Does surrender mean seeing problems as Krishna’s mercy?
In the context of brahma's prayer to guru krishna that whatever is happening this is your mercy my own karma is coming which you have minimized therefore i offer my blessings to you so this is definitely very elevated consciousness and broadly speaking there are various attitudes which you can have when problems come if a problem is coming we may at one level think oh this Krishna really cares, why is this problem coming some people may go on and say is god causing this problem but it is not that god is up there uncaring he is sending the problem it is problems come to us for various reasons which may ultimately be related to the past karma but the point is Krishna is in here with us and here to help us deal with the problem so it is very difficult, it is almost impossible to see the problem itself as Krishna's and to expect to do that itself means unrealistic most of us even Nrityananda was saying in his final days tamal krishna maharaj the final days final pastimes where at one time you know the past why is this happening it is a natural human reaction and that should not be we cannot, when we have problems, Prabhupada had actually a very prolonged illness and no medical treatment was working for quite some time and Prabhupada's treatment was finished so that is a normal human reaction when there is this trouble, it should not be seen as a lack of faith or anything like that even Arjuna is broken down and unable to escape so firstly, to try to see the problem itself as Krishna's mercy that is very difficult but what we can see is that Krishna's mercy has helped us to deal with the problem it is not the problem is Krishna's mercy tattvenukampam susanikshamanam, this is your mercy O Lord what is the mercy we can see that atmakutam vidham, this problem has come because of my own bad but by your mercy I am going to be when we say that Krishna's mercy minimizes the problem, that can work in various ways sometimes the problem itself might have been very big but by Krishna's mercy the problem has become less but another point is that sometimes our own attitude determines the size of the problem life determines our problems but we determine their size that means when we think too much about a problem we are always conscious about it and that problem eats us up and it becomes bigger and bigger so at that time, what is Krishna's mercy the problem comes for whatever reason but Krishna's mercy enables us to deal with the problem so whenever problems come somehow the problems come with a mental glue it is like if you have a glue it just sticks to something so like that problems come with a glue but they stick to the mind even if we intellectually understand thinking about this problem is not helping we are just not able to think about anything else why did they do this why did this happen and that when the problem gets attached to our mind that eats us up and takes us out of our religion and all our energy and we feel extremely burdened and crushed but if we at that time have an alternative object of thought that itself releases us temporarily at least from the crushing burden of the world and at the very least Krishna can act as an alternative object of thought at that time and especially if you have practiced bhakti if you have practiced japa if you have practiced kirtan if you have practiced sannyas whatever then it will be not so difficult for us to absorb this Krishna and just even the temporary release of thinking about the problem thinking about the problem that itself can give us a lot of mental energy back and then afterwards if by connecting with Krishna we have calmed down we will be able to see the problem greater maturity then we can deal with the problem so Krishna's mercy is that he gives us the resources to deal with the problem so if I have a terrible disease if I get a painful disease to think that the disease is Krishna's mercy is not really a mistake but I can think that if I have this disease and I love my devotee I just cry whatever but here my devotee says Krishna calls out to Krishna and in that there is not just purification, we are remembering Krishna but also there is a relief because we are remembering Krishna so Krishna's mercy is that the problem comes but the sharpness of the problem the intensity of the problem becomes much lesser because we have Krishna's mercy and we can ask ourselves if we compare 10 years ago if we came in the room before and now if a similar problem has come in our life how do we have dealt with earlier and how do we deal with it now we will find that our capacity to deal with problems becomes much bigger so there is a this way by recognizing Krishna's mercy in terms of our capacity to deal with the problems Krishna helps us to deal with the problems we can feel grateful not for the problem but for the fact that we have Krishna in our life Krishna is there in my life and by that I am able to deal with the problems so rudhva kapoorudhir vidhanam namaste with my heart, with my mind, with my body I offer obeisances to Krishna so it is not that I am offering obeisances to Krishna for sending me to the top but I am offering obeisances to Krishna for being present with me in my life to help me deal with the problems and the point is jeevetayo moktipate sadhya what does it mean? that the problems can become justification for us to give up our life but if amidst the problems still we stay connected with Krishna still we stay grateful to Krishna not for the problem but for what is present in our life then that shows the seriousness of our life and Krishna becomes pleased by that so if we stay connected with Krishna and minimize the problems then that shows that we are not just fair-weather devotees when things are right I am better bhakti, when things are difficult I need other things too when Krishna sees that we are connected with him then Krishna becomes pleased with him we are solidifying our relationship with him those who live like this they retain Krishna so this verse how is it connected with surrender surrender essentially means that we we connect with Krishna Arjuna fighting was the way he connected with Krishna so here when the problem is there at that time we continue the disposition by which we can stay connected with Krishna a lot of spiritual advancement in bhakti depends on devotional reinterpretation of reality devotional reinterpretation of life that means certain things have happened in life Parikshit Maharaj was cursed and it was actually it was an outrageously excessive curse, his transgression was very tiny we just put a dead slave darling around a soldier, it was an offence it was a minor offence and the result for that he got was to die in seven days and what was Parikshit Maharaj's response he said the supreme lord has come to me so that I can become free from attachments I was attached to life, Krishna has come so what is this this is devotional reinterpretation of life the reality was it was unfairly cursed, but he is interpreting in such a way that this is Krishna coming to help me come closer Prabhupada worked so hard to upgrade the business and the whole business collapsed what did Prabhupada say Prabhupada said that I was trying to earn money for Krishna but Krishna wanted me to preach that and Krishna forced me to do that so situations will come in our life but when we say I talk at one level about accepting things which are favourable and rejecting things which are unfavourable but it also applies at an inner level where we accept the perspective of the situation that is favourable and reject the perspective that is unfavourable so when Parikshit Maharaj was cursed he could have taken the perspective I was throughout my life at his bhakti and this is what God gives me where is God, God doesn't exist so that would be a perspective which is unfavourable but he took the perspective that is favourable, what is that yes now Krishna, I have been serving Krishna but I have been serving my consciousness is God and so many worldly affairs also in my service to Krishna but now Krishna wants me to serve him, serve him wholeheartedly and that is actually the devotional reinterpretation of reality is an art and we cannot learn it immediately we often need to associate with senior devotees and by that association we can get the insights so so there is a famous example that when Bhaktivedanta Maharaj met Shri Aurobhva so Bhaktivedanta Maharaj he was African American black complexion everybody else in the movement at that time was fair complexioned and on top of that most of the devotees were college dropouts and Bhaktivedanta Maharaj was a Princeton graduate so many devotees didn't know how to deal with him so they normally looked down upon black that was the normal white attitude, all that was changing was there but he was black and he was so much more educated they just didn't know and there was a lot of discrimination against him so he felt that when he came to Prabhupada he told Prabhupada that you are not the one you say but there is racism in the movement Prabhupada did not deny that Prabhupada did not justify that Prabhupada told him they are acting out of the body misconception if you respond in the same body misconception, how are you better people so Prabhupada told him Prabhupada did not deny the reality but Prabhupada gave him a different perspective he told him rise to spiritual consciousness and Bhaktivedanta Maharaj writes that he felt so vindicated Prabhupada loves him, Prabhupada cares for him even if that movement is not accepting him Prabhupada accepts him and Prabhupada allows him to apply his teachings apply his lessons on him in the extreme situation there was body discrimination by Prabhupada's guidance he was able to reinterpret that as an opportunity to rise above our unconsciousness and thus it came into use and later on when the devotees saw him they saw him practicing bhakti so enthusiastically so they dedicated to Prabhupada and they also stopped looking at the wrong complexion and they started to respect him for the wonderful devotee that he was does that answer your question? ok.