Sharanagati

In our prayers first of all we express our gratitude and respect to our immediate spiritual masters, because through this line something manifests in our life. Like father, like son. Apple does not fall far from the tree. If the master is very rasik, there is a chance that the disciple will also be a cultivator of rasa. Then we identify our masters as tasting the sweet nectar of divine love. And here different things are mentioned. One that Srila Prabhupada is glorious for bringing the devotional ideas to the West; and he distributed the nectar of the “Bhagavatam” and the knowledge of the “Gita”. But the last line of this prayer to him says that he was a master that always tasted the nectar of Sri Sri Radha and Govinda’s lotus feet. One reason to glorify him is to bring the knowledge to the West. The other reason is bringing the nectar of “Bhagavatam” to the West, but the real reason to glorify him is that he was tasting the nectar of the Divine Couple.

What is the real quality, what is the real so to say spiritual competition of high class devotees? This should be the competition – who can dive deeper in the divine connection. From the knowledge we come to the nectar. From ideas we come to the feelings. And about the feelings there is no discussion. My feeling you cannot blame, you cannot question – this is a feeling. Right? May be you have a different feeling. I don’t mind, this is your business. My feeling is like this. About tattva, about philosophy there can be discussion, because I have one argument, you have another argument, we can discuss. But ultimately if we come to the platform of divine feelings there is no question of discussion. There is no debate over the feelings. Only an exchange. If your heart is full of divine feelings you can share it with others – this is the only chance. This is a symptom of acharya: his heart is so full that he wants to distribute. And what is the life of a real devotee? This divine essence.

Just recently there was a discussion, almost like a debate. So may be this was not concerning directly, fully the divine feelings. This debate was about the gender of God, the Supreme. Because somehow I mentioned “He” and it was offensive for some and they said: “Why always He? Why not She?” Of course ladies were raising the question. Poor girls, poor gopis. You know, in different religions they are trained to have a male God. But finally here is such a religion where you can understand that God is also a woman. But our friends didn’t really understand these secrets yet. So I was trying to protect the position of our dear Lord Govinda – let Him be a “He”, let Him be a male. All right? Then they came with another idea – then let Him be an “It” without gender, let Him be an “It”. And I said “No, that is impossible!” A person without characters – no, it’s impossible. He is not a theory, He is not a tattva – God is living.

Supreme is a male and female at the same time. If we approach that theoretically it may be very difficult to explain these things, but when we see a picture of Radha andKrishnameeting, I think it is easier to understand how it is. Beautiful Lord and an even more charming Lady, Goddess. And if we want to put it short Radha Govinda, Govinda Radha, Go Ra, we can show only one person – Gouranga. People want to put everything very short, right? So even to chant or to say that Govinda Radha is too long for them. How do we make Govinda Radha shorter, what is the shorter version – Goura, Goura, Goura. So if you repeat Goura, Goura, Goura actually you chant Govinda Radhe.

Bhakti as a religious process has very elaborate and very detailed picture about the Supreme. Because first we should understand that there is a male aspect of God as the creative power, like dominating, and there is another part, another face – the beautiful and harmonious and loving female aspect, that is being dominated by God. If we say that theoretically, it is very dry, but as soon as we hear the pastimes of Radha Govinda then it becomes very sweet.

So we worship the supreme essence in these two aspects, like the creative power of God and the beautiful, loving power of the Goddess. And They are never separate – one is not complete without the other. So that kind of unity we are searching for. This is bhakti. Bhakti is the process to create a place in your heart for Them to meet, so that rendezvous may happen in undisturbed conditions. Divine beauty and divine love meet in humans’ hearts. This is the ultimate definition of religion. And you feel that this is beyond any informal limits, this is beyond any numbers, this is beyond any groups. So this is why we worship our masters – because they bring this conception. And this conception is fructifying in Vrindavana.

We have created our new universe and we started to populate our universe. Now more living entities are there because we have found our masters. And we have found also our brothers and sisters. Together with them we can join the service, the ecstatic divine service. This is concentrated in the ashram life and therefore this is not simply good, this is ecstatic. Because here we don’t have any other business than to serve our Lords.