Sharanagati

(from a lecture of Swami Tirtha, 05.01.2017 evening, Sofia)

(continues from the previous Monday)

“Moreover Krishna came to fulfill His promises He has made in the form of Ramachandra.”[1] Ramachandra is a very famous personality in India. He is like the ideal king. His realm represents the ideal kingdom. They say that many people are still waiting for that ideal kingdom to return in India. Raja Ram – they are waiting for such an ideal person to lead the society. This is a kind of small golden age if such a leader comes. They say a good leader, a good king can elevate even a fallen country, but a fallen king can corrupt even a very powerful kingdom.

All right, we are not kings. We are not even prime ministers. We have a little, smaller field of influence. But the same principle applies. If you are a good leader of your own circle, even a difficult situation you can upgrade. But if you are a corrupt leader, even very good circumstances you can bring down. Most of you are heads of families or responsible persons in your own life, so please – be responsible kings of the situation. Because then you can elevate others. Don’t be a corrupt person. We have to raise our level of consciousness – to gain more spiritual, divine insights, more understanding towards others, to find better solutions. To raise the level of our consciousness means that we become more spiritual.

So, Rama is a very sweet person! And He is really a good king. You know, Krishna is also a good king, but His wealth and His so to say enjoying mood attract people with similar mentalities. What does it mean? I see you are a little embarrassed. I will tell you why. You know, Vrindavana is not very far from Delhi. Delhi is 10-20 million people, a busy city, with a lot of wealthy people. And now this is like a fashion to go to Vrindavana: ‘All right, today in the afternoon we had finished our job – let’s go to Vrindavana for the evening arati! Let’s jump into our luxury car and let’s visit Banke Bihari!” So it’s like a fashion for the golden youth of Delhi – to visit the holy places. Therefore in some places the pujaris and the temple management try to serve this appetite of this new generation. So they serve Krishna according to the fashion of the age. You know before times they put some very fancy clothes on Krishna and some decoration and ornaments. Today sometimes they offer the first-class mobile phones as a decoration of the altars. So, He’s got His flute and He’s got His phone. And once there was a big scandal, because the pujari put very new and special clothes on Krishna – jeans. All the traditional guys were horrified. While I think this golden youth were very happy: “He is our guy!”

So this is what I mean – Krishna is like enjoying the situation: “Ah, My devotees love Me like this – they bring Me the best stuff. What they like they offer to Me.” Because He is very close to our age – only five thousand years back. Ramachandra is more serene. He is more orthodox. No jeans. And not so many wealthy young men around in Ayodhya – the birthplace of Ramachandra

Once I had the opportunity to visit Ayodhya – this is a very-very sweet place. On the spot of janmasthan there is a temple and to enter that temple it’s not that simply you have to register at the entrance and wait for the queue – we even had to show our visas. So that was quite a challenge to enter that place. But anyway, what was the general mood in Ayodhya? Very simple. You could see poor people coming there, simple people – like citizens of Rama’s kingdom. All the temples there are for Rama. There’s one Vishnu temple in Ayodhya – He is with four arms, black. So we inquired from the people: “Where can we find this Vishnu temple?” They said: “Vishnu temple?!? Vishnu? Vishnu…?” And then they said: “Ah – the black Rama!? Yes, we know where it is.” So sweet! For them everything is Rama. Therefore I said that Ramachandra is a very-very sweet personality, a very good king, taking care of all the citizens.

(to be continued)

[1] Readings from a book of Bhaktivedanta Narayan Maharaj