regularly be reminded of this to keep everything in perspective. Though we must do what is required in order to keep our bodily temple functioning, we must pursue our desires in a way that is favorable for our bhakti.
What actually belongs to us?
Look around at your home and in the mirror at your current body—all these things will be separated from you. Only your bhakti and faith will be true currency to invest toward your highest destination. In our current life we are manufacturing a vehicle to carry us to our next life—like scientists fashioning a rocket to escape a dying planet. We are either building castles in the material air in the shape of unfulfilled worldly desires, loves, hates, resentments, and so on, or we’re reserving a place in the beautiful, real, lasting substance of spirit, the forests of Vrindavan, the home of Krishna and his devotees, sustained by the power of our mutual love.
We will go to a place that facilitates our perceived needs and wants, according to our faith, and pious, impious or spiritual capital. This is the meaning of the Bhagavad Gita’s 8th chapter vs. 5 & 6. As long as we want what the material world affords we will remain here to pursue it. When we come to the point that we have no interest in the pleasures and pain of the world, and when we only want to serve and love Krishna and his devotees, then and only then, can the spiritual world accommodate us. It is only fair!
It is said that to enter fire or the sun, one must become fire. So to enter Krishna’s abode, we need to have a suitable nature or body designed for that spiritual atmosphere. Krishna really does give us what we want—even in illusion. So let us, once and for all, be free from the illusion of being a separate enjoyer, controller, creator. Let us embrace the ideals of bhakti (devotion), seva (service), and prema (love of Krishna). Let us aspire to be Krishna’s, not the world’s. Someday you and I will feel that “Krishna is mine”, and we will never want to let him go—nor will he ever let us go. Rest assured! Each moment we are with Krishna is like the first time we saw him—ever-fresh, and full of newer and newer delight to our heart and spiritual senses. Just imagine!
“His body is the source of everything that be, the reservoir of all beauties beyond our experience. No one, therefore, is satiated by seeing the transcendental body of the Lord because there are always manifestations of newer and newer beauties. The transcendental name, form, qualities, entourage, etc., are all spiritual manifestations, and there is no satiation in chanting the holy name of the Lord, there is no satiation in discussing the qualities of the Lord, and there is no limitation of the entourage of the Lord. He is the source of all and is limitless.”
[Shrila Prabhupada’s purport to Shrimad Bhagavatam 1.11.25]
If You Only Knew What Your Soul Wanted!