Bhagavatam-daily 56 – 11.07.46 – Take shelter of Krishna however that manifests to us

Krishna bhagavatam 11.7.46 sometimes it is covered, sometimes it is manifest and it is worshipped by those who desire their supreme auspiciousness that it is it devours whatever is offered by the worshippers, whatever offerings are made to and this way it removes all sinful reactions so here while describing fire also the nature of a saintly person is being described now the sacredness of fire in the vedic tradition is due to the fact that fire is devanam avamo agni paramo vishnu tadantara sarvadevata in the Vedas it is said that that the topmost of the gods is Vishnu and the near most not the lowest but the near most is Agni the sacrifices to all the gods go through Vishnu through Agni in that sense he is the near most so in this way he is close to us and different offerings are made to Agnideva and those offerings are passed on by Agnideva to the other devatas and even in today’s world people may not have that sacred view of fire but still it is understood that incineration burning is a surefire way of destroying something so now here the point is made that sometimes fire is manifest and sometimes it is concealed and similarly is the saintly person saintly person is concealed means that those who are saintly they don’t desire name and fame for themselves they are happy just worshipping Krishna in the seclusion of their lives in the privacy of their hearts living a secluded or low profile life but they realize that in this world also people need Krishna and to know Krishna for them to know Krishna someone has to tell them about Krishna and they take up that responsibility of telling people about Krishna out of their immense kindness to the conditioned souls so Srila Prabhupada was happily in Vrindavan relishing Krishna’s glories in a very sacred atmosphere but he left it all just so that people who had never heard of Krishna could get to not only hear about Krishna but through his example, compassion and teachings also learn to love Krishna now the sacredness of fire, what exactly is the comparison here that when say fire is concealed we cannot, we don’t notice it, we can’t make offerings to it and we can’t get benefited by it similarly the saintly people if they are concealed then we cannot get the benefit of their association we may not even notice their presence as happened with Jada Bharat and Maharashtra Maharaj Raghuna Jada Bharat was acting like a Jada and even his family members didn’t realize his exalted position so at that time he was concealed but then when he saw Maharaj Raghuna not just in the ignorance of bodily conception but also being proud of his position which was temporary and associated with the body then Maharaj Raghuna then Jada Bharat decided to manifest his knowledge and Maharaj Raghuna was benefited by that and Raghuna practically offered his life because he surrendered he fell off, came off the palanquin and offered his obeisance his dandavat to Jada Bharat and then Jada Bharat enlightened him in profound knowledge so now for us today we live in a world where there are devotee preachers who are trying to share Krishna consciousness now in one sense those who are preaching they are manifesting their devotion to Krishna and they are trying to share devotion to Krishna so they are all ultimately manifesting the same flame of Krishna’s love for us but we may be differently inspired by different devotees our spiritual master, other spiritual teachers they all will inspire us in different individual ways so what we need to focus on is making sure that we keep moving forward in our journey towards Krishna taking inspiration from wherever it comes sometimes if we find one particular devotees classes or conduct or example inspiring us a lot we should not let our individual inspiration become the subject of unnecessary public attention that means that we pursue our devotion taking inspiration from whomever we want whomever we get inspired by provided that devotee is also in good standing and we keep moving forward if others are inspired well and good but when we try to because we feel inspired by someone we try to say that everyone else should also be inspired by that person that’s not correct because others are individuals and they will be inspired by other individuals and similarly if others try to force us to take inspiration from one particular person or not take inspiration from a particular person that is also not possible so we need association which is inspiring we need a manifestation of the divine flame which attracts and warms us and inspires us to make offerings so whichever way we see that happening we should take that as Krishna manifesting and enabling us to come closer to him and in that way we will become purified we will be inspired to make offerings we will become illumined and enlightened and we will move onwards in our journey towards Krishna