Appreciating Srila Prabhupada’s presentation of devotion and of Ratha Yatra as a global festival of devotion

[Sunday feast class at ISKCON, Detroit, USA]

Hare Krishna. I’m grateful to be here amongst all of you today and I’m grateful to your kind words Brohi.
I see them as the blessings of a senior Vaishnava. I can try to do some service. And today I’ll speak on the topic of how bhakti is both transcendental and at the same time it is very accessible.
And Houshila Prabhupada, by analysing the example of the Rath Yatra festival, has made that transcendental accessible to us. Bhakti is the conclusion of the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna speaks many different subjects, but he concludes by telling Arjuna that Just surrender to me.
And this surrender is expressed in many different ways. Normally, when people talk about surrender, most of us, we may have seen it in war movies. You know, if one enemy is defeated, one army is defeated, other holds a gun against their hand.
Surrender. Yes. Right flag of surrender.
Hands up. Surrender. So that is the normal conception of surrender that we may have when somebody is defeated and is helpless and then they raise their hands in helplessness, in acknowledgement of defeat.
But curiously, when Krishna tells Arjuna to surrender, He says this in 18.66 in the Bhagavad Gita. And 18.73 when Arjuna responds, he says, I will do your will. That means I will surrender.
And yet, how does Arjuna surrender? His surrender isn’t that he raises his hands, Krishna, everything depends on you, I surrender. Not exactly. The Bhagavad Gita ends with the description that Arjuna says, What is Arjuna doing? Yatra Yogeshwara Krishna, Yatra Partha Dhanurdhara.
Arjuna is Dhanurdhara. He has picked up his bow and he’s ready to fight. In fact, at the start of the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna had put aside his bow.
In 1.46, the last verse of the first chapter, it is described, He was filled with great grief and because of that, he put aside. He had taken out his bow and arrow. He was ready to fight, but he put both aside.
I cannot fight. I cannot fight. So by hearing the Bhagavad Gita, that Arjuna who had put aside his bow, picked up his bow and became ready to fight.
So Arjuna’s surrender in his case was what? He picked up his bow and he became ready to fight. So surrender doesn’t just, Am I audible better now? If any time the audio becomes a little low, please raise your hand. Let me know.
The point of speaking is to make sure that I’m audible. Is it better now? So how much of what I spoke was audible to me? Should I repeat it? Should I repeat what I spoke or was it audible? Okay, thank you. So speaking about how? Surrender for Arjuna is manifest as he picks up his bow and he’s ready to fight.
So surrender or bhakti in general is not a stereotype. It is not just surrender, we just do nothing, depend everything on God. Yes, surrender has two components to it.
One is dependence on God. There is dependence on Krishna, but there is also diligence in service to Krishna. And in different situations in our life, sometimes the amount of things that are in our control are very less.
In every situation in life, there is something which is in our control and something which is not in our control. So dependence on Krishna is for the things which are not in our control. Whatever I don’t know, it’s not in my control.
Yes, Krishna will take care of it. I will not worry about it. But whatever is in my control, I have to do it to the best of my capacity.
And that diligence is also an expression of surrender. About 20-25 years ago, when I started giving classes for the first time, so some devotees gave me some guidelines. And the last of the guideline was depend on Krishna.
But in bracket, but only after you have prepared. If I don’t prepare for a class and I say I am depending on Krishna, and I come in front of the audience, I have nothing to speak. That is not dependence, that is not surrender, that is irresponsibility.
So surrender has both these aspects. That there is dependence on Krishna for the things that are not in our control, but there is also diligence in service to Krishna for the things that are in our control. And the arena of control that we have can vary in different situations.
So for Arjuna, he had to fight a war and primarily had to be diligent. I wouldn’t fight resourcefully. Draupadi, earlier in the Mahabharata, when she was attempted to be dishonoured, at that time she tried her best, nothing was in her power.
So she raised her hand and surrendered to Krishna. So for her, there was nothing in her control. She tried everything and nothing was working.
So then what did she do? She just surrendered to Krishna. Even then there was an aspect of diligence. Her diligence was that she offered her consciousness to Krishna.
That she could have been thinking, why are my husband not protecting me? Why are all these courtiers not speaking anything? How can my cousins be so brutal to me? She could have been resenting and angry with all of them, but she was not. So even when we have nothing in our control, still we have our thoughts which we can control. Still we have our consciousness which we can control.
And that time Draupadi offered her consciousness in surrender to Krishna. Krishna, whatever you want, please protect me Krishna. I am surrendered to you.
And Krishna miraculously intervened and protected her. So how Krishna miraculously intervened is important. But actually even more important is Draupadi’s consciousness.
So there is the aspect of dependence on Krishna which may increase much more when what is in our control is very little. And there is diligence in the service to Krishna. That component increases much more when things are in our control.
Say for example, if I decide to speak on a topic. So then my diligence is that I prepare systematically and I give a well prepared class. But after the class when question answers come, I don’t know what question who is going to ask.
So there it’s more of dependence. Whatever question anybody asks, I have to depend on Krishna that he gives the intelligence and I answer the questions. So basically in our life, surrender is not stereotypical.
So it is very dynamic. And depending on what is in our control, what is not in our control, there can be either a greater component of dependence or a greater component of diligence. So my favourite example for explaining this is like a tennis match.
In a tennis match, sometimes the player is serving. And sometimes the player is receiving. Now when the player is serving, the player has a lot of freedom.
I can serve to the forehand, I can serve to the backhand, I can serve right to the body, I can serve to a big height, I can serve to a low height. So the player who is returning, that player has very little freedom. Wherever the ball is coming, just have to get the racket, get the racket in the way and get the ball back into the play.
So in our life, sometimes we are serving and sometimes we are returning. Now understanding this, when I am serving and when I am returning, enables us to optimise our efforts. If I am returning and I expect the freedom of serving, I want to hit my racket, swing my racket wherever I want.
When the ball comes on the forehand, I hit on the backhand. I just need air and I lose the point. So in our life, there is a dynamic reciprocation.
We have to use our intelligence and understand, okay, this is a situation in which what is in my control is very little. So then I am basically returning. So let me focus on whatever little is in my control and do the best with that.
Just keep going in life. Just keep getting the ball back into the play. And at other times, it is for us to take initiative.
If a player who is serving, if that player becomes passive, then the player will lose the advantage that is there while serving. So there are times in our life when we have to take initiative, we have to be creative, we have to be resourceful. And that is our devotion.
So Srila Prabhupada is an example of both of these. Diligence and dependence. When he was at a very advanced age of 69, he came to America for the first time.
And he came all alone with no institutional support, practically no money, no contacts. And yet he had been so diligent in trying to explore every possible avenue to make sure that he had the opportunity to come. He got the sponsorship from someone, the invitation from someone.
And then he got the free passage on a cargo ship from someone. And finally he came to America. And while he was in America, just seeing the American coastline for the first time, he wrote a beautiful song.
And that song actually conveys the heart of surrender. The whole song is very moving, but we won’t have time to go into the whole song. I’ll just focus on the concluding part.
So Prabhupada says, नाचाओ नाचाओ प्रभु नाचाओ से माते काश्ठेर पुत्र लिजाता नाचाओ से माते हानी आच्छ जदी प्रभु आमारे नाचाते नाचाओ नाचाओ प्रभु नाचाओ से माते He says, Krishna, if you brought me here to make me dance, make me dance, make me dance. Just as a puppet master makes a puppeteer dance, make me dance. So this metaphor, this imagery of dancing, this is very apt to describe how surrender is a combination of both independence and diligence.
Dancing requires skill. It requires ability. It requires thoughtful movement and coordination of the various movements of the various parts of the body.
And at the same time, when he said that, make me dance like a puppeteer, it doesn’t mean that the devotee doesn’t have one’s own will. The devotee uses one’s will to serve the Lord. So my dear Lord, whatever is your will, I want to do that for you.
So I talked about two examples. Arjuna’s surrender is raising his bow, ready to fight. Draupadi’s surrender was raising her hands in helplessness.
And Prabhupada’s surrender is Krishna, make me dance. So in which Prabhupada was asked, what is the best prayer that you can offer to Krishna? So Prabhupada said that, pray to Krishna, please give me the strength to serve you. Whatever happens in our life, we are always servants of Krishna.
We have various relationships in our life. And we often are defined by our relationships. I’m writing a book on dealing with fear.
So I was studying about what are the common fears of people. So there are two fears which are typically modern. One is the fear of terrorists.
And the second is the fear of rejection. Because nowadays the culture of arranged marriage has gone down and people date and court and try to form their own relationships. So there is a great fear that somebody may reject.
So when somebody rejects us in a relationship, we don’t see that as a breakage of the relationship. We see that as a rejection of our own selves. We fear that we ourselves may be not just unloved, but that we may be unloveable.
And that causes great insecurity within us. So especially among youth, fear of rejection is one of the greatest fears. And the point I was making is that we all define ourselves in terms of our relationships.
So I define myself as the son of someone or the daughter of someone. I may define myself as the husband of someone or the wife of someone. I may define myself as the mother of someone or the father of someone.
And these relationships, they define for us our self-identity and our self-worth. So if my child becomes unworthy, my child doesn’t do well in exams, if my child falls into bad habits, it’s not just my child who has gone wrong. I feel as if I, as a parent, am a failure.
And that if in my marital relationship there is a problem, if in courting I have a problem, then I feel as if I am being rejected. And that is a great fear. So as long as we define ourselves in terms of our relationships in this world, we will always be subject to insecurity.
Because the nature of the relationships is that something or the other will sooner or later go wrong. Same two people, say, two people get attracted to each other and they say, I saw somebody, I felt like an electric current went through my body, I love you. And they say, if they are ready to fight against the whole world, we want to be together, we love each other, I can’t live without you.
And sometimes those same people, after a few years, they say, I can’t live with you. What has happened over there, unfortunately? What has happened is that actually, when there is romantic love, there is often an unrealistic expectation from each other. And when that expectation is thwarted, then we become frustrated.
So actually our only enduring relationship is with Krishna. It’s the vertical relationship. That is the relationship in which we will never experience rejection.
That is the relationship, if we define ourselves fundamentally in terms of that, that whatever happens, I am a part of Krishna, I am a child of Krishna, I am a servant of Krishna. If I have this understanding, then there will always be security in my life. Bhaktivinod Thakur, one of his songs says, that if we can just get the faith that I am a servant of Krishna, then, there will be no distress.
That doesn’t mean that distresses will disappear. Actually, how much a problem distresses us depends on our pre-existing consciousness. If I am already irritated with someone, I am already upset by something, and then some person speaks some small rude word to me, it’s like a nuclear bomb explosion.
What happened? Why are you so angry? So how much that particular problem disturbs us depends not just on the magnitude of that problem, it depends on our background consciousness. So, if we are fixed in our practise of bhakti, if we are experiencing shelter and strength in our relationship with Krishna, then when the problems come, when we face problems in our relationships or problems in other aspects of our life, we don’t get so disturbed. Because yes, I have this security.
Krishna loves me and I am always a servant of Krishna. With that security, we see all our relationships as not unimportant, but as services. I am a husband of someone, I am the wife of someone, I am a child of someone, I am the parent of someone.
All these are services. And we try to do that service to the best of our capacity. But if somehow that service doesn’t work out well, we don’t feel insecure or rejected because we are still connected with Krishna.
So, when that core security and self-worth is not there, then even a small problem can irritate us a lot. But when that core shelter and security is there, then small problems can be tolerated. Even big problems can actually be seen as not that big.
They are manageable. So, for us, when we are practising bhakti, it is not just a matter of coming to the temple or participating in some kirtans or even hearing some classes. All these are essential, but all these also have a purpose.
And that purpose is to change our self-definition. But instead of defining myself in terms of my relationships in this world, I come to define myself as a servant of Krishna. And when that becomes my self-definition, When the mind becomes fixed on Krishna.
See, the mind becoming fixed on Krishna is not some abstract conception. What does it mean, always think of Krishna, when the Bhagavad Gita says? This is saying that we should always, whatever we are doing, we should always be having a picture of whatever we are in our mind, we should be looking at that picture. We have to do many practical things in life.
This is always remember Krishna. That means Krishna becomes integral to our defining identity of ourselves. Vishwanath Chakravarth Thakur, one of our prominent Acharyas gives the example that if a person is working away from their home, they are working in some other city away from their home.
Now, they may not be meeting their family members regularly, but they may be doing their business, they may be talking with 100 people, and they may be very busy in their dealings. I have to make profit over here, I have to settle this deal like this. But through it all, they are aware.
My family is at home, my spouse is there, my child is there, and I am doing all this for them. So that background consciousness is there, no matter whatever is there in the foreground. In the foreground, I may do various activities, but in the background that I am a part of family, I have responsibilities, I have loved ones, and I am doing all this for them.
So similarly for a devotee, when we start practising Bhakti seriously, then Krishna becomes integral to our constant background awareness that I am a servant of Krishna. As a service to Krishna, I may be giving class, I may be hearing a class on spiritual subjects, I may be doing my business, I may be doing my family responsibilities, whatever it is, but I am a servant of Krishna. And when this change happens in our self-conception, then we experience the security and the strength that comes from Bhakti.
Otherwise Bhakti remains simply a cultural sentiment. You know, our parents went to temples, our grandparents went to temples, so we also should go to some temples. And so that’s also good.
Any way we come to Krishna, that is good. But we underutilise the potential of our connection with Krishna if that connection doesn’t change our self-conception. So Srila Prabhupada, when he was about to come to America, he had gone to one very prominent businessman in Mumbai, and he told her, you have a shipping company, please give me passage in this company so that I can come to America.
And her secretary scared her. You know, Swamiji is so old. So she repeated what her secretary said, Swamiji, you are so old and America is so cold.
My secretary was saying that if I go there, if you go there, you may die. You know, if you want to speak Bhagavatam, you come to my house. I’ll hear Bhagavatam from you every evening.
Now Prabhupada did not want to speak Bhagavatam as a ritual. Prabhupada wanted to speak Bhagavatam as a means for transforming people’s lives, for changing people’s self-conceptions. So he came to America and that’s what he did.
Not just for one or two people, but thousands upon thousands of people all over the world. They are practising Krishna Bhakti today, not because it is a part of their culture. I said that Bhakti can be a cultural sentiment, Bhakti can be a spiritual concept, spiritual understanding, Bhakti can be a philosophical understanding, and there can be a spiritual experience of Bhakti.
So for many of Prabhupada’s early followers who were not Indians, they practised Bhakti not because it was a cultural sentiment for them. In fact, many of the practises of Bhakti were culturally alien to them. They just couldn’t make sense of it.
The deities, they couldn’t make any sense. They thought these are stone images, idols. But for them, Prabhupada presented the philosophical understanding.
And through the chanting of the holy names, Prabhupada gave spiritual experiences. Now these three are not unrelated. The cultural conception of Bhakti is meant to prompt people towards the philosophical comprehension of Bhakti.
And then it is meant to lead to the spiritual experience of Bhakti. The difference between the cultural conception of Bhakti and the spiritual experience of Bhakti is that in the cultural conception of Bhakti, Krishna is a goal to something else. That means, you know, I have some problems in my life.
And I can’t solve these problems. So God, you are more powerful than me. So please, you know, make this person change his mind.
Make this person agree to this deal. Or whatever it is. So in the cultural conception of Bhakti, we come to God and we want to form a relationship with him.
The terms of that relationship are, my, oh God, let’s form a partnership. It’s my intelligence and your power. So my intelligence and your power.
I know how to solve the problem and you use your power to solve the problem. So we are actually half trusting Krishna. We are trusting Krishna’s omniscience.
We are trusting Krishna’s omnipotence. But not trusting Krishna’s omniscience. We are trusting his power but not his intelligence.
Fully trusting Krishna means, that Krishna, you know what is best for you. So therefore, whatever is coming in my life, please give me the strength to serve you. Sometimes you may feel, there are so many things going wrong in my life and I’m praying to God, why is he not helping me? It’s not that God is not helping us.
It’s just that we have a particularly narrow conception of what God’s help may be. For us, we look at our present and plan the future. For Krishna, he looks at the future and plans the present.
We look at the present. So a small child is there. Oh, you know, I’ve got pain in my stomach.
And the child is taken to a doctor. The child says, the doctor will give me some medicine by which the pain will go away. The doctor takes out an injection.
Ah, no, I don’t want this. And the doctor says, you know, I came to you to become free from pain. You have increased my pain.
The child is only seeing the present and thinking about the future. My pain will go away. But the doctor is seeing the future.
No, this infection that is there, if it becomes worse, then far greater problems. Therefore, let me, let me give this injection. So Krishna looks at the future and then plans the present.
And that’s why when we have this philosophical understanding of bhakti, that our defining identity is that I am a servant of Krishna. And Krishna is always my relative. Then, then the cultural conception of bhakti often creates insecurity.
It makes our bhakti very unstable. If I come to a temple and if things work out nicely, yes, God is so good. I’ll keep coming to temple.
Or sometimes if my desire is fulfilled, I say, thank you, God, bye-bye. It becomes like that. Or if God doesn’t help us, at least we think he’s not helping us, then what is the use of worshipping him? But when we understand the philosophical conception of bhakti, the philosophical comprehension of what bhakti is, then we seek spiritual experience in bhakti.
Spiritual experience means that whatever is happening in my life, it doesn’t matter as long as I’m connected with Krishna. Because that connection with Krishna gives me higher happiness. That gives me, that helps me to comprehend a higher reality of life.
And even when there is turbulence at the material level in my life, there is transcendence. There is shelter at the spiritual level. So the Rath Yatra is a festival which is actually at this higher level of reality.
That it is completely a festival where Krishna’s topmost devotees, the gopis, when Krishna left Vrindavan and went away, and they were pining in separation from him. And eventually they met him in Kurukshetra. And when they met in Kurukshetra, they wanted Krishna to come back to Vrindavan.
And they all envisioned in their hearts that we’ll put Krishna on a chariot and we’ll pull him. We’ll pull him with the labour of our hands and the love of our hearts. And with that double pull, the labour of their hands and the love of their hearts, they pull Krishna from Kurukshetra to Vrindavan.
So that vision, that aspiration of the gopis is at the level of complete spiritual experience. The gopis are not thinking, we are just frail women. How can we pull a chariot? Even men do not do that.
It’s horses which do that. It’s undrafted animals which do that. How can we do that? The gopis are thinking, we want to serve Krishna.
We want Krishna to be happy by coming back to Vrindavan. Therefore, we will pull him with our hands. The gopis’ love for Krishna is sometimes misunderstood as something similar to a mundane male-female love.
It is pure, it is spiritual, it is transcendental. It is defined through and through by selflessness. The mood of selflessness.
The gopis want Krishna to be back in Vrindavan, not because they will be happy if Krishna is back in Vrindavan. Yes, that is the reason. But a bigger reason is, they know Krishna will be happy in Vrindavan.
Krishna will be happiest in Vrindavan. And that’s why they are ready to labour to get Krishna back. And the Rathyatra festival has been going on for millennia now, which commemorates devotees pulling the cart.
This happens in Jagannath, Vatpuri. And it happens in many other places where there are Jagannath temples. And Prabhupada, in his childhood, just a small boy of 5-6 years old, he said, I want to make my own Jagannath Rathyatra.
And Prabhupada’s father had taught him Hrudanga, even when he was so small that actually his hands could not even reach to the two sides of Hrudanga. His two fingers would reach the two sides of Hrudanga and with that he was beating. From that time he learned Hrudanga.
His father wanted, my son should become a great devotee. And thus, what he performed in his childhood, he coordinated the whole thing. He got the neighbourhood children to come and participate.
He got the neighbourhood ladies to cook for the Lord. And it was a beautiful festival. And that festival that Shri Prabhupada performed in his childhood was prophetic of what he would do later in his life.
When Shri Prabhupada was in San Francisco, once he was just, we have a second level here, Prabhupada was walking in a balcony like this. And he saw some convertible truck. Its backside had been opened up.
And he just looked down and he saw that truck and he thought, we can put Jagannath, Baldev, Subhadra over here. And we can make Rath Yatra. Now how many people have seen, how many people have seen trucks and who thought of making it into a chariot for Jagannath? That is a devotee’s vision.
A devotee’s vision is, a pure devotee’s vision is that everything can be used in Krishna’s service. And from that vision that Prabhupada had, Rath Yatra festival started. And now, all over the world, Rath Yatra has been celebrated.
You know, from Tublin to Dubai to Durban, from Melbourne to Europe to America, all over the world, hundreds of cities, Rath Yatra festival is celebrated. And it is a cultural festival. But it is not just a cultural festival.
It’s a cultural festival that offers people spiritual experiences. It gets people to have darshan of Jagannath. It gives people the opportunity to take the prasad of Jagannath.
It gives people the opportunity to enquire what is all this about. So, in a very appealing and non-threatening way, people get exposure to the relishable aspects of Krishna Bhakta. And thus, their spiritual life starts and their spiritual life moves onwards.
So, the Rath Yatra festival which Prabhupada has pioneered all over the world and which devotees do diligently in various parts of the world, that is a way in which we solidify our identity as servants of Krishna. Some people ask, devotion is simply a matter of the heart. If you just remember God in your heart, why do you have to make a big exhibition of your devotion? Why do you have to sing loudly? Why do you have to dance on the streets? Yes, sometimes these can be done simply for exhibition.
But it’s not only exhibition. Whenever there is any emotion in the heart, that emotion has to be expressed. If a husband comes back from work and the wife is at home, and the husband says, I’m tired, I’m hungry.
The wife says, I love you. I’m hungry. No, I love you.
I’m hungry. I love you. If you love me, make some food for me.
Isn’t it? If the husband is not working at all, just at home, and the wife says, you know, we don’t have anything in our fridge now. Say, I love you. We don’t have anything in our fridge.
I love you. We don’t have anything in our fridge. I love you.
If you love, then go and work and earn some money. Isn’t it? See, love is always expressed through actions. And love that is not expressed through actions, who knows whether that is there or not there also.
So in every relationship, we do express our love through our actions. The same way in our relationship with Krishna, we express our love through our actions. So the actions of devotion, they, by that we express our devotion, we experience devotion, and we enhance our devotion.
The actions that we do, for example, we come in front of the temple, in front of the Lord, and we offer our respects. We bow down. What is the point of this bowing down? Some people say rituals are just pointless.
Rituals are just lying. We didn’t do those rituals. In India, there are a couple of movies, there was OMG and there was PK, which were satires on religion, which criticised many religious rituals.
They had some good points, but they were also filled with blanket generalisations. So I wrote two books, answering the questions that arose in those movies. So when we say, oh, these are just rituals.
Actually, rituals are there in every aspect of life. When we have a birthday, what do we do? We sing and then we blow candles. Now what has blowing candles got to do with birthday? From the Vedic perspective, actually blowing candles is extinguishing fire.
Fire represents light. And extinguishing light is inauspicious. Many movies, traditional movies, may say that when somebody dies, the light goes off.
So on birthday, to actually extinguish light is inauspicious. But, now why do they do it? There is some Scandinavian superstition. They had the idea that every year, some new evil spirit enters into a person.
And their idea was that if they had some ritual of exorcism, by which if you light a candle and then you extinguish the candle, then that evil spirit is driven out. And people today don’t believe in evil spirits, but still mindlessly they go on with the rituals. So, rituals are there in every act of life.
But in spiritual life, the rituals are very purposeful. When we come in front of the Lord and bow down before Him, that submission enhances devotion. See, external actions can facilitate certain emotions or they can impede certain emotions.
Say, if I lean back now and I put my hand like this and I put my leg on this table and I say, I am feeling very humble now. I cannot feel humble. It’s very difficult because that posture itself is a posture of boffiness.
So, there are certain physical gestures which are conducive to certain emotions. So, in the bhakti tradition, whatever rituals we practise, they are purposeful. They are meant to help us express devotion when it is present, experience devotion when it is not present and enhance devotion when it is little.
It becomes more. So, when we come in front of the temple and sing before the Lord, then what happens? If we have devotion, we dance and sing. It’s joyful.
If we don’t have any devotion, we feel sometimes a little devoted, not a little devoted. We start singing, start dancing, start experiencing some joy. Sometimes new people who have no idea what is happening, they just come and start dancing and say, hey, I had a nice experience.
So, like that, the activities of bhakti are meant to express devotion, experience devotion and enhance devotion. And especially, when we go out in public and dance, what happens by that? That actually is meant to solidify our self-conception. I am a devotee of Krishna.
Sometimes we feel embarrassed. What will people think about me? But then, when we go out in public and dance, then we are ready to show to the world, not in an exhibitionist sense, but in the sense of sharing our conviction that I am a devotee of Krishna. Now, if somebody works in a big company, say Intel or Microsoft or Apple, then they want the whole world to know I am working in such a big company.
They may have a small post in that company, but I just want to show I am associated with that big company. So, actually, we are connected with Krishna and He is the Supreme Lord. There is no reason to hide that.
So, when we go and chant and sing in the streets, when we tell people about Krishna through our actions, what are we doing? We are expressing and enhancing our devotion. And whatever arrangements we make for this festival, in general, whatever we do in the mood of service to Krishna, that takes us closer to Krishna. Manjula Prabhupada was asked, how do you define Krishna consciousness? He gave different answers at different times.
At one particular time, he gave a very strikingly practical answer. He said, when you come in the temple and look at the Lord, and if you feel that Krishna is asking you, what are you doing for me? Most people come in front of Krishna and ask, what are you doing for me? This problem, that problem, what are you doing for me? That’s the attitude that most people have. But if we have this attitude, what are you doing for me? We feel that Krishna is asking that to me.
Prabhupada says, if you feel that, then you are Krishna conscious. So, Prabhupada had that conviction. He saw Krishna as a Lord and he saw himself as a servant.
Initially, Prabhupada wanted to build a temple in Juhu. He just had a small tent in which he got the deities. I told Krishna, Krishna, I want to build a big temple for you, but till the temple is built, please stay in this tent.
It’s a very personal appeal to the Lord. Prabhupada took it as his personal responsibility. He fought against hostile, manipulative politicians.
He fought against apathetic governments. He fought against hooligans who tried to destroy the temple and he built the temple for Krishna. So, that devotion is, Prabhupada taught us through his example that devotion essentially means dedication.
Devotion essentially means that I dedicate myself to the service of Krishna. And when we do this, sometimes we may fail. I already have so many problems in my life.
I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to do that. If I have to do this bhakti and this one more burden on me, I can’t do this. However, to conclude with this point, that bhakti may seem like a burden, but actually, bhakti removes our burdens.
When we connect with Krishna, what happens is, that connection gives us inner strength. When we chant Krishna’s holy names, when we especially commit ourselves to serving Krishna, then that gives us inner strength. So, suppose somebody has to lift a 10 kg weight, that’s manageable.
You have to lift 10-20 kg weight, that seems okay, it’s a little difficult. 30 kg weight, that’s a little more difficult. You have to lift 50 kg, that’s too much, I can’t do this.
So, we normally think the more the weight increases, the more I feel burdened. So, we often think, I have to do this, I have to do this, I have to do this, and we see bhakti as one more activity that I have to do. I feel I am all the more burdened.
But actually, what burdens us is not just the things that we have to do. What burdens us is the mental conceptions that we have associated with those things. The problems of today are always manageable today.
It is only when we add the problems of yesterday and the problems of tomorrow, then the problems of today become unbearable. And that is what our mind does most of the time. Our mind laments about what happened in the past, worries about what is going to happen in the future.
And thus, we feel burdened. But when we start practising bhakti, that connection with Krishna strengthens us. That connection with Krishna gives us the faith that whatever has happened in the past, even if it was bad, Krishna is so expert that he will bring good out of the bad.
So, let me leave the past to Krishna. So, by connecting with Krishna, we learn to go past our past. We let the past stay in the past and we move ahead in our life.
And, as far as the future is concerned, Krishna will take care of the future. The same Lord who has guided me in so many lifetimes with so many problems, He will guide me even in the future. So, we are able to focus in the present.
So, that connection with Krishna actually relieves the mind of the wild energy which makes it lament about the past or worry about the future. In the Srimad Bhagavatam, it is said that actually, devotion brings the fruit of freedom from na shochati na kankshati. That lamenting about the past, craving and worrying about the future, we become free from that.
And then, when that burden is removed, we actually feel, life is not all that difficult, I can manage it. And not only does the devotion to Krishna remove that burden, but devotion to Krishna, not just in terms of sentiment, but in terms of a solid commitment, that strengthens us internally. It gives us greater strength.
If somebody is lifting a 20 kg weight, that’s very difficult for them. But suppose, they took some energy drink or pills, suddenly their energy level boosted. Then, I can lift this 20 kg, no difficulty for me.
So actually, what happens by the practise of bhakti is, as we feel sheltered by our connection with Krishna, we also feel strengthened. And when we feel strengthened, then whatever we have to face, we can face much more confidently. So bhakti won’t add to our burdens.
It will actually decrease our burden. Because the many burdens that we unnecessarily carry, we will get rid of them. And our own capacity to lift problems, to deal with issues will increase by the connection with Krishna.
So devotion, when understood as dedication, leads to empowerment in our life. Not just in our spiritual life, but in all aspects of our life. Krishna assures us in the Bhagavad Gita, If you just become conscious of me, I will enable you to cross all obstacles by my mercy.
So this is the opportunity that all of us are presented by Shri Prabhupada, through the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, which offers us abundant ways by which we can connect with Krishna. And through that connection, experience shelter, strength and ultimately the supreme devotion. I spoke today about devotion.
It can be a cultural conception, it can be a intellectual understanding, it can be a spiritual experience. So I talked about surrender in the cultural conception, maybe a stereotype, oh when I am defeated I just wave the white flag and I surrender. But Arjuna is picking up his weapons to fight when he is surrendering.
So how is that? Surrender has the component of dependence on God for the things that are not in our control and his diligence in service for the things that are in our control. So Draupadi, when she had nothing in her control, she controlled her thoughts and offered her consciousness to Krishna. So life can be compared to tennis match.
Sometimes when we are serving, we have greater control. When we are receiving, we have lesser control. But either way, we keep playing and surrender means that we keep serving Krishna either through devotion or through diligence.
Prabhupada demonstrated surrender as a combination of dependence and diligence through his metaphor that, oh Krishna make me dance like a puppet master makes a puppeteer dance. And devotion, when it is simply a cultural conception, at that time, it just becomes very unstable. If God is solving my problems, then God is good.
Otherwise, what do I need God for? So it becomes unstable. But when there is intellectual comprehension, then we understand that my relationship with Krishna is my defining identity, not my relationship with anyone else in this world. When we define ourselves in terms of relationship with Krishna, we understand that Krishna will never abandon us.
For Him, He always loves us. And that gives us shelter. And whatever storms come in our worldly relationships, we can deal with them.
Akshila Prabhupada, he demonstrated this devotion as dedication to our relationship with Krishna through service. So he was ready to labour tirelessly for serving Krishna. One of the ways he did that was through the Atharvata festival.
That which is demonstrating this devotion as dedication at the highest spiritual level. The Gopis, in order to serve Krishna so that he will be happy in Vrindavan, are ready to do the work that is normally done by horses. They are ready to pull chariots with the labour of their hands and the love of their hearts to get Krishna back to Vrindavan.
So that same conception of devotion as dedication, Akshila Prabhupada demonstrated through his innovation in creating Vathyatara festivals all over the world, just as he had done in his childhood. Prabhupada said Krishna consciousness means, when we come in front of Krishna, Krishna is asking us what are you doing for me? When we have this understanding of devotion as dedication, when we rise from the cultural conception, we don’t just see a partnership with God as my intelligence and your strength. But rather, you know what is best for me.
So I am simply your servant. Please let me serve you. With this understanding of bhakti, we will find great shelter no matter what ups and downs come in our life.
And bhakti, when making devotion as dedication may seem to burden us, but actually it will remove burdens. Because when we commit to connect with Krishna, our mind becomes focused. And then the burden that comes by lamenting about the past or worrying about the future, that goes away.
And further, when we connect with Krishna, that strengthens us from the beginning. Like one’s capacity to lift weights increases because of energy drink and dance. By Krishna’s grace, whatever we face in our life, if we conceive of devotion as dedication and apply that in our life, by His grace, we will cross over all obstacles.
So, you know, when we face problems, it’s said that don’t tell God how big your problems are. Tell your problems how big God is. Thank you very much.