How can we experience Krishna’s love at our present level of devotion?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
At this stage, how can we relish Krishna’s love? The love is something that is experienced according to our level of consciousness. When a small baby is born, at that time, the baby may not even know that there is something called the mother. But as the baby is picked up and the mouth of the baby is blessed with the mother’s breast, they will start suckling.
And such delicious milk comes out. And then afterwards, that used, the mother’s breast, becomes a sort of symbol of love. And afterwards, they understand, oh, there’s a person over there.
And then that person loves me, and I can love that person. So, gradually, the understanding develops, the relationship develops. So, for another example, to illustrate this point, suppose I’m sleeping, very cold and sleeping.
And suppose it’s a slightly medieval setting, when it’s cold and there’s a fireplace, the fire is put. And now, I’m sleeping, my eyes are not open, but still, if the fire goes out, I can start feeling cold. And then that cold is uncomfortable, it’s distressing.
And then suddenly, I find that, oh, the fire is being lit. I don’t know that fire is being lit, but what do I find? I suddenly start feeling warm. So, at this stage, my eyes are not open, and I may not be even aware, oh, that is my father or my mother, they are tending the fire.
And that is how the warmth is coming. But all that I experience is the warmth. Now, at this stage, because my eyes are closed, all that I experience is the warmth.
But gradually, when I wake up, then I realize, oh, that warmth was not just automatic. That warmth was coming from a source. And that source was also not automatic.
That source was tended by a person. And that person is my mother. My mother loves me, and because of that, she was keeping my room warm for me.
This is how we, initial stage, we just feel the warmth. But as we wake up, then we start seeing the person is providing the warmth. And then we start seeing the warmth as evidence or expression of the love that person has.
So, similarly, when we are spiritually asleep right now, we are spiritually underdog right now. So, all that we can experience is when we practice Bhakti Yoga, we feel some sense of warmth, some sense of strength, some sense of ecstasy, sometimes when we practice Bhakti. When we chant and dance, we feel something.
I don’t know why I feel, I don’t know what I feel, but I feel and I feel it to be nice. That’s all that I know. So, I don’t know what it is.
But we can experience something. We may not experience it all the time, but we do experience it sometimes. And by this, we understand there must be some higher reality.
Actually, you see that some of the days, when we really, either say, chant or lepa properly, or maybe we do kirtan properly, like recite verses, recite verses, recite scripture, it may be, it may not be exactly tangible in a physical sense, but we do feel some inner strengthening. There is some inner relief when the mind is between us. Something comes, soothing, warming, strengthening within us.
We don’t know what it is, but we experience something. So, for us, at our preliminary stage of spiritual awareness, this itself is an expression of Krishna. So, whatever we experience in bhakti right now, whatever positive and enriching experiences we occasionally have in our bhakti, and we can come in different levels of bhakti right now.
That’s okay. But they are at our stage, expressions of Krishna’s bhakti. And now, we know, it’s not just happening by chance.
And what the Acharyas tell us is that the process by which, what may not come regularly right now, it will become regular when I become purified. So, then we practice bhakti consistently. And as we become purified, this experience will become more and more.
So, right now, when I chant, all that I experience when I chant, seriously, I feel some strengthening, some comfort, some empowering within me. I don’t know what it is. It’s just like a sleeping person feels the warmth because of chanting.
He doesn’t know there’s a fire and there’s a person fending the fire. Similarly, we don’t know that the holy name is non-different from Krishna and it’s Krishna who is present and it is Krishna who showers me and that’s why I’m feeling this nice thing when I chant. We experience something.
So, whatever enriching experiences we have in bhakti right now, they are at our level, experiences of Krishna’s love. And as we keep practicing bhakti more and more, these experiences will become more and more. And if we also, now if you just sink only to these experiences, then you feel, hey, this whole Krishna love is very unpredictable.
Sometimes I experience, sometimes I don’t experience. I don’t know what is all this. Whether it is all real or it is just some imagination of my mind or whatever.
Along with that, we have to have philosophy. We have to have philosophy because that philosophy gives us a proper context in which to understand our experiences. Without the philosophy, those experiences will just come and go and it is one of the many things that I experience in my life.
Sometimes some people on the streets, you know, we have to help them and then they just come and dance. It’s a lot of fun. Now, they got some mazaar, but because they did not have philosophical context, I had fun when they were dancing, I danced with them.
But normally, I go to a pub and I dance over there. So, for them, they just dance either way. So, what I have to do, I don’t have a philosophical context in which to use these experiences.
That’s why along with that, we need philosophy. And philosophy will help us to interpret these experiences as expressions of Krishna’s love for us. And philosophy will also give us a pathway by which we can direct our love towards Krishna and experience his love more.
So, now there are two important points. You have to understand this further. Love is as much emotional as it is an action.
Or it is not just emotional, but it is also intention, it is also commitment. So, even in our normal relationships, you know, even if say a boy and a girl fall in love with each other, you know, initially they may think, oh, whenever I see you, you know, it’s as if some goosebumps fall on my forehead and body. And happy as if my knees are melting and my head is standing on end, whatever.
You may say all that. But psychologists or whatever, neuroscientists have found out that romance normally has a shelf life of 9 to 12 months. That means what happens, initially, when there is some new attraction, then there are certain hormones that are secreted when you are in the presence of the other person.
And those hormones die out when you become familiar with that person. And then afterward, the whole relationship is basically completed. The relationship survives not because of the initial infatuation.
It survives because of subsequent commitment. And that’s why you see, because people mistake the initial infatuation to be love. That’s why there are so, as compared to the past, in the past also, there were romantic novels written.
In the past, there were not so many movies. The romantic novels were always written. Now today, there is much more talk of love than in the past.
And still marriages have much shorter life than in the past. You see this paradox? People talk of love more and more, but they live love less and less. Why? Because they mistake love to be just the initial infatuation.
But the heart of love is not the initial infatuation. It is the subsequent commitment. So, in traditional cultures, love was measured not by how much the initial infatuation is.
They say, in love, in traditional culture, there are arranged marriages. It was the idea that you get married and then you develop your love for each other by being committed to each other. So, the idea anyway is that there has to be commitment.
So, just as for any relationship to be fruitful, there has to be commitment. Same applies to our relationship with each other. So, we get experiences.
We get a philosophical context to understand those experiences. And after that, we commit ourselves to the process. And when we commit ourselves to the process of love, then gradually our experiences will become more and more.
So, at our stage, we should not let our bhakti be dependent only on our feelings. Ultimately, we will get a lot of feelings in our bhakti. But right now, we should not let our bhakti be dependent only on our feelings.
We should let our bhakti rest on our intentions, on our understanding of the purpose of life. Whether I have feelings on my body, I am putting my bhakti aside. And then those feelings will come more and more frequently, more and more deeply.
And they will be more and more fruitful. Does that answer your question?