Beyond the Path of Denial

The mental speculators endeavor to become self-realized through the process of negation, cutting away from their consciousness everything that is not the Absolute Truth. The Absolute Truth is not this, it's not that, etc. As a young spiritual seeker in 1968 I was also pursuing this path. I was cutting away, as best as I could, all material attachments. While the others of my age were choosing their careers in this field and that field, I opted to renounce all material careers. My career path was to go to India and become a mendicant, a holy beggar, for the remaining duration of my life. However, one evening as I was preparing to depart from the USA to India I had the most profound, striking realization. I was so impressed by my realization that I immediately wrote it down on a piece of paper:

"I denied and denied until I could deny no longer, and then I had to start accepting."

I realized that the perfection of denial is to deny denial itself. At this moment my career path reversed. I realized that instead of leaving the world I must now remain in the world with a mission to save the world. So instead of going to India I felt that I was being called to San Francisco to join a mission for the respiritualization of the world society. So I hitchhiked 2,000 miles from Houston to San Francisco where the first people I met were the Hare Krishna people. After some time of trying without success to make a spiritual revolution on my own I realized that Srila Prabhupada was successfully making a global spiritual revolution with his Hare Krishna movement. So with great joy in my heart in 1971 I gave my life to Srila Prabhupada to assist him in his mission of saving the world. Thus since then I have been tasting the most exciting, thrilling existence of serving my beloved spiritual master's word deliverance mission.

His Holiness Vishnujana Swami Maharaja
The Great Soul Who Inspired Me to Join this Movement

Video For the Day: At the Lotus Feet of Radha Damodar

Answers by Citing the Vedic Version

Question: Endeavors Bear Fruit Only By God's Grace?

Dear Srila Gurudeva,

Please accept my humble obeisances.
All glories to you.

I have heard devotees say that we can only do our endeavor but the result is given by God only.

What exactly does it mean? Is it simply an acknowledgement of the fact that in anything that we may attempt to do in life there will always be factors beyond our control which can significantly impact the outcome?

Your servant,
Visvanatha das

Answer: Always Beg Krishna to Protect You From Falling Down

It's a fact that all of our endeavors only bear fruit by grace of Krishna or God. This means that we are fully dependent upon Krishna for everything. But try to understand that Krishna is not a vending machine into which you put your coin and automatically out comes a candy bar. Krishna is a person, the most loving of all persons. He reciprocates with us personally according to the degree of love that we have awakened for Him within our hearts.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari