Sharanagati

(from a lecture of Swami Tirtha, 06.01.2018 morning, Sofia)

(continues from the previous Friday)

There is a big question: Whose love is greater – the love of the father or the love of the son? What is your opinion?

Hari Lila: Of the father.

Swami Tirtha: Because he is older?

Yashoda: Because before he was a son and he knows.

Swami Tirtha: That’s a good point. Very nice!

Hari Lila: Once I asked Sadhu Maharaj “Isn’t it so that children are so innocent, so pure and for them it’s natural to love?” and he said: “No, children are born egoists and they start to develop a selfless attitude.” For this reason I said ‘the father’.

Swami Tirtha: Other opinions?

Ganga Mata: We cannot measure love between son and father. We cannot say who loves more than the other one.

Swami Tirtha: That’s also a truth. Of course, we don’t want to measure it by kilograms or meters. But I think it’s nice to think about it.

Paramananda: I think that father loves the son more, because he is serving him. While the son is also serving, but less.

Baladev: I think that father’s love is stronger, but my question is who has more expectations?

Ganga Mata: I could say, if we say ‘more’ – comparing to what? And after that we can think about who is more than the other.

Swami Tirtha: I am very happy – you are really passionate, you have opinions about relationships! I like that so much. Because whenever I put this question in Hungary, everybody feezes and they think deeply and cannot speak up. Maybe they have so many traumas with their fathers and sons that they are unable to speak about it. At least you have some blood in your veins and you come up with some ideas, and you fight for them. I like it! I am really grateful for your answers, because this will help me understand this problem better. I’ve been examining this topic for at least 20 years. And all that you mentioned is true. Once in Nanda Falva, Gauranga, a small 5-6-year-old boy, said: “Your service is to do that and my service is to play here.” They have a conception! Service mood is there, but in a different form.

Vedavid: Maybe the father has a wider range of reality – he works and he has many different things to do, but the child who only has the parents – this reality is smaller and only this relationship exists.

Swami Tirtha: So, once a young lady, about 20 years old – that means being neither a father, nor a son – gave an answer. Without a moment of thinking she said: “The son, because he has no other instrument, just to love. He has no other conception.” And another devotee friend of mine, who raised many kids in his life, after 20 years we were looking at one picture of his son, small at that time – he was a very cute boy – and this elderly man said: “Oh, what a happiness I could derive from raising this son!!”

This is what relationship is, you know. When you have something to say about it, this is relationship. This means you know something about it. You perceive. It’s not a theory that you have absolutely no conception about, but something that you perceive. We can support this with the explanation of Shrila Shridhara Maharaja, when he says: “If we compare the son and the father, they are incomparable: the son is very small, the father is very great. Nevertheless, when the son takes the finger of the father and pulls him in one direction, the father will go.” He says: “One special quality makes it possible, and it’s called love.” And he starts to explain: “When the smaller, when the subordinate controls the higher – that is called love”. Then he starts to explain how the real disciples control their superior master. That is called affection.

Usually we here say, as you mentioned: taking responsibility, elder, more senior, like this, like that. But the reality, the depth, the ultimate depth of that connection is when you are ready to give up your superior position. And the grandfather becomes the horse of the grandson.

(to be continued)