Bhagavatam-daily 4 – 11.06.43 – We can’t tolerate separation from Krishna, but the mind misleads us

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmt1ofGjvUs

Krishna Bhagavatam 11.6.43 नाहं तवांग्रि कमलं ख्षणार्धं पिकेशः तिप्तुम् समुत्स हे नाथ स्वधामन्यमामपि उद्धवा is here begging to the lord नाहं तवांग्रि कमलं यूर अंग्रि कमलं यूर लोटस्वी नाहं I cannot my dear lord ख्षणार्धं पिकेशः I cannot live even for half a moment O lord O Keshava समुत्स तप्तुम् समुत्स हे नाथ If I don’t have those lotus feet I have to give up those lotus feet then समुत्स सहे tolerating tolerating will be so difficult I cannot tolerate it O नाथ you are my protector and And you should protect me from the misery that is intolerable. So Swadhamanaya Mamapi and therefore what should you do? Please take me to your abode Swadhamanaya Mamapi. Please do so my dear Lord.
So Uddhava is on seeing the imminent signs of the Lord’s departure, he is agonized, mortified, heartbroken, devastated, shattered and he is begging to the Lord, he says I cannot be separated from you. Now you are asking me to separate it for who knows how long if you go back to your dhams Swadham you are abode and I will be left here who knows for how long in this world and actually I cannot tolerate separation from you even for half a moment what to speak of an uncertain period that may run into days, weeks, months, years, decades, even lifetimes. Pure devotee doesn’t think that oh I am a liberated soul and I am just going back to God immediately at the end of this lifetime.
Pure devotee thinks that I don’t know how long I will have to stay in material existence. So I cannot tolerate even for half a moment, so please now what should you do please take me back. So Uddhava is not saying my dear Lord you stay over here because he knows that the Lord’s movements are according to the Lord’s plan and he does not want the Lord to have to change his plans for his sake but he says my dear Lord please include me in your plan also please take me with you.
Such a heart-wrenching call from Uddhava over here. Now the intense longing for the Lord is Rupa Goswami says the prize of devotion. Tatra lauliyam api mauliyam ekalam, lauliya is intense greed.
Now how do we break free from this material existence it is not just by becoming detached from the world but it is by being attached to Krishna and that attachment is the pathway to liberation and not just liberation it is the pathway to supreme ecstasy. Now of course Uddhava may seem here not to be in any kind of ecstasy he may seem to be in agony but because it is in relationship with the Lord it is in its own way joyful. At the spiritual level when there is a remembrance of Krishna, remembrance of Krishna itself is like nectar.
Now when there is separation from Krishna there is definitely agony, misery, heartbreak but even all that agony, misery, heartbreak intensifies our remembrance of Krishna and that’s why even within that there is ecstasy. So in one sense separation from Krishna is like nectar but it is like very hot almost intolerable nectar but it is still nectar and union with Krishna is cooling, comforting, soothing kind of nectar both are nectar in material world there is pleasure but material existence which causes forgetfulness of Krishna is itself like poison. So material pleasure is like sweet poison and material misery is like bitter poison but they are all both essentially poison.
So we shouldn’t get misled by externals thinking that materialistic people are enjoying and devotees are suffering. I am suffering because I have to battle with my anarthas, I don’t feel taste for bhakti and here I read in the Bhagavatam, Uddhava seems to be suffering. So if spiritual life I am suffering, a sadhaka like me is suffering, a siddha like Uddhava is suffering then why go to spiritual life at all, let me just stay, materialistic people seem to be enjoying but these are appearances and they are deceptive because material existence is basically an attachment to the temporary because everything material is temporary and even if there is pleasure, that pleasure most of the times materialistic people are very good at covering up their misery and putting on a facade of pleasure but even if on the few occasions they are actually happy how long is that going to last.
So rather than getting infatuated by that kind of pleasure, we look at the essence, the essence whether we are sadhaka or siddha is that when we turn towards Krishna we are attracted to the eternal and attraction to the eternal will grant us an eternal destination and that eternal destination will always be eternally auspicious that means it will always be there for us once we attain that and after we go there also it will always be happy, there are two always here, one is that we will always, once we go to spiritual world we will always be there and once we are in the spiritual world we will always be happy. So there is constant existence and within the constant existence there is constant ecstasy. Now the ecstasy has different flavors, one is a cool soothing flavor and the other is a hot jarring flavor but both are ecstasy and Uddhava is saying my dear lord here, I will not be able to tolerate, I will not be able to tolerate separation from you but later on you will see that he actually gets inspired and at the end of the Gita he will say I will call your instructions my dear lord whatever you want me to do I will do.
So he gets energized by the instructions which the Lord has given and he feels the Lord’s presence within his instructions but here by reading verses like these we can understand the intensity of the emotion of the pure devotees. So Uddhava is at the transition between Vrindavan and Dwaraka Mathura. Dwaraka Mathura devotees are also exalted devotees, they are more in Aishwarya, Vrindavan devotees are more in Madhurya and Uddhava has been a connecting link between the two and just as the Gopis felt immense separation from Krishna and they begged him, Krishna please do not leave Vrindavan.
They were ready to lay down on in front of the wheels of the chariot so that he said Krishna if you want to go you can go over our dead bodies, the chariot will have to go over us. They felt that if you go we are already dead then why should we keep our bodies alive. So Krishna consoled him and said that I will come back and Jiva Goswami in the Gopal Champu explains how actually Krishna came and accepted all the Gopis.
But even when Krishna left, Krishna left Vrindavan but he entered deeper into the hearts of the Vrajavasis and similarly here Krishna is going to leave Uddhava but he is going to enter deeper into the heart of Uddhava through these instructions that he will give. And we do by meditating on the example of exalted devotees like Uddhava and by meditating on the instructions that he has received we can also commit ourselves to the process of purification by which we will also develop similar taste and actually we may already have some taste, we may not have taste for the Lord totally but we may have some intense attraction for some specific limb of bhakti. We may love to take darshan of the deities, we may love to hear some kirtans even if it is in some specific tunes or we may love to hear some classes.
Whatever way we are currently attracted to Krishna we should cherish that attraction as a special blessing from him and try to increase it more and more and we try to do bhakti not because it’s a duty but because we know that we will become weak, we cannot tolerate not doing bhakti. Now when we say we cannot tolerate it does not mean that we will long for Krishna. Our craving actually becomes that when we don’t do bhakti we start craving for material things because our mind distorts our perception and when we are separated from Krishna actually we need Krishna at that time but because we have an innate craving for happiness and it is Krishna who can fulfill that craving for happiness but unfortunately our mind misinterprets that craving and makes us think that what we need is sense gratification and we start going towards sense gratification and when we have rules which tell us no you should not enjoy sense gratification then we start feeling oh these rules are obstructing me, they are depriving me of my freedom but actually the rules are not depriving us it is our mind that is misleading us.
So that craving, that dissatisfaction which we are feeling is because we too even in our sadhaka stage cannot tolerate separation from Krishna because the soul cannot tolerate separation from Krishna just as a fish cannot live outside water but we the mind is misinterpreting the problem as not separation from Krishna but as separation from sense objects. So by studying the philosophy we will prevent or correct the mind’s misinterpretation and whenever we feel dissatisfied we will immediately turn towards Krishna, absorb ourselves in Krishna and thereby regain our devotional connection and continue on in Bhakti. Thank you.