CC daily 14 – M 43-46 – Our devotion is defined not by mystical vision but by practical dedication

Thank you from that time onwards I have been living in this place in the Kunj so from that time this is Gopal telling his story to Madhavendra Puri and he said that long ago when the Mlecchas attacked my servant hid me in the bushes and ran away in fear of the Mlecchas that Krishna has told in the previous verse and he says since that time I have been staying here Bhala means good it is happened good that you have come now now please remove me from here please take me out of here carefully and the lord manifests as the deity even when the deity seems to be in a position of relatively not being in a respected position as we might think when the deity is lost in a bush still the deity is Krishna and we have to offer due respect to Krishna wherever he may be situated and further he also says that the deity has been there for a long time and has to be careful in handling the deity carefully take me out of here Krishna says etabali having said this that child means invisible the child disappears just as Madhavendra Puri had seen in the day time when this child had come and had accepted had offered him milk and after that had also disappeared at that time so at that time Madhavendra Puri found this a miracle now Madhavendra Puri is seeing in the dream but even in the dream everything is real means everything seems real to him and the child is there and the child is speaking to him and suddenly antardhana so suddenly the child disappears sometimes we also have dreams and when something surprising shocking startling happens then we are jolted out of the dream immediately the jolt Madhavendra Puri woke up and he started thinking so here we see that for exalted devotees the lord comes in dreams and the lord gives instructions we will talk about the significance of the lord coming in dreams later and how to discern whether the dreams are divine or they are just speculations we will come to all that later but here let us see how the mood of service is what defines the relationship of Madhavendra Puri with his lord first what is his thought vichara karela he is thinking now so that thought is revealed over here oh with my eyes i saw Krishna he is thinking about the day time when he had the previous evening more or less when he Krishna had come and given milk to him but i was unable to recognize him how could such a thing have happened love for Krishna that being overwhelmed by that love he fell on the ground it was almost like a faint so now for a devotee one of the deepest fondest greatest aspirations is to have darshan of the lord and if one gets the darshan and doesn't realize that i had darshan what a great tragedy it is suppose we want to meet some great person suppose say a cricket fan wants to meet cricket fan dreams of meeting say India's greatest cricketer called the god of cricket Sachin Tendulkar and then suppose later on he comes to know that evening when i was there in the cricket ground the person who had come with those dark goggles and that was actually Sachin i was in shock i could have spoken some words of appreciation to him i could have taken his autograph i could have done something i should have known when i met him that was such a famous person now take that feeling and multiply it millions of times over especially when the heart is pure as is the case with Madhavendra Puri the attraction to Krishna is immense and such an immense attraction to Krishna the result is that there is a constant longing to see Krishna and the thought that Krishna was there i saw him but i did not recognize him it was intolerable the love that was there in his heart that made it an intolerable loss and he fell on the ground sometimes when a very strong emotion comes in our heart then we may often see in movies suppose some lady in the house is there she is bringing some tea for some guests and then suddenly some of the guests while they are talking they give some news which is heartbreaking and immediately what happens is the plate falls from that lady's hand that woman's hand and she falls on the ground and faints so that is depictive of how when there is a emotional jolt jolt of strong emotions on us then there is a result of there is a physical impact of that also the physical impact is a person may fall down and lose consciousness may swoon so something similar happened to Madhavendra Puri because of the sheer emotional anguish that he went through to think that oh Krishna had come and i didn't recognize him how tragic but then immediately he was lamenting crying means for some time he lamented he grieved he cried then he made his mind steady his mind was still overwhelmed by emotions and these emotions were actually intense devotional emotions but still he studied his mind what was the thought why did he study the mind i have to follow the order of my lord the lord has given me an order and i must follow that order and my defining relationship with the lord is not my getting the darshan of his but my defining relationship is my carrying out his orders so for us as devotees we may also aspire to get darshan of the lord and it's certainly wonderful to have that aspiration but we should know that darshan getting the darshan is not the defining feature of our relationship with him the defining feature of our relationship with the lord is how we serve him and if we have the opportunity to serve him and in that service we are connected with him and we are connected in a way that is very pleasing to him because we are expressing our love through the service that we are doing to him so immediately madhavendra puri thought okay even if i was not able to recognize all is not lost that lord has given me a treasure and the treasure is his service so let me not waste any more time let any more time get lost in lamentation let me focus on making sure that the service which i have been entrusted that i do that service and thus the lord gave me darshan even though i did not realize that he was giving darshan but at least he is giving darshan i will express my gratitude to him by making sure that the service is done properly so susthira and he became stable he became strong and he committed himself to the service.