Loving Exchanges with Devotees

There is nothing like the loving exchanges shared between devotees. Such loving exchanges are not of this material world. The more we give our love to the devotees and accept the love that they give us, the more we revive our dormant love for the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Therefore the Lord's devotees are always most eager to get the association of other devotees. Krishna says that anyone who is His devotee is not His devotee, that only those who are the devotees of His devotees are His actual devotees. So if we want to revive our dormant Krishna consciousness, we should always be most eager to associate with the Lord's devotees in multi-varieties of loving exchanges.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Ecstatic Farewell from Kaunas, Lithuania
19 April 2010Sankarshan Das Ecstatic Farewell from Kaunas, Lithuania

Ecstatic Farewell from Kaunas, Lithuania

Ecstatic Farewell from Kaunas, Lithuania

Devotees Give Last Farewell Running After the Van
As It Is Leaving KaunasDevotees Give Last Farewell Running After the Van

Answers According to the Vedic Version:

Question: Gradual Krishna Consciousness

Dear Gurudeva,
Please accept my humble obeisances.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

How can I be sure that I'm not making the process of advancement in Krishna consciousness more gradual than it should be? And also how to make sure that I'm not making it less gradual than it must be? Is keeping this balance important?

Your servant,

Ikshvaku das

Answer: Make Krishna Consciousness Immediate

If we have not fully surrendered to Krishna yet, we can be sure that we are making the process of our advancing in Krishna consciousness more gradual than it has to be. So there is no question of making it less gradual than it has to be. There is no reason why we should not fully surrender right now and become pure devotees Krishna immediately. It is only due to our foolish material attachments that we drag out what can be done in one minute into an entire lifetime or even many lifetimes.

It is something like pulling off a band-aid. A band-aid can be pulled off immediately in one sweeping motion or it can be painfully pulled off one hair at a time. Because our mind thinks it would be too painful to pull it off immediately in one sweeping motion, we gradually and excruciatingly pull if off one hair at a time. But this is foolishness because there is practically no pain in pulling it off with one sweeping motion. It is simply our mind that tricks us into thinking that we have to pull it off gradually.

This small principle also applies to Krishna consciousness. We could easily immediately fully surrender to Krishna, but because of the tricks of the mind we think that this is impossible and we drag it out into a long, long process foolishly depriving ourselves of the unlimited oceans of spiritual bliss that we could be relishing at every moment.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Little Sparrow Who Conquered the Ocean

Image
In his purport to Bhagavad-gita, Chapter 6, Text 24 Srila Prabhupada wonderfully teaches us the power of determinations by telling us the story of the little sparrow who conquered the ocean: "As for determination, one should follow the example of the sparrow who lost her eggs in the waves of the ocean. A sparrow laid her eggs on the shore of the ocean, but the big ocean carried away the eggs on its waves. The sparrow became very upset and asked the ocean to return her eggs. The ocean did not even consider her appeal. So the sparrow decided to dry up the ocean. She began to pick out the water in her small beak, and everyone laughed at her for her impossible determination. The news of her activity spread, and at last Garuda, the gigantic bird carrier of Lord Visnu, heard it. He became compassionate toward his small sister bird, and so he came to see the sparrow. Garuda was very pleased by the determination of the small sparrow, and he promised to help. Thus Garuda at once asked t
Read more

Heart Melting Reunion with Amarendra and Gayatri

Image
On Friday 26 June 2015 I was blessed with the greatest good fortune of meeting with two of the dearest devotees of my entire life, His Grace Amarendra Prabhu and his good wife, Srimati Gayatri devi dasi. I am eternally indebted to these great souls for how much they helped me in my spiritual life when I was a young devotee. When I was young brahmacari monk in 1973 I joined with the two of them in Gainesville, Florida. We were a three person preaching center, and they were just like a mother and father to me. I had so many wonderful Krishna conscious experiences in their association that I can hardly begin to describe them here. But at least may it suffice for me to say for now that Gayatri taught me what it means to be a soft-hearted devotee of the Lord and she gave me my first cooking lesson, teaching me how to make cauliflower pakoras, and Amarendra taught me the art of how to preach strongly, intelligently, and coolly to defeat opposing arguments. Recently Gayatri almost died. But
Read more

Who is this Krishna?

Image
Krishna is not a myth, nor is He an ordinary historical personality. He is the Supreme All-Attractive Personality of Godhead. He is the oldest of all while simultaneously maintaining the form of a 16 year old youth. He is all-attractive because he exceeds everyone in all of existence by possessing unlimitedly all the qualities that are attractive namely power, beautify, renunciation, knowledge, wealth, and fame. There is no one who equals or excels Him in the possession of these attractive qualities. This is why is accepted by all enlightened spiritualists as being God, the original source of all existence. The perfection of our existence is to re-establish our long forgotten loving relationships with Him. There Is No One More Amazing Than Krishna Video for the Day Don't Be a Hypocrite Answers According to Vedic Wisdom Question: Was Krishna a Real Person? Was Krishna a real person who lived on Earth? Ray Galindo Answer: He Was and He Still Is My Dear Ray, Pleas
Read more