CC daily 36 – M 4.138-140 – Conscientiously cherish devotional memories

Chapter 4, text 138.

So, the Pujari of Gopinath temple had searched for Madhavendra Puri, found him, given him the Kheer, told him the story and now he offers him obeisances before departing. So, he offered obeisances before he departed and as soon as he arrived he offered obeisances and while departing he offered obeisances again. So, Madhavendra Puri was still overcome by in love for Krishna and as he was overwhelmed with that love for Krishna, Bhakshan, Aveshe Kareena, Puri se Kheer Bhakshan.

So, in great love Madhavendra Puri took the Kheer. So, he washed the pot, now the Kheer had been brought to him in a pot, the same pot which had been offered to the Lord. He broke it into pieces.

So, he had, Madhavendra Puri was a renunciate, so he was wearing simple cloth. So, he took the cloth. He tied it up.

Sayi thikari rakhila, sayi and then thikari, pieces of pot rakhila. So, he kept all, he broke them into small small pots and the pot itself was not very easy to carry but after breaking it into pieces it became much more much easier to carry and he broke into the pieces not just for ease of carrying but for another purpose. Normally, the urban pots that were there, they were, they were use and throw but use and throw in a, in a very ecologically friendly, eco-friendly way because they were biodegradable.

They were made from clay and then when they would be thrown away, they would return to clay and again in the future the clay would be fashioned and made into pots. There was no complex processing required. So, to make them or to break them down and to destroy them or recycle them, it was all very simple.

At the same time, it was clean because a pot is used once for offering and after it is used, then it is taken out and then after that, it is discarded and recycled over a period of time. Prati din ek khaani karen bhakshan, khaile prema vise hai adbhut kathan. Prati din ek khaani.

So, prati din, each day, one khaani, one piece of that pot, of that pot, karen bhakshan, he would eat that piece of the pot. Now, we may say, what is this? The earthen pot is not to be eaten. It is the, it is what the earthen pot contains, the kheer that was to be eaten and he had already eaten the kheer.

So, for Madhavendra Kuri, the kheer was, the whole experience was unforgettably sweet and it represented Gopinath's love for him. So, he was concerned not just with the taste at the material level, he was concerned with the experience of love at the spiritual level and he could experience that love, he could absorb himself in remembrance of the Lord who had given him this endearing, heart-rending gift, that is, he gave it in the form of kheer, but the pot was also a memento of that gift which the Lord had given and Madhavendra Kuri, he was not, he was so transcendental that he was not really, he was not greedy for the taste of sugar and milk and essentially that was what the kheer was made up of. He was tasting premamrita trupte as it was said earlier.

He was relishing the nectar of love and that love came primarily from his inner absorption remembrance of the Lord. Whatever could stimulate that remembrance, he eagerly accepted that and embraced that and he would, so now the remnants of the pot also stimulated his inner remembrance and the remnants of the pot when he took them and chewed them, normally earth is not something which we consume, but in extreme cases, earth can be consumed and especially if it just simple earth, there are enunciates who have eaten earth and survived also, not as a regular lifelong diet, but as an emergency diet, the human body can eat a little bit of earth and not get severely affected by it. So, certainly now we have Krishna saying that Krishna's friends complaining to mother Yashoda about Krishna that he has eaten earth.

So, the idea of that is that mother Yashoda was shocked because she was alarmed because Krishna was a small child and what will happen if this child, if her little child eats earth that may not her stomach, the small child's stomach is not suited for eating earth and moreover the more detrimentally the child develops a habit of eating earth that will be extremely harmful. So, the point is that eating kheer, eating earth is not unprecedented although it is highly unusual. It is said about Gaurakrishna Das Babaji as well as Jagannath Das Babaji, especially about Gaurakrishna Das Babaji that he would just do bhajan sitting on the coast on the banks of Yamuna Ganga river depending on whether he was in Vrindavan or Mayapur and he would be so absorbed in bhajan that sometimes when the pangs of hunger would trouble him, he would think what a botheration it is to go to someone and ask for food.

Better let me just take, you just take some mud from the topsoil of Yamuna which is wetted by the water from the Yamuna or from the Ganga and you just take that mud. So, that was of course because of extreme renunciation or extreme absorption in the Lord which manifested as renunciation. In this case, he is eating, mud was not because he did not have anything else to eat but because that mud, the remnants of the pot stimulated his remembrance of the Supreme Lord and because it stimulated the remembrance of the Supreme Lord, he found it eminently relishable.

So, it is said over here, khaila premaveshe hai. So, as he would eat the shards, parts of the broken fragments of a pot are often called as shards. So, as he would eat the shards, he would feel overwhelmed with love, premaveshe hai.

So, the word premaveshe is used, was also used when the first time he heard about how Gopinath has stolen the kheer for him and again now when he would eat the shards, the pot fragments, he would again feel the similar ecstasy, the similar overwhelming experience of love would come upon him. Khaila premaveshe hai, adbhut kathan. So, adbhut, extraordinary, wonderful, kathan story.

So, what a thrilling story it is that for the sake of a devotee, the Lord steals butter and then engages a pujari in getting that butter for the devotee. So, Madhavendra Puri cannot be but thrilled as he hears the story, as he remembers the story and he feels overwhelmed with love for Krishna. So, similarly, we can also cherish whatever relishable memories we have in bhakti.

It is important for us to treasure those memories. We may have had some special interactions with senior devotees, we may have had some unique, some very intense experiences when we went to some yatras or doing some kirtans in darshan or we may have had some eureka moments when we understood some point in philosophy. These memories are our treasures and if we recollect them regularly, we can get intense spiritual experiences, which will strengthen us and spur us on in our spiritual journey.

Just as the mind automatically treasures and holds memories of sense gratification and seeks to maximize them, seeks to get as much pleasure as possible out of them. So, similarly, what the mind does automatically with respect to sense gratification, holding memories of worldly pleasures, we need to do conscientiously with respect to devotional pleasures and whatever can serve as a stimulus for triggering our devotional memories, for triggering our treasured devotional memories, we should cherish that and we should preserve that. So, just as Mother Indra Puri preserved the shards of the pot, we can maybe preserve our memories in a photograph or maybe in a journal entry or some way we need to preserve our memories, our sweet devotional memories so that we can have some stimuli by which we can recollect those deep experiences and thereby relive those experiences and thus remember that spiritual experiences are spiritual happiness, spiritual emotions are real and that they are achievable and so we should persevere in our spiritual journey.

Thank you.