Bhagavatam-daily 238 – 11.11.44 – Worship of Krishna is eminently accessible through his devotees

Thank you Shrimad Bhagavatam 11 11 44 Krishna is continuing to describe how we can worship him through various objects and that connection herein he states that we can worship him through four more objects, previously in the previous text he listed four objects, now he is stating four more Vaishnavi with the devotees of Kutya by developing friendships with them it’s interesting, Krishna is saying that by worshipping, by developing friendly relationship with devotees we are actually worshipping him, Krishna manifests in various ways in this world and one of the most accessible ways in which he manifests is through the devotees, Krishna’s affection manifests through the affection of his devotees and Krishna’s qualities manifest through his devotees qualities and to the extent we recognize this speciality of the devotees and there are various manifestations that are talked about here and the devotees are also talked of as one manifestation but the position of devotees is distinctive it is far higher in the position of any other thing इस्यप्रसादाद् बंगवत् प्रसादो इस्यप्रसादाद् नगती कुदोपि that is stated in the Guru Aashtakam that it is by the mercy of the Guru that we get the mercy of Krishna and without the mercy of the Guru we cannot get the mercy of Krishna so the point being made here is that we are we can get ourselves connected with Krishna enthusiastically joyfully by the practice of bhakti which is at its very core supremely joyful and that connection is most easily established most efficaciously established by connecting with those who are already connected with him that is in the same way that is the devotees Krishna uses the word here सत्कुत्या friendship now Krishna is our best friend as he states in the Bhagavad Gita 5.29 सुर्धं सर्वभुदानाम He is not just our best friend He is everyone’s best friend and that friendship of Krishna that friendliness of Krishna is manifested to us through those who have befriended Krishna in a very intimate way and that is his devotees so it’s a inspiring meditation that by befriending devotees actually befriending devotees is easy, it is joyful of course sometimes with some devotees there may be some difficulties because the individual natures may not match but in general relating with devotees is a joy and amidst some joyfulness to be able to connect with Krishna and to relish a relationship with him what can be a matter of greater fortune than that because with devotees when we relate both our needs for horizontal and vertical relationships are fulfilled because the devotees are also living beings like us so our horizontal relationship of friendship is fulfilled by relating with them and we also have a need for a vertical relationship with Krishna and because the devotees are also striving to develop and strengthen and deepen and intensify and purify their vertical relationship with Krishna so by associating with them, by learning from them by observing them by discussing with them we also learn to purify and strengthen our vertical relationship in this way associating with devotees is actually a worship of Krishna and then some other modes of worship are also being talked about over here so one significant thing Krishna says in the last line is that in this verse it says that we can worship water through water just like in the Ganga Ganga herself is very sacred and she has huge quantity of water she is profusely enriched with water so what can we with our limited capacities offer her actually we can’t offer anything so the traditional way of worshipping Ganga Devi is to take her water in our palms very respectfully and then pour it back to her in that way express our gratitude to her for having manifested herself in this material existence and now a devotee sees everything in connection with Krishna and the devotee acknowledges whoever has done any good for oneself or the devotee but along with that the devotee probes deeper and sees the connection of Krishna and sees how whoever has helped us in any way it is Krishna who is helping us through that person further it is stated here that we can worship the supreme lord in our heart he is present as a super soul in the heart as inner space it is mentioned so space itself becomes sanctified by his inner presence so it is the point is that we don’t worship space otherwise any space would be it is the inner space in which the lord resides in super soul manifestation it is that space to be worshipped and in that space which is the sanctified place by going inwards towards the indwelling lord in our heart we too can gain that sense of the sacred that we can also become sanctified and that is also stated that we can worship the lord through the air by our meditating how the prana is the chief of the air so prana is actually the foremost of all airs in the sense that prana enables us to do various things in life it is through prana that we can actually grow it is through prana that we can survive prana is actually much more than life air it is the air that it is not just oxygen it is actually not just life air as it is often translated it is actually the means by which the circulation of things in material existence goes on it is one of the primary agencies for maintaining material existence by meditating on how this air has been this prana has been provided by the supreme lord its motion its function it is all arranged by the lord we can worship him through the air which manifests as the prana too in the Upanishads often there is quite an extensive glorification of the prana about how prana enables people to live and to helps the world to move and actually the prana when the prana is sucked out then the life ends and when the prana is removed the life ends and the prana also goes to the subtle body the next body so essentially Krishna is demonstrating here that there are various ways through the various elements that we can still connect with him so if you want to be aware of Krishna if you want to be conscious of him it is not difficult you can all be conscious of him by just philosophically meditating on how the various things around us of which we are normally conscious those things are manifestations of Krishna’s of Krishna’s energy Krishna’s arrangement and Krishna’s magnificence and thus you can worship him through those manifestations