Sharanagati

(from a lecture of Swami Tirtha, 05.01.2018 evening, Sofia)

First of all, I have to express my gratitude to my masters, to all the predecessor devotees, who had maintained the flame of devotion, and to all of you, because you give me a chance to remember what I have learned from my masters.

This year will be very prosperous. But it depends on us as well. All the external conditions are favourable; now we need to add our inner commitment. And in order to accomplish this very beautiful and enlivening job, we shall take the advice of Shrila Rupa Goswami on how to perfect our life.

These days we have been discussing the different relationships to the Supreme Lord Shri Krishna. Some of the people are connected to God in a neutral way, just believing that He exists and trusting His care and protection. This is very good, but shall we stop here? Let’s go one step further. What was the essence of this neutral connection – that we can maintain our spiritual consciousness. That’s good. But if we want to take one step further, we need to come to the servitude of the Supreme Lord – to be connected in a positive, loving, serving attitude. There is some active feedback after this conviction that God is there.

And after this servitude, this willingness to fulfil the desire of the Supreme – I think it’s something very high, you act according to the divine will, it’s great – there is one step further and this is our discussion now. The friendship mood – to establish a friendly relationship with God. But this is something very intimate; to have a good friend is very good feeling. So, if you can consider the Supreme as your friend, you feel well. Please act and purify yourself in such a way that if He has to consider you as His friend, He also feels good.

“As far as the friend in Vrindavana are concerned, they become greatly distressed when they cannot see Krishna even for a moment.”[1]

This is real friendship – you cannot tolerate not being connected, you cannot tolerate that your friend is missing from your vision. I think we all have people whom we cannot tolerate around us. But we hardly have any friend without whom we cannot survive a moment. This means that friendship, this mood of fraternity, is a very intense connection.

There are some special friends of Krishna, usually emotionally surcharged ones, of the opposite gender. Because Krishna is the male in Vrindavana and some of His friends are girls with some emotional surplus. And they can also hardly tolerate not being able to see Krishna permanently. Although they are village girls, nevertheless they are very well educated in anatomy and also in the details of creation – so, theology. They know that the body, with all its pros and cons, was designed by Brahma. And they curse Brahma for a mistake. “Brahma, you made a mistake designing this human body. Because we have eyelids and our eyelids sometimes need to blink. And when we close the eyelids, for that blink of an eye we don’t see Krishna. So, we curse you, you did wrong. Your job is half-perfect.”

You see, half-perfect. That means not perfect. There is no half-perfection; either perfect, or not. So, that means ‘Your job is totally wrong. What kind of design is that – that you made the human beings to blink. For that time we don’t see Krishna.’

(to be continued)

[1] Nectar of devotion, Ch. 41