Bhagavatam-daily 3 – 11.06.42 – Trust not just Krishna’s power, but also his intelligence

Thank you Uddhava begins to speak in the Uddhava Gita It is called Uddhava Gita not because Uddhava has spoken but it has been spoken to Uddhava in response to his apprehensions and questions so what those apprehensions and questions are will be revealed in the subsequent speech of Uddhava He has just offered obeisances and then folded his eyes and is speaking as was mentioned in the previous verse so he starts with a very respectful address you are the God of all the Gods and you are the Lord of all the Yogis so materially and spiritually those who are very powerful you are the Lord of both of them and your position is such that by hearing and speaking about you others become purified so you have that enormous purifying potency now ritya sometimes means to destroy but Jiva Goswami explains that the Lord’s associates are eternal so they can never be destroyed all that happens is they become unmanifest just like the sun becomes invisible so samrityaitad in that sense means withdraw kulam nonam you have desired to withdraw withdraw your kula, your dynasty from this world is it not so? Nonam my dear Lord? lokam santyaksate bhavan so lokam in this world where you have manifested santyaksate you are about to give up once and for bhavan he is addressing the Lord in a respectful second person tone bhavan and he says this is actually your desire it is your desire to end your pastimes and to withdraw your dynasty otherwise viprashapam samarthopi you are quite capable of countering samartha you are capable of what? Viprashapa you are capable of countering that curse of the brahmanas pratyahan but actually you do not desire to counter it Yadishwara O Supreme Lord so he is he is here recognizing the inconceivable will of the Lord taking place and rather than seeing things as an adversity in which God seems to be nowhere in the picture that is how often the faithless or the wavering see adversities that when some problem comes when some disaster comes where is God why is God not protecting me does God even exist so that sort of doubts come up in the heart but here Uddhava is revealing his position and that is actually the devotee’s position the devotee understands that if something disastrous happening ultimately the Lord has some plan and because Uddhava is close to the Lord and because Uddhava understands the will of the Lord understands the heart of the Lord so he is able to understand what is his will how can the one who has come to protect the world now watch as calamity befalls his own family members that Lord came he told that I have come to protect the devotees and he actually showed how he was able to protect his devotees by ending the tyrannical rules of so many demons by protecting his devotees like the Pandavas, Arjuna especially through the exile and through the war against insurmountable odds the Lord has shown his competence to protect but now disaster is coming does it mean that the Lord’s power to protect has got exhausted or is it that the love of the Lord has got exhausted, no neither it is that our capacity to understand the will of the Lord has got exhausted because his will is far deeper than ours and we cannot understand it by our means very easily by our own efforts very easily of course if we have a close connection with the Lord or if we are connected with those who are closely connected with the Lord then we may be able to understand his will and here he is telling my dear Lord it is your will that you want to end your past times in this inconceivable way and that’s how you are Ishwara, so you see this verse begins and ends with an acknowledgement of the Lord’s supreme position so you are the God of all the Gods and although it may seem externally that just now the Devatas have come and they have told you now it is time for you to end your past times but actually it is not that they can command you you are their Lord, in fact it was they who begged you to descend to this world and you favoured and blessed them by coming to this world so you are you are the Lord of all these Lords and similarly you are Yogesh you actually are the Lord of all the Yogis and the topmost of the Yogis are the devotees so you are the protector of the devotees and actually whatever is happening is your inconceivable will, it is your inconceivable Leela, you know those Brahmanas their power to curse is also coming from you in fact what to speak of their power to curse even their Brahmanical position whatever pious activities they did in their previous life by which they got the Brahmana’s body now even that is coming from you so whoever else might seem to be the cause of these things happening so it may seem to happen that that this destruction of the dynasty may seem to be happening because of the Brahmana’s curse and your wanting to end your past times that may be because the Gods have told you to do so but actually you are the control of everyone you are Ishwara and it is simply your will by which all this is happening now my Lord I cannot understand your will but I accept it of course I have a desire and that desire Buddha will express in the next verse but one of the things is that when we trust Krishna we should trust him not just his power but also his wisdom also his intelligence that means that we may believe that when things go wrong in our life we may believe that Krishna is powerful and Krishna has the power to change things but then if Krishna doesn’t change things then we may start thinking does Krishna not exist, does Krishna not have the power does Krishna not care, what is happening but this actually indicates we are half trusting Krishna we are trusting his power but not his intelligence Krishna has some plan and when things seem to be going wrong it simply means that they are going according to a plan that we can’t understand and faith means we trust Krishna’s intelligence also not just his power to change things but also his intelligence in making the right thing happen and that’s why the best thing that we can do is certainly pray but not make our prayer conditional Krishna please don’t let this happen we may strongly feel that something is disastrous and that should not happen and that’s perfectly understandable the sincerity and intensity of our prayer can also reveal the depth of our devotion because only when we have faith can we pray intensely so if we based on our understanding feel that something is bad and it should not happen we can surely pray to Krishna for avoiding that but at the same time if our faith is so deep in Krishna then we should also remember that Krishna has his plan and his intelligence is greater than ours so we can pray Krishna please I feel let this not happen but if it is your will that it happens then please give me the strength to serve you as Jesus said that let thy will be done not mine before that he said let this cup pass if you so desire but let thy will be done not mine let the cup pass means let the poisoning let the crucifixion that is going to happen let it be avoided if it’s possible but otherwise let your will be done that’s my conclusion so Prabhupada also told us that the best prayer that we can offer to Krishna is please oh lord give me the strength to serve you so with this prayer we will always stay connected with Krishna now when our prayer is tied to a particular plan then often our prayer may not be fulfilled and then our faith and our devotion may become rocky and unsteady actually if our prayer is tied to a particular plan for material success for material aggrandizement and that is that plan gets shattered then our relationship with lord may we may end that relationship also we say this bhakti doesn’t work Krishna doesn’t care now if it’s a plan for service of Krishna and then our plan is not fulfilled then also we may be frustrated but then we will at least because we are thinking of service of Krishna it will be easier for us to think ok if I can’t serve Krishna in this way there are other ways in which I can serve Krishna so let me serve him in that way and that way we will be able to move onwards in our service so certainly planning is good because planning shows our seriousness about whatever we want to do it’s not that always planning is bad in bhakti it’s not that planning means always that we are trying to control things planning simply means that we are taking something seriously but then along with that we also know that we are not the controllers and therefore we should also know that the most important plan that we can have is the plan to serve Krishna that generic plan should never be overshadowed in our consciousness by any specific plan that we may have ok I want to do this service for Krishna I want to make this arrangement yes we can definitely plan and we can definitely try at material and spiritual levels at material level whatever is anupul for our bhakti and at spiritual level whatever is bhakti but we should never let the specific plans blind our awareness of our generic plan so some specific form of bhakti doesn’t work out some specific form of anupul to bhakti doesn’t work out still the principle of serving Krishna is always possible and the lord will give uddhava an extraordinarily difficult service to stay on in the world after he and all his associates have departed and he will also empower uddhava to do that service but here uddhava is actually by his very first statement acknowledging that no matter how things are going wrong it’s not that the lord has lost control he is still in control and although he is going to beseech the lord who is in control to guide him so that he can get control over his apprehension and his dejection that may otherwise overcome him similarly by remembering that Krishna is always in control and striving to serve him keeping that plan of serving him always in the forefront of our consciousness will enable us to cope with and overcome any trouble any adversity that we may face in our life Thank you