How can we practically experience Krishna’s love for us?

Answer Podcast:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I understand that the question is intellectually we might say that Krishna always loves us but what can we do practically to express our love for Krishna? Is that the question? Express and experience that love.
Express and experience his love. Yeah. As far as experiencing his love is concerned, at our level of consciousness, we experience that love in the way we experience some shelter, some strength, some relief in his remembrance.
Did I talk about the mother covering the baby with the blanket here? No. Okay. So, love is expressed in different situations in different ways.
Normally we may think of love as somebody coming and hugging and very physical expressions of love. Yes, that is one way love is experienced. But if somebody’s, if a child is sick, the mother may search all around the place to get a medicine and that expresses her love for the child.
If a child needs education, the father works hard tirelessly to earn a living so that the child can be educated. That is how the love is expressed. So, love can be expressed differently in different situations.
Suppose now a very small baby is there. When the baby is very small, the baby doesn’t even understand that this person here is my mother and my mother is loving me. Very small babies are simply in Annamayikosh.
Annamayikosh means everything is potential food for them. Everything. They experience the world.
They put their finger in their mouth. They put their legs in their mouth. They put their toys in their mouth.
Everything is potential food. So, at that time, they will not even be aware that there is a person who is my mother and this mother loves me. And she cares for me.
But suppose, say it’s night and it’s cold and the baby is trembling. And the mother comes there and puts a nice warm blanket around. Now, the baby doesn’t know that there is my mother who has put this blanket.
But the baby experiences the warmth, the comfort. And as the baby grows, as the baby grows, then, even as he is sleeping, the blanket has come on me. Oh, my mother has put my blanket.
That awareness will grow gradually. So, like that, we are like in a state of spiritual infancy right now. So, we can’t pursue Krishna.
We can’t pursue Krishna now. But when we try to absorb ourselves in remembering him, we experience the blanket of comfort, the blanket of relief. When we remember Krishna, we do experience.
When we chant, when we pray, we do experience some relief from the anxiety, relief from the stress, relief from the temptations. So, that relief, that shelter, that strength that we experience right now, that is the expression of Krishna’s love for us, that a level at which we can experience. And just as the baby needs to grow up to make the connection between the warmth of the blanket and the mother, similarly, we need to grow spiritually and then we are going to understand that, okay, this happiness that I am experiencing, this relief that I am experiencing, this is because of Krishna’s love for me.
So, that’s why we need a shastra chakshu to understand Krishna’s love for us at this stage. And along with that, bhakti is a reciprocal process. So, Krishna loves us.
Now, as compared to this baby, the baby is automatically going to grow up. But with respect to us, our spiritual growth, it is not just biological or chronological, it is volitional. We have to use our will.
We have to choose to love Krishna. And the more we choose to love Krishna, the more, as I said, the sun is always giving light, but the eyes are closed and we can’t see the light. But we open our eyes and we start seeing the light.
So, the more we try to love Krishna, the more our eyes open, our heart opens and we can experience His love more and more. So, that’s why at a preliminary level, even a person who doesn’t know anything about Krishna or about chanting can come and kirtan dance and experience something. But that may just be one experience, one interesting experience in many experiences I had in my life.
Oh, I went to a hill station, I went for a swim, I went to Hare Krishna temple and danced. What has happened? That experience came, but that experience did not become an impetus for reciprocation. So, when we make whatever spiritual experiences we have, understand then that these are expressions of Krishna’s love for me and then make them into an impetus for directing our love towards Him.
Then that experience, then it is like we start growing up spiritually. And as we start growing up spiritually, we start sensing Krishna’s love more and more in all situations. So, for example, in Ainshila Prabhupada’s diary, that is going on through Jalruta, he writes that what is there? Thanks to Lord Krishna for enlightening Sunti Muraji from within her heart to provide vegetarian food on this ship.
Now, he could have said, Sunti Muraji, I read it. Why did he say? Thanks to Krishna for enlightening Sunti Muraji from within her heart to provide this food. So, what is the proof? He is not just seeing this food or he is not just seeing the person, the donor providing the food.
He is saying this is the action of Krishna who has provided this for me. So, this is one simple example. But this is how a devotee sees Krishna’s hand everywhere.
Whatever is happening to us, we see the immediate cause, but we see the ultimate cause also. So, that’s how we can experience Krishna’s love more and more gradually. Does that answer your question? Thank you.