How can we make rapid spiritual advancement?

Transcript

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how can we become advanced in our spiritual life quickly we all want to make rapid spiritual advancement so how can we do that actually spiritual advancement is essentially a matter of relationships ultimately what does spiritual advancement mean? it means developing a relationship with Krishna so when we have to develop a relationship with Krishna how do we develop that relationship? how do we develop that relationship? by serving Krishna how do we develop a relationship with anyone? when a child is born to a mother, actually the two souls are unknown how do the child and the mother develop a relationship? through service so like that every relationship it essentially develops through service and service is based on caring so we have our emotional world the things which we like the things which we care for and when we want to love someone essentially what happens is that person has one’s own emotional world what that person considers important, what that person likes so when there has to be love, the two emotional worlds need to intersect for example say when a man and a woman, they come together that they have a child both of them love the child so in the child, the emotional world of the mother and the father unite and in that way their relationship becomes deeper initially the relationship might have been largely physical but it becomes deeper after that so like that essentially spiritual advancement means that our emotional world should intersect with Krishna’s emotional world, not just intersect but also overlap so that eventually our emotional world becomes a sector or a circle within Krishna’s broad emotional world Krishna is infinite so his emotions are also infinite so his emotional world will be infinite and we are individuals so it is not that when we say our world should unite with Krishna’s, it is not that we will merge we will have our independent identity but our concerns will become Krishna’s concerns not that we will trust our concerns on Krishna but rather that we will take up Krishna’s concerns as our own, of course Krishna will also take up our concerns because Krishna protects his devotees but love is primarily sacrifice, we gain also but we also give so essentially if we want to make spiritual advancement we have to start caring for the things that Krishna cares about so the more we start caring for those things the more we will automatically become spiritually advanced so now what are the things that Krishna cares about there is the internal side and there is the external side so there is internal remembrance and there is external service so internally when we try to remember Krishna more and more we can, one characteristic of love is that a person who loves someone, naturally thinks of that person so there is an alternative way which is involved in bhakti in material world we develop love for someone and then we think of that person so in movies they may show a hero is there the hero may be in a bus but he is as if not in the bus because the mind is somewhere, dreaming of being with the heroine holding on to the bus, mind is far away so what is this this is actually it’s not love, it’s infatuation maybe later it will become love if there is deepening of the relationship but this is a glimpse of what love can be so normally there is love there is remembrance associated with that so now the relationship between love and remembrance is not just one way it is not just that love leads to remembrance in the case of Krishna, remembrance leads to love remembrance may not lead to love in the case of other people we may have a professor who troubles us a lot in college and we always think what will the professor say that remembrance will not lead to love why? because there is no inner affection in that relationship but in the case of Krishna actually we have an original relationship with Krishna we have just forgotten it so remembrance of Krishna acts like a cure for our spiritual amnesia all of us have forgotten Krishna so that is a disease of forgetfulness like sometimes we see in movies a person gets hit on the head and forgets so like that we have forgotten so when we remember Krishna actually we revive our original love for Krishna through that remembrance so that’s why the more we cultivate the remembrance of Krishna the love for Krishna will automatically develop but till that time our remembrance of Krishna is the expression of our desire to love of our intention to love so the more we try to think of Krishna internally instead of the things that currently give us pleasure you know currently lust anger greed and things associated with those may give us pleasure but we sacrifice that actually they give us a little pleasure but after that they cause a lot of torture I want that when will I get it, why can’t I get it so much craving that comes so it’s not pleasure, it’s actually torture but we think of it to be pleasure but even if there is some pleasure we sacrifice that for the sake of Krishna so instead of thinking of the things that give us pleasure especially things which are immoral or anti-devotional we focus on the things connected with Krishna and that inner sacrifice is also an expression of love an expression of at least the intention to love and that will lead to tremendous inner advancement and not only advancement that will help us become much more peaceful and it will make our whole inner world powerful because we will be able to focus on things dharmic energy will not be dissipated in hundred of things so internally while trying to cultivate more and more remembrance of Krishna whenever possible it can mean various things chant the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, recite some shlokas we remember some philosophy we think about the deities we sing the holy name in some tunes whatever it is that’s internally and externally it is through service so generally the more responsibility we take up in service to Krishna then the more we are forced to commit ourselves see if you are working in a college or if you are studying in a college or working in a company say the boss tells the company that you have to complete this work tomorrow and then tomorrow you go and come completed no, why? I didn’t feel like doing it will we ever say like that to the boss I didn’t feel like doing it no, we will never say that, why? because there is a seriousness of that commitment now that seriousness may be based on fear that the boss will fire me but when there is seriousness then we don’t let our commitments stay at the mercy of our feelings I will do it no matter how I feel so same way, there can be service and there can be responsibility service means somebody tells you please clean the temple, please carry these books please do this, that is good some say how we have to do some service, that is good but responsibility means that we take up the commitment of getting something done and when we take up some responsibility as a commitment then we have to put aside the feelings of the mind I don’t feel like doing it, still I will do it so by doing that way, you know when we take a commitment, it involves an anxiety because sometimes things may not work out so easily and we may have to deal with so many challenges for that but when we do that, we commit ourselves to some service to Krishna by that commitment we will be able to please Krishna tremendously so in one sense the places where in some places if we are there and we feel there are not many devotees and you don’t have so much association and you feel that oh the spiritual atmosphere is not so vibrant over here so when we feel like that, we can see that as a deficiency or we can see that as an opportunity so deficiency is not there opportunity means, ok it’s not there then here is an opportunity for me to be a part of creating it and every one of us has enormous power, that is the power of example and if we show an example of a committed devotee others will share in that example and they will become inspired so rather than feeling that ok the atmosphere is not so strong even if it is true, rather than focusing on that we try to bring about a change by becoming committed or becoming responsible in one sense, where there are not many devotees there is a far greater opportunity to do valuable service and receive Krishna’s mercy when somebody asks please get me a glass of water you get a glass of water, that’s a service but if there is a soldier on a war field wounded please give me some water giving a water at that time may be a matter of difference between life and death so where there is a greater need there is far greater value to the service same way when there are not many devotees the service that we do, that is far more valuable in the sense of circumstantial necessity and also in the sense of the inner sacrifice that is required to do that service because we don’t have too many inspiring examples to do that service when we do the service at that time we get far greater mercy so by trying to cultivate inner remembrance of Krishna and by taking up responsibility in the service of Krishna responsibility starting to care for what Krishna cares about we can get our emotional world to intersect with Krishna’s emotional world and the more the two emotional worlds intersect the more will be our spiritual advancement so in that way wherever we are we can swiftly advance in spiritual life by this intersection of the emotional world through inner remembrance and outer service thank you very much so if we have