We must engage all of our senses, our mind, and our full energy in Krishna’s service. But before we can engage in any devotional activity we must first surrender to the Lord; we must first offer ourselves over to the Lord internally. That is called atma-nivedan, self-surrender. This is the first step in saranagati as well as our first necessity in devotional life.
Srila Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur wrote in one of his commentaries on Srimad Bhagavatam: «Adau arpita paschad kriyeta: first surrender, then serve; first offer, then act.» When we surrender to Krishna and think that our whole account is being arranged by Krishna then we can serve Him in all circumstances, and whatever we do will be Krishna’s service. That is the teaching of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Prabhupad Srila Saraswati Thakur. Our Guru Maharaj, Srila Bhakti Raksak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj, gave us this conception.
Srila Guru Maharaj taught us that everything is made of chetana, consciousness, so everything has a transcendental form.
om ajnana-timirandhasya jnananjana-salakaya
chaksur unmilitam yena tasmai sri-gurave namah
«Gurudev opens our transcendental eyes and gives us transcendental knowledge — transcendental vision — and through that we can see the transcendental form of the environment.»
It is necessary to leave the illusory environment and live in the transcendental environment. When we are connected with transcendental knowledge by the grace of Gurudev then gradually the transcendental plane reveals itself to us and we feel everything to be transcendental. Everything around us in this mundane world is material, but everything material is also an expression of the spiritual plane — movement is a property of consciousness. Both matter and spirit are always in front of us, and we need to avoid material feeling and cultivate spiritual feeling. That is called paramahamsa-dharma.
If a pot has a mixture of milk and water inside it, a hamsa (swan) can drink all the milk within the mixture and leave the water in the pot. Our practising life is like this. In our environment everything is good, and everything is bad; everything is spiritual, and everything is material. We must be conscious about seeing everything in a spiritual way and avoiding materialistic thinking. General people, conditioned by the illusory environment, ignore the presence of the jiva-soul within everything and do not know that the jiva-soul naturally has a service spirit.
In the material world everything is a passing show. There is no eternity or purity within the material environment. The happiness conditioned souls feel in the material environment is not real happiness. Conditioned souls do not actually know what happiness is. What they consider to be happiness is actually only temporary relief from their material difficulties. Between the births and deaths of the conditioned souls so many varieties of suffering come to them. Sometimes conditioned souls become frustrated and want to become liberated from the material atmosphere. Thus they desire to merge into Brahma the way a raindrop merges into the ocean.
muktir hitvanyatha rupam sva-rupena vyavasthitih
But real liberation means leaving material life and living a spiritual service life. What does a liberated soul actually do? He engages his every action in the service of the Lord and feels full satisfaction through the Lord’s service. Liberation means detachment from material thinking, and attachment to the transcendental world through dedicated service to the Lord in a surrendered mood. A liberated soul is directly attracted to Krishna. He understands that his eternal necessity for happiness, love, charm, beauty, and ecstasy will be fulfilled by Krishna’s service.
All the scriptures — Srimad Bhagavatam, Srimad Bhagavad-gita, the Puranas, the Vedas, and so on — have taught us that we can transform the mundane environment into the transcendental environment through the spirit of service and devotion. Krishna Himself said,
Sarva-dharman parityajya mam ekam saranam vraja
«Only I can give you everything. Surrender to Me and serve Me according to My directions, and you will be fully satisfied by your service. Tat kurusva Mad-arpanam: before you do anything, first offer it to Me.»
The Lord’s service connects everything with the transcendental plane and gives us the realisation that, «Everything is the property of Lord Krishna. Everything here, there, and everywhere exists for His satisfaction. Even I myself belong to Him and exist to serve Him. Nothing exists for me.» When we live within that consciousness, then we live within the transcendental service world; we live as a liberated soul in Krishna’s transcendental abode.
Srila Guru Maharaj always taught us to not take anything for ourselves. He taught us to first offer anything that came to us to Guru, Vaisnava, and the Lord and in that way be free from all illusory matter. This is the life of a devotee. A devotee lives in the nirguna sevamaya-bhumika, the transcendental service world, where everything is for the satisfaction of the Lord and His devotees.
There are many examples of how everything within the material environment can be spiritually transformed when it is utilised for the Lord’s service. The primary example is mahaprasadam, the Lord’s divine remnants. If we first offer everything we need for our life to the Lord then all of our necessities become transcendental. If everything we take in our lives is the remnants of the Lord and His devotees then everything will be beneficial for us materially and spiritually. This type of lifestyle is very sweet and very suitable for our bodily maintenance. When we take the Lord’s remnants we feel connected to the Lord and we feel a satisfaction in our hearts that brings us the mood of eternity and eternal service to the Lord. In our practising life we are somewhat bodily conscious, but not fully bodily conscious. We know that everyone must eat to maintain their body. We know so many people are suffering from diseases, and because of that they have restrictions on their diets, like not taking sweets or not taking fried foods. But if we offer everything we are going to eat to the Lord before we eat it then that foodstuff becomes transcendental.
People must maintain their bodies according to the laws of nature, but as possible by them they will proceed in a spiritual way by considering and feeling that anything they put on their tongue must be mahaprasadam, the Lord’s remnants. If they have that mood and consciousness then everything in their life will be spiritually beneficial for them.
To honour prasadam, the proper sense, feeling, and consciousness are necessary. The prasadam of Lord Jagannath in Puri Dham is famous all over the world. Every day they cook so much for Lord Jagannath and offer everything to Him in giant pots. If we look at that prasadam it looks just like rice, dal, and vegetables. It appears just like ordinary matter. But through faith and the spirit of devotion we know that when it is offered to Lord Jagannath it becomes transcendental.
Once Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu brought some Jagannath-prasad to Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya to test him, to see if he had more faith in the formal religion of the Vedas than transcendental Krishna consciousness and Krishna-prasad.
aji muni anayase jininu tribhuvana
aji muni karinu vaikuntha arohana
aji mora purna haila sarva abhilasa
sarvabhaumera haila mahaprasade visvasa
When Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu brought him the mahaprasadam and Sarvabhauma Bhattacharya accepted it without any mundane considerations, Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said, «Today I have conquered the three worlds! Today I have ascended to Vaikuntha! Today all of My desires have been fulfilled! Sarvabhauma has developed faith in mahaprasadam!»
When we take prasadam we are not taking rice, vegetables, water, or anything mundane. We may see prasadam and see that it appears like an ordinary material thing, but within that mahaprasadam is the transcendental mercy of Lord Krishna. If we think we are simply eating while we take prasadam, then we are not properly honouring the prasadam and we are not spiritually qualified. If we think that we are serving the Lord’s divine remnants and that only externally it looks like we are eating, then we actually will be honouring prasadam. When we taste prasadam in this way with full faith, we can very easily control our senses and engage in the service of Guru, Vaisnava, and Bhagavan.
I once noticed the way a girl in St Petersburg was distributing prasadam. As she put rice, or dal, or sabji on everyone’s plates she recited this verse,
brahmarpanam brahma havir brahmagnau brahmana hutam
brahmaiva tena gantavyam brahma-karma-samadhina
«The spoon is Brahma, the offering is Brahma, the fire is Brahma, and the person making the offering is Brahma. One whose consciousness is always absorbed in Brahma surely attains Brahma.»
I think she may have stayed in India for many years because this verse is used as part of the style of serving prasadam in other sampradayas like the Sankar sampradaya. Through realisation we will see that prasadam substantially exists in the very, very finest way on a higher platform of transcendental knowledge than is expressed in that verse. There are many other verses to explain this, but in Srimad Bhagavad-gita Krishna simply says,
yajna-sistasinah santo muchyante sarva-kilbisaih
bhunjate te tv agham papa ye pachanty atma-karanat
«One who cooks for the Lord and offers one’s cooking to the Lord is freed from all sin by honouring the remnants of that offering as the Lord’s transcendental mercy (prasadam). One who cooks for oneself and does not honour anything as the Lord’s prasadam eats only sin.»
Through this verse we can understand the fundamental position of the Lord’s prasadam, how it becomes transcendental through a connection with the Lord in the spirit of devotion. This is a higher conception and platform of spiritual life than the idea that everything is transcendental simply because it comes from Brahma or exists within Brahma.
Because it is not so easy to understand the transcendental position of the Lord’s remnants and honour them properly we recite a verse spoken by Narad Rsi whenever we honour prasadam:
mahaprasade govinde nama-brahmani vaisnave
svalpa-punya-vatam rajan visvaso naiva jayate
«Those who do not have sufficient sukrti [spiritual fortune] cannot faithfully honour mahaprasadam, Lord Govinda, the Holy Name, or the Vaisnavas.»
At the time when I joined the Mission of Srila Guru Maharaj, this Sri Chaitanya Saraswat Math, everyone would chant this verse as well as a poem of Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur before they took prasadam. Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur composed a very simple poem that explains the divine position of prasadam very perfectly. It is very short, but it is an extremely valuable composition for us. It is a Bengali poem, but everyone in the Math would chant it before they took prasadam as though it was a Vedic mantram. Everyone would chant this poem, offer their dandavat pranams to the mahaprasadam, and then eat with the remembrance that they were not actually eating but serving the Lord by honouring His remnants.
Sarira avidya jala jadendriya tahe kala
jive phele visaya-sagare
ta’ra madhye jihva ati lobha-maya sudurmati
ta’ke jeta kathina samsare
krsna bada daya-maya karibare jihva jaya
sva-prasada-anna dila bhai
sei annamrta pao radha-krsna guna gao
preme daka chaitanya-nitai56
Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur explains in his poem that everything you eat will be the cause of future bondage in this material world unless you use the energy and nourishment you receive from your food to serve liberated souls and the Lord. Furthermore, if you honour everything you eat as mahaprasadam — the remnants of the Lord, Gurudev, and Vaisnavas — then eating it will not cause any further bondage in this world. Rather, it will increase your devotional mood and the devotional atmosphere of your life.
Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur also mentions in his poem that the tongue is the most difficult sense to control. In Srimad Bhagavatam (11.8.21) Sri Krishna says,
tavaj jitendriyo na syad vijitanyendriyah puman
na jayed rasanam yavaj jitam sarvam jite rase
«Someone may be able to control their senses temporarily, but unless one can control one’s tongue one has not truly conquered one’s senses.»
In this verse from Srimad Bhagavatam Krishna certifies that someone who can control their tongue’s activities, that is, eating and speaking, has truly controlled his senses. Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur wrote in his poem that Krishna is supremely merciful because He gives us the opportunity to control our tongues and transcend the illusory environment through the joyful activity of honouring the Lord’s divine remnants and chanting the Lord’s Holy Names.
In Srimad Bhagavatam Uddhava also describes the glorious position of the Lord’s prasadam and how the conditioned souls are supremely benefitted by it:
tvayopabhukta-srag-gandha-vaso ’lankara-charchitah
uchchhista-bhojino dasas tava mayam jayema hi
«Simply by maintaining ourselves with the garlands, fragrances, clothing, ornaments, and foods that have been offered to You [Krishna], we, Your eternal servants, easily cross over Your illusory environment [maya].»
This is Uddhava’s prescription for the conditioned souls to get relief from the illusory environment. Our vision needs to be that anything we use in our life must be the Lord’s remnants. If we honour everything in that way and always remember the glories of the Lord’s remnants then we will be enriched with a devotional mood and proceed happily in our spiritual life. Enjoyment in our spiritual life will always come to us through the Lord’s remnants. Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur also said,
krsnera prasada-anna tri-jagat kare dhanya
tripurari nache yaha pai’
«The three worlds are made glorious by Krishna-prasad. Even Lord Siva dances with great joy when he receives Krishna-prasad.»
What should be our mood when we receive prasadam? It is the great joy of our life.
Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur collected many evidential verses from Sri Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu, Sri Hari-bhakti-vilasa, and other scriptures to establish the transcendental nature of the Lord’s remnants. He also established this transcendental practising process, that is, paramahamsa-dharma, of seeing and relating with everything in a spiritual way through devotion to the Lord. This practising process is very sweet and also a very easy standard of life for practitioners. Srila Saraswati Thakur always published two verses from Sri Bhakti-rasamrta-sindhu in his magazine the Gaudiya to give everyone proper consciousness about this transcendental practising process:
anasaktasya visayan yatharham upayunjatah
nirbandhah krsna-sambandhe yuktam vairagyam uchyate
prapanchikataya buddhya hari-sambandhi-vastunah
mumuksubhih parityago vairagyam phalgu kathyate57
In these verses Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu gives a point of very strong advice: anasaktasya visayan, you must be detached from everything mundane. Material things come naturally in life. We cannot live without some level of material activity. But we must be very conscious about our material connections and not be involved with them. We must not be attached to them. This is Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s advice, «Anasaktasya visayan: we must be detached from material things, and yatharham upayunjatah nirbandhah Krsna-sambandhe: in that detached mood we must see everything in relationship to Krishna and use everything for His service.» Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s advice means that we must live with everything, but not be attached to it. We must live within the material environment, but while there we must connect everything with Krishna.
There can be no compromise in this matter; without a detached nature we will not be qualified to properly honour the Lord’s divine remnants and act always for His satisfaction. Sometimes practitioners feel very fearful and hopeless when they confront their material desires and struggle to leave their mundane attachments. But they should not be hopeless or fearful because, as the Lord Himself explains, He helps them with the challenges they face in their devotional life.
jata-sraddho mat-kathasu nirvinnah sarva-karmasu
veda duhkhatmakan kaman parityage ’py anisvarah
tato bhajeta mam pritah sraddhalur drdha-nischayah
jusamanas cha tan kaman duhkhodarkams cha garhayan
proktena bhakti-yogena bhajato masakrn muneh
kama hrdayya nasyanti sarve mayi hrdi sthite
«If a devotee is conscious and firm in his faith, if he has no real interest in mundane activity though he may struggle to be detached from it, and if he knows that his material desires are the source of his suffering, then he will get strength from the Lord’s mercy. The Lord will appear in his heart and remove all inauspiciousness from his heart.»
A devotee may feel that he lives within a family and has so many attachments he cannot leave, such as his attachment to his father, mother, brothers, sisters, uncles, and so on. He may ask, «How can I do Hari-bhajan?» The main point mentioned in these verses, which is necessary to understand, is desire — the desire to enjoy. Kama hrdayya nasyanti, the desire to enjoy, is present everywhere. It is within both the material and spiritual planes. Why does creation itself happen at all? Because of desire. Desire is the cause of all creations. But a devotee’s life and desires are completely different from a life of ordinary mundane desires. How are they different? Duhkhodarkams cha garhayan, the devotee desires to satisfy the Lord and repents that he is entangled by mundane desires.
Whenever our internal enemies, our material desires and attachments, show their face to us we hopelessly surrender to them. We are not liberated souls. We are conditioned souls, and we are always attacked by the six enemies living within us: kama, krodha, lobha, mada, moha, and matsarya [lust, anger, greed, madness, illusion, and envy].
kama esa krodha esa rajo-guna-samudbhavah58
In Srimad Bhagavad-gita Krishna explains that these six enemies are produced by raja-guna: the mode of passion. We know that none of the three modes of material nature, which control everything within material existence, is good for us. Sattva-guna [goodness], raja-guna [passion], and tama-guna [ignorance] are all ropes that bind us within material existence and material consciousness. As sadhakas, practitioners, we must be conscious about this in our practice.
When our enemies show themselves to us, our position as conditioned souls may become hopeless, and we may surrender to them. Unfortunately we may be their victim for some time. For some time we may be a servant of kama, a servant of krodha, a servant of lobha, mada, moha, matsarya, and so on. But after that we must set ourselves back within our proper position of engagement in the Lord’s service. This is not easy. We will not get the qualification necessary to do that by attending school or college. Only through the association of pure devotees can we get that type of qualification. To be a pure devotee, as well as find a pure devotee, is not so easy. Difficulty is always around us, but we must tolerate that and try to correct ourselves. That is our situation in our practising life: first tolerating and then trying to correct.
Sometimes devotees fall from their principles. But again they must come back to them, wake up, and continue running. That is the life of a devotee, and that life is very good and hopeful for devotees. Without this everyone will become hopeless.
If we realise the nature of our conditioned position we will see that our weaknesses, that is, our material desires, are stronger than our spiritual desire. We sometimes surrender to our weaknesses. But only if we remain submissive to them forever will we be the loser. It is always necessary to take back our spiritual strength. These verses from Srimad Bhagavatam very nicely explain the procedure for this: faith, humility, tolerance, repentance, and service.
Earlier in our life it was not within my realisation but now I am realising this very happy news for us: parityage ’py anisvarah: we cannot leave our internal enemies forever. From time to time our internal enemies will disturb us. Sometimes we will be submerged in them. I can understand now that such immersion is for our purification, and that we will not remain immersed in them forever. This is our position, and all we can do is try to not allow ourselves to always be a servant of our mundane desires while we pray to the Lord for His mercy and try to engage in His service.
Yogis try to control their senses and desires directly by restraining themselves through the process of yama, niyama, asan, pranayam, pratyahara, dharana, dhyan, and samadhi. But Srimad Bhagavatam says,
yamadibhir yoga-pathaih kama-lobha-hato muhuh
mukunda-sevaya yadvat tathatmaddha na samyati
«It may be possible to temporarily control the senses and the effects of kama, lobha, and so on with the power of self-control and the practice of yoga (yama, niyama, and so on), but only the Lord’s service can permanently control the senses and the flow of our desires.»
The devotional path is different than the yoga path. In the devotional path desire, the senses, and their functions are controlled by engaging them in the Lord’s service. In devotional life the senses are automatically controlled through service. It is not necessary to try to control them ourselves directly in a pushing way. Rather, we must try to use the senses and our desires for the Lord’s service and satisfaction.
Srila Narottam Thakur has explained how we can properly practise this:
‘kama’ krsna-karmarpane ‘krodha’ bhakta-dvesi jane
‘lobha’ sadhu-sange hari-katha
‘moha’ ista-labha vine ‘mada’ krsna-guna-gane
niyukta kariba yatha tatha
‘Kama’ Krsna-karmarpane: if you have many desires in your mind, then you can offer the things you desire to Krishna before you take them. ‘Krodha’ bhakta-dvesi jane: if you feel angry, then you can use your anger to check persons who are inauspicious and envious of the devotees. ‘Lobha’ sadhu-sange Hari-katha: you can engage your greed in hearing the glories and Pastimes of the Lord from the sadhus. ‘Mada’ Krsna-guna-gane: you can engage your desire for intoxication in madly glorifying the Lord and His devotees. ‘Moha’ ista-labha vine: if you have not connected with your worshippable Master, then you can try to realise why that is and can express your hankering in a bewildered way like Raghunath Das Goswami.
Srila Narottam Thakur advises us how to engage our internal enemies in Krishna’s service. We all have desires that we are suffering from, but if we engage them in the service of Guru, Vaisnava, and Bhagavan with our full energy, then they will be controlled automatically. Everything we struggle with in our life can be good if we use it properly for Krishna’s service. This is our hope. When our enemies — lust, anger, greed, and so on — come to us, we can invite them in: «Come here and pay dandavat pranam to the Deity! You are already coming, so come, and offer yourself to the Deity.» The practising procedure of bhakti-yoga is very sweet, and finally,
bhidyate hrdaya-granthis chhidyante sarva-samsayah
ksiyante chasya karmani mayi drste ’khilatmani
«All of the material desires in our hearts will be removed, all of our doubts will be finished, and we will engage ourselves exclusively in the Lord’s service, seeing Him everywhere.»
Such Bhagavat-darsan, divine vision of the Lord, is both very easy and very rare to attain. Tad dure tad v antike (Iu: 5): «The Lord is very far from us if we are not surrendered or dedicated, but the Lord is very near to us if we are surrendered and dedicated.»
Srila Saraswati Thakur understood everything about the position of the conditioned souls. He presented these teachings of Srimad Bhagavatam and Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu in a very condensed form to make the essential nature of transcendental service very clear to us. He wrote,
Sri hari-sevaya yaha anukula
visaya baliya tyage haya bhula
‘asakti-rahita’ ‘sambandha-sahita’
visaya-samuha sakali ‘madhava’
«If any apparently material thing or desire can be connected with the Lord through devotion, or is favourable to His service, then it is a mistaken illusion to think it is mundane or useless, and renounce it. We must live without attachment to anything and connect everything to the Lord, feeling that the Lord is the actual proprietor of everything and we are His servitors.»
This is the consciousness needed to live in the transcendental service world. A genuine devotee has no existence where Krishna is not present. A devotee will always be connected with transcendental matters through the Lord’s service and will never be involved in anything material. A devotee may live in the mundane environment, but he will take each step forward in his life thinking, «Just now I may not have full realisation of the transcendental world, but I am a natural member of that world; my real property exists there. I can proceed from a very low position within the illusory environment to a very high position in the transcendental environment by living in remembrance of that plane and my service there.» Through Krishna consciousness we can change material things into spiritual matters and feel the Lord’s presence everywhere within the material world. With Krishna consciousness and the Lord’s divine remnants (prasadam) everyone can cross over the illusory environment.
Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu’s advice to be detached from the mundane is very important for us. We must always try to honour the transcendental form of everything — of the Deity, the devotees, the Lord’s prasadam, and so on — in a detached mood. We may lead any lifestyle, we may have a family life, a student life, a master’s life — any sort of life — but we must not be too attached to that. Even if we are a family man, we will have no difficulty with our family maintenance if we think that our family is a spiritual family. If we think in that way no difficulty will come to us. Even if we lose everything materially, still there is no real loss for us because we can always engage ourselves in Krishna’s service, no matter what our material condition is, through proper consciousness. We will think that our children are spiritual children and our flowers are spiritual flowers. Everything that we see we will consider to be Krishna’s mercy coming to us. Srila Guru Maharaj taught us in this way.
We will change our vision and we will serve. Then anything we do will be Krishna’s service, so long as we do not forget that it is for His satisfaction and not our selfish enjoyment. If we proceed in that way then all benefit, and no loss, will come to us. Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur showed us this mood. He prayed to the Lord,
tomara samsare kariba sevana
nahiba phalera bhagi
tava sukha yahe kariba yatana
ha’ye pade anuragi
«I will live in Your house as a servitor of Your family, and everything I do will be solely for Your satisfaction.»
This is the mood of transcendental service. We must be very careful about maintaining the purity of that mood in our practising life, otherwise we will cheat ourselves.
It is not good to have too much affection for children. When children come into a family, they must be honoured, and the parents must consider that it is the Lord’s will and their good fortune that the children have come. But parents should not maintain their family with mundane attachment; they should not be overly involved in their family life. When we do something emotionally it may sometimes bring us a good result, but mostly it brings us bad results. We have to avoid emotional activity and continue our lives with fully devotional activities.
We must avoid cheating ourselves by carefully keeping our mood pure: «I shall use whatever circumstances I find myself in for the service of Krishna.» If we can properly maintain this mood, then we can maintain our lives in any ashram — brahmachari, grhastha, vanaprastha, or sannyas. If we have a sincere mood of service and dedication, then there is no question about how we maintain our lives. There are many nice examples of this.
atma-nivedana tuya pade kari’
hainu parama sukhi
duhkha dure gela chinta na rahila
chaudike ananda dekhi59
«By surrendering myself at Your lotus feet, I have become supremely joyful. All sadness has gone away and I have no anxiety. I see joy in all directions.»
This song from Saranagati reminds me of my early life as a brahmachari when I took shelter at Srila Guru Maharaj’s lotus feet. How much was I dedicated! I forgot all of my material happiness and sadness — everything. So many things came to me, but I was dedicated to the Lord’s lotus feet and very happy. I didn’t think about my material lifestyle at all. I simply lived happily and easily according to Srila Guru Maharaj’s orders. I did not have a bed. I slept on a straw mat with a straw pillow. Sometimes red ants would bite me. I lived a very simple life and I didn’t think about it much. In the Math we would not buy any vegetables. We would cultivate our own fruits and vegetables in our garden and happily offer the Lord what we grew in our Math. We would not eat anything we did not grow except when we would sometimes buy some potatoes for Srila Guru Maharaj from the market.
We had no heavy problems then. Our only disturbances would come from goats and cows coming inside our garden. Gradually our Math has become prestigious, and more and more facilities have come to us. But my early time in the Math was very tasteful. Now I am not getting that sweet taste of poor brahmachari life. Now more disturbances have begun to come to our Math from the outside, but those are also sweet problems because sacrifice is our lifestyle. One of Srila Bhakti Vinod Thakur’s songs in Saranagati explains everything for us very simply and sweetly:
tomara sevaya duhkha haya yata
seo ta’ parama sukha
seva-sukha-duhkha parama sampada
nasaye avidya-duhkha
«The suffering I feel in my life of service to You is actually my greatest joy. Both the happiness and sadness I feel in Your service are my great fortune because they both remove the pollution of illusion from my heart.»
purva itihasa bhulinu sakala
seva-sukha pe’ye mane
ami ta’ tomara, tumi ta’ amara
ki kaja apara dhane
«I have forgotten everything in the past now that I feel the great joy of Your service in my heart. I am Yours, and You are mine. You are my Master, and I am Your servant. Nothing comes between us.»
There is also a nice story about one of our devotees, a very rich householder devotee, who lost all his wealth, crores of rupees, because of his detached and surrendered mood of devotion to Krishna. During the proceedings of a court case he was involved in he would go every day to worship the Deity of Lord Krishna. Some government men and armed police had to accompany him, and because of this he had to spend thousands of rupees every day to maintain them. He lost maybe two to five thousand rupees every day due to the expenses of the guards. Still he would go daily to worship the Deity.
One day it was raining very heavily, and after travelling with him to the temple in the rain one of the senior policemen asked him, «O Mr Sannyal, every day you come here to worship the Deity of Lord Krishna, but what does Krishna give you? You have lost everything. You have lost nearly all of the nice things in your home, like your very nice carpet worth lakhs of rupees. You have lost your house and nearly all of your wealth. You have lost everything, so why do you worship Krishna? What has Krishna given you?»
Then that man, Mr Sannyal, gave a very nice answer. I have never forgotten it. He said, «I am worshipping Krishna, but I do not ask Krishna to give me anything. Whatever Krishna decides to give me or not give me is His matter. I like Krishna. I have love for Krishna. Krishna is my heart and soul. Because of that I come here every day to serve Krishna. It is Krishna’s matter whether He will give me something or not. I do not ask Krishna for anything.» The policeman was stunned to hear Mr Sannyal’s answer.
I was also very impressed to hear this from him because this is the style of devotion in the line of Srila Rupa Goswami Prabhu. The mood and mentality of the devotee is to relate everything with the Lord and His service: «I smile because Krishna likes my smiling face. I dress myself in nice garments because Krishna likes to see them. I sleep so I can engage in Krishna’s service; I sleep because Krishna likes my sleep. I cook because Krishna likes to taste my cooking. Whatever I do, I do for Krishna, not for any other purpose. I like things because Krishna likes them, and if Krishna does not like something, it is not necessary for me to do it. I do not do anything which is not for the satisfaction of Krishna. Without Krishna, I have no existence.»
Sometimes great hope comes to us in our lives, and sometimes hopeless situations come to us, but we do not become frustrated in any way, and we do not leave Krishna consciousness. We only try to engage ourselves in Krishna’s service.
We cannot continue our lives without a roof, some shade, some pure water, some fruits and vegetables, and so on. Prabhupad Srila Saraswati Thakur has taught us how to accept all of these necessities of life with a devotional spirit by first offering them to Lord Krishna and then living on His remnants. Whenever we take anything we must first remember that it is the Lord’s mercy coming to us. Then we can maintain our lives exclusively on His remnants. This is the advice and style of Srila Rupa Goswami, Srila Saraswati Thakur, Srila Swami Maharaj, and my Guru Maharaj. We are all their followers, and through their teachings and this practice we can leave our mundane attachments behind and dedicate ourselves twenty-four hours a day to the Lord and His devotees in the transcendental service world.
56 «The body is a net of illusion, and the material senses are one’s enemies; they throw the soul into the ocean of mundanity. Among the senses, the tongue is the most voracious and wicked; it is very difficult to conquer the tongue in this world. O brothers! Krishna is very merciful: to conquer the tongue He has given us His remnants! Accept this nectarean food, sing the glories of Radha-Krishna, and with love call out, ‘Chaitanya! Nitai!’»
57 «The earnestness of a detached devotee who uses objects appropriately in their relationship with Krishna is known as yukta-vairagya (proper detachment). The rejection of objects related to the Lord by liberation-seekers who consider them mundane is known as phalgu-vairagya (false detachment).»
58 «Know lust and anger — which are produced by the mode of passion, extremely voracious, and malicious — to be the soul’s enemies in this world (the cause of the soul’s propensity to sin).»
59 «By surrendering myself at Your lotus feet, I have become supremely joyful. All sadness has gone away and I have no anxiety. I see joy in all directions.»