Sharanagati

“Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says (to Sanatan Goswami): “By the order of my mother, I’m sitting here in Jagannath Puri; therefore I cannot go to Mathura Vrindavan to teach people how to live there according to religious principles. I have to do all this work through your body, but you want to give it up. How can I tolerate this?! “

This is an example when an authority so to say “cannot” do something by himself, he invites some helpers to join the campaign. In this case God says that “What I cannot do, I will do through you.” And Sanatan Goswami was ready to become an instrument in the hands of the Lord. Whatever He cannot perform personally – by the helpers, by the servants, by the instruments He can do it.

From this we can understand that even God needs sometimes helpers. Of course, try to understand correct – it’s not true – but for the sake of lila, for the sake of engaging others, for achieving certain goal in THIS manner… He could do it in another manner, but for His sake he wanted like THIS. He could do it in many other ways, but He was choosing this solution. Why? In order to make His devotees more glorious. Krishna, or Chaitanya Mahaprabhu are ready to share even the glory of fulfilling some great achievement.

You feel the desire to SHARE? To give the glory to OTHERS, not collecting for Himself? I think in this respect again gopi-bhaav is manifested. Some people think that gopi-bhaav is something very far away, very high, very secret. Which is true in the same time. But still it is also very practical. Because gopi-bhaav  – the feelings of the gopies, that they want to help OTHERS to meet Krishna, not themselves – this is manifested here also. Even God doesn’t want to take the glory for Himself, but He is ready to give it to others: “Do the job! In this way you will be more glorious.”

In the first step we might think that the gopies are very selfless, because they don’t want for themselves, but they help others. But… these gopies are not some stupid village girls. They are very clever. And they are very selfish. Because if they meet Krishna personally – that’s good; but if they help others to meet Krishna – it is said they feel millions times more happiness. So this is their selfishness. They want to be MORE happy. Not simply meeting Krishna, but help others to meet Him. Just like Mahaprabhu – he doesn’t want to fulfill the task Himself. He is ready to help others to join the campaign.

And the same is reflected in the company of the devotees. Whatever the guru cannot accomplish himself, by the disciples he can do it. At least those, who are surrendered. And this is the distribution of the GLORY of the devotional service.

If we offer ourselves, offer our existence in the service, then this is not only satvic, but this is devotional, it’s divine. Actually this is the way to purify the material existence – by offering everything that we have in the service. It is said that we can serve Krishna by our wealth, by our words and mind, and finally – with your life, life energy, when we dedicate our full life in service.