April 28 2009

This is just in from Daria prabhu, who has just taken up the service of being my new translator on Krishna.ru

“My son Ganesha das and I have met with you in Mayapur last year in November, you even wrote  my son’s name “Ganesha prabhu” in the book “Diary” that you wrote and published. My son is 11 years old and you wrote him “prabhu” – it was first time in his life 🙂

Answer:

“Certainly he is our prabhu. These great souls are the future hope of the Krsna consciousness movement, and the fact that they have been given the opportunity to take up Krsna consciousness right from the very beginning of their lives is an indication that they were advanced devotees in their last lives. So they may well be far more advanced than we are and are thus worthy of being addressed as prabhu.”

October 28 1976 – Vrindavana

[TD5-SB class]

Prabhupada’s attempt to provide the best possible opportunity to those pious souls who have been given the connection to Krsna through birth is displayed in his ongoing concern for the development of the gurukula. Surveying the young boys sitting attentively before him, he explained: “[They are] ringing the karatalas, chanting, dancing, offering obeisances to the Lord–temple atmosphere. Don’t think it is ordinary opportunity. It is very great opportunity. From the very beginning of life they are getting impression, bhakti yoga. Vasudeve bhagavati bhakti yoga. These are not going in vain. Even a child is playing karatala, imitation. Not imitation. He’s given the chance. He was previously Vaisnava. Somehow or other, he could not make his life perfect. Therefore he is given again chance. So naturally he has got tendency to play the karatala, to offer flower here, to offer obeisances. They take pleasure. It is due to previous life, yoga. But it was not perfectly done, so somehow or other they are getting chance from the very beginning of life.”

OK, I digress. Here’s the actual question:
Daria: I consider it an honour to try and translate your answers and questions of our people to you.

Here is the first question. It’s from Seva (male).

“Usually the sense of love and thankfulness rises within me towards people who give from their heart freely. For example if I see some devotees who sacrifices their own wishes to Krishna or to other beings, I feel sympathy for these devotees and I really wish to give something good to them. How can I love Krishna if all He is doing is always taking pleasure and nothing more?”

Answer:

I think Seva prabhu has yet to understand the real nature of love. It is apparent that he is setting conditions on the activities of those he wants to give his love to, and if those persons do not meet his personal requirements or standards, he does not feel inclined to love them. This is not love, this is Seva prabhu’s sense gratification. He wants everyone to be subordinate to his so-called love.

As far as Krsna goes, what can we say about the statement “How can I love Krishna if all He is doing is always taking pleasure and nothing more?” Does Seva prabhu seriously think this is all Krsna is doing?

Krsna’s position is perfectly described in Bhagavad Gita Bg 5.29:

bhoktaram yajna-tapasam
sarva-loka-mahesvaram
suhrdam sarva-bhutanam
jnatva mam santim rcchati

TRANSLATION
“A person in full consciousness of Me, knowing Me to be the ultimate beneficiary of all sacrifices and austerities, the Supreme Lord of all planets and demigods, and the benefactor and well-wisher of all living entities, attains peace from the pangs of material miseries.”

Krsna is described as the bhokta, the ultimate enjoyer. Why? Because He alone is the source of all the lokas, or planets and universes. He pervades the creation in his form as Supersoul, supplying all the necessities of life to every living being (not just humans). He provides the air we breathe, the water we drink, the earth we eat in the form of foodstuffs, the rainfall, the sunshine and every other aspect of our lives. The entire creation is simply a transformation of Krsna’s energies. Krsna is quite literally everything.

Everything and everyone is subordinate to Krsna’s will. He is second to none, the creator, maintainer and destroyer of all things, and He is the master of time. We are simply insignificant, infinitesimal particles of His existence. Without Krsna, we do not exist.

Even in ordinary logic we see that one who owns something, controls it. If you don’t own something, how can you control it? And one who controls something, has the right to enjoy it. If you don’t own something, and if you have no control over it, how can you enjoy it?

So Krsna’s situation as bhokta is not some ordinary thing, just as we see with ordinary living beings who pretend to own something and try to exercise their futile control in order to enjoy it. Krsna is actually the source of everything–that is the very definition of God:

Bg 10.8

aham sarvasya prabhavo
mattah sarvam pravartate
iti matva bhajante mam
budha bhava-samanvitah

TRANSLATION
“I am the source of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from Me. The wise who perfectly know this engage in My devotional service and worship Me with all their hearts.”

Therefore Krsna is the only rightful enjoyer. Everyone else who is trying to enjoy either their own bodies or the bodies of others without reference to Krsna is a cheater.

Krsna is also described above as suhrdam sarva-bhutanam, the best friend of all living beings. Despite His supreme nature, He always wants to share Himself and His energies with his tiny parts and parcels–us. He has no enmity to any living being because they are part of Himself. It is natural for Him to love us living beings, and it is our nature to love Him as the very source of our own existence. To be envious of Krsna is to be envious of our very selves. To love Krsna is to love our selves.

Krsna is not taking anything from us, because we do not own anything. It is we who are trying to take from Him and that is our illusion. We are not God. He is.

Conversely, Krsna is always offering His intimate love to all of us, and by accepting that love, we gain everything. There is no higher pleasure than that and no other success in our lives than that. When we accept love from Krsna we immediately become free from repeated birth, old age, disease and death. Further, He gives us entrance into His eternal, all-blissful pastimes in a land of unlimited, ever-increasing happiness. Can Seva prabhu think of anything better than that?

The conclusion is that we must be very careful not to think of Lord Krsna as an ordinary man and thus judge Him by our own concocted standards of what is good or bad, or moral or immoral. Krsna is way beyond our capacity to understand and He cannot be captured and made subordinate to our desires and demands. Rather, we should wholeheartedly surrender to Him, and then our real life begins.

Your humble servant,
Hari-sauri dasa