Sharanagati

(from a lecture of Swami Tirtha, 11.05.2019 morning, Sofia)

(continues from the previous Monday)

Shayma Tulasi: Somehow while chanting I don’t feel taste, and therefore I was asking Mahaprabhu to give me some sweetness. But at the same time I was reading a book of Teresa Avilska “The inner castle”, and in the same day that I prayed to Mahaprabhu, I read there that how can we ask God for sweetness if we are full of defects and shortcomings, this is offensive even. I felt very bad, even though this concerns not the sweetness of the holy name, but the other type of sweetness maybe. 

Swami Tirtha: I think it’s a very profound topic. Because, you know, the official propaganda of Gaudiya Vaishnavism is that you just chant the holy names and immediately super ecstasy is coming, and you feel the nectarian taste, etc., etc. You start and that taste is missing, it’s not coming. Then you might think that there is something wrong here in Mahaprabhu’s mission. Just like it happened in Budapest, when Dalai Lama gave a lecture. A big hall, thousands of people, and somebody in the front line said: “I have been practicing this Buddhism for three months. And there is something wrong here.” 

You see, we are the same. ‘Where is the taste? They told me that the taste is there.’ Sorry, the taste is there; but you are not there. So, we need to qualify ourselves. But this is a very important topic: how to perform our spiritual service in these moments when you feel like you are in a spiritual desert. When you feel dry. Not full of rasa. Rasa means full of liquid nectar. But when you feel dry and there is no life, no movement, no nothing in your spiritual practice; it happens. In that sense we have to be realistic. Although we know that devotional life is eight Sundays per week, sometimes the Monday morning also comes. 

So, what to do? When things are going properly and easily, it’s very easy to be a good devotee. But if we turn away at the first challenge, then we are very weak. And we can expect that the higher you go, the more difficult challenges you will face. So we have to prepare ourselves and we have to desperately pray for some divine help, divine interference. I think it’s a very good prayer: if you are alone, chanting your mantras, and somehow you face Mahaprabhu then there is this blessed moment when you feel eternity revealed to you and you are just floating in this very spiritual vibration. And then you say ‘Oh my Lord, I don’t know how it is, I don’t know what You expect from me, but please keep me in this mood. I don’t want to leave Your service ever.’ So, even in the desert you can find some oasis.

Otherwise, in that respect I don’t agree with Teresa. Although she is considered to be a very high authority on Christian mysticism, and of course, I don’t question that position, but as you mentioned, our mood is a little bit different. Usually, people who try to follow Lord Jesus feel very deeply the passions, the sufferings of Jesus. This is a way of meditation for them – how much to feel the suffering of Jesus. This is one rasa, so to say. And I think it’s very easy for us, for human beings, to understand it, because we all know something about suffering, right? Maybe physically you don’t go on the cross, but sometimes you feel like you are crucified. Yet after crucifixion, the resurrection will also come. Don’t worry.

So, first the desert and then the oasis. It’s better than first the oasis and then the desert. But generally, we can say that the general mysticism has certain steps, which are valid here and there in different processes. But the mystic revelations and mystic realizations are very similar. We can learn a lot from the mystic experience of others. Because if all of a sudden you face something in your own practices and you don’t have a reference for that, you might be surprised: “Ah, I didn’t expect this.” So, sometimes the guidance, the advice of others might help us to understand what we are going through. 

And in one sense, we also discuss suffering as a way of expression. Like Mother Sachi; her heart was broken when Mahaprabhu left. Or Yashoda, when she saw that ‘Ah, my dear small little boy Krishna is very thin today. In the morning, He looks like very exhausted. Maybe I didn’t give enough food for Him in the evening, and therefore He couldn’t sleep all night.’ So, Mother Yashoda is also full of suffering. Maybe she is wrong in reading the story why Krishna is a little dizzy in the morning and a little exhausted. You see, we also discuss illusion. We should discuss the truth, but we worship the illusion. We appreciate that Mother Yashoda has this kind of vision. What to speak of the suffering of the gopis? We also try to share and deeply understand their suffering. But somehow it gives us a super excellent state of ecstasy. 

And nobody forces us to stay here. Right? So, if you would experience only this dryness, only this suffering, only these limitations and emptiness in your spiritual practice, you wouldn’t stay here. You don’t want to torture yourself. That still you are here is a definite proof that you are supplied a big dose of nectar. Otherwise you couldn’t stay here. But this is the quality of a devotee – never satisfied. A yogi should be satisfied with everything that she’s got, so I’m sure that your yogi side is fully satisfied. But your devotional ego is yearning. 

And concerning the spiritual feedback from Krishna, we have to remember the example of the dog, because the dog wants much, but is satisfied with little. We want all. But if you receive one drop, you’re also satisfied. Why? Because one drop of spiritual nectar can inundate the whole world. It’s not a material dimension. It’s of a totally different quality. 

(to be continued)