How do we know that Krishna accepts our gratitude?

Transcript

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How do we know that Krishna accepts our gratitude That way we can we can also ask How do we know Krishna accepts our chanting How do we know Krishna accepts our bhoga when we offer So broadly speaking there are three aspects to it One is intelligence, second is faith and third is experience When we are practicing bhakti we hear from scripture that Krishna is bhakta vatsala Krishna loves his devotees We hear from scripture the past times that how when the devotee offers something to Krishna, Krishna accepts it Krishna has accepted, not just accepted Krishna has stolen food from him Krishna actually steals So Krishna is a living, loving person We understand this by hearing scripture at least at the level of intelligence Then when we associate with devotees who are living this life Say for me, when I first go to the temple or for a person, when they go first to the temple they may think that Krishna has just decorated the statue But then if you associate with some pujaris who have devoted their life to Krishna and day after day, week after week, month after month year after year they are serving the deities There must be something over here How can somebody do this So much sacrifice year after year And if you talk with them, you say they are intelligent people they are not just sentimental people doing something Then that gives us some faith And then there is experience Now experience it is bhakti pareshanubhava viraktiranyasvarcha In the 11th canto it is said Bhakti is a process that gives us anubhav, experience of paraishya that is a lord who is para, who is transcendental That lord cannot be experienced by any material means It’s not that I go and go on the altar and hug the deities Not necessarily I will be experiencing you will be present But it is when I have bhakti whenever I look from distance I will see some special thing So it is bhakti which gives us paraishya anubhav And that paraishya anubhav leads to viraktiranyasvarcha It leads to detachment from other things So paraishya anubhav means tushti pushti kshitabhava kshitabhaya is there That we feel nourished tushti pushti We feel our hunger is being satisfied Like we have prasadam now So the hunger gets satisfied Not only hunger gets satisfied, we feel strength coming And then we feel joy Oh this food is so good Similarly for us, when we start practicing bhakti As we practice bhakti we feel the strength to practice bhakti more That itself is one level of experience of Krishna That means, ok, I come to a temple and next time I want to come to a temple again I fast once on ekadashi I want to fast again Though we may not directly see Krishna But There is something which you have experienced which makes us want to do that activity again So the strength to say no to the body and mind’s cravings and the strength to stay connected with Krishna increases And as we keep doing it Not only the strength in terms of determination increases, but also the joy increases Ya, this is so wonderful So for us the experience of this strength, of this joy This is actually Krishna reciprocating with us. Krishna is Krishna’s greatest blessing That means, it’s not that we have to experience something else to know that Krishna is reciprocating with us If we feel more absorbed in Krishna Then that means that Krishna is accepting our devotional offering and is reciprocating by revealing himself in our hearts Prabhupada would say, what is the result of chanting? More chanting What does that mean practically speaking? That means When we are connecting with Krishna through the process of chanting The result is that we want to connect more and more with him So if we find that becoming grateful By becoming grateful By cultivating gratitude Our consciousness improves We start feeling more connected with Krishna We start feeling more joyful in our connection with Krishna That emotion itself is actually a reciprocation of Krishna So Suppose when a baby is new born The baby doesn’t even know that there is a mother over there Baby just in the mouth something comes up and starts sucking and starts sucking it As the baby starts growing up Then the baby starts saying, oh this is the mother and she is giving me milk And then Slowly the baby’s awareness grows That this mother loves me, she cares for me This is a very cold night The baby is shivering And the mother sees Oh, my baby is shivering And the mother puts a nice comforter on the baby And the baby starts feeling warm And the baby has not opened her eyes She is fast asleep But just that sensation, at one moment the chill was there The next moment the comfort has come By that the baby My mother must be there Mother must have put the blanket She has not opened her eyes and seen the mother But just by the sensation of the comfort She understands, my mother must be there Similarly for us, when we connect with Krishna and Krishna reciprocates by revealing himself to us Whatever agitation might be there in our consciousness, the chill that we are experiencing, it’s like a comforter comes on our consciousness We start feeling joyful We start feeling blissful So our eyes, we are like that baby whose eyes are closed right now Our eyes are not yet opened by which we can see Krishna But by experiencing the relief and the joy that comes by connecting with Krishna, we understand that Krishna is here and Krishna is reciprocating That’s how we at our level, we need Jnana Chakshu, the eyes of knowledge to perceive how Krishna is reciprocating with us And eventually as we become more and more spiritually advanced, then like the baby wakes up and sees the mother our spiritual senses will awaken At that time the soul is, I talked earlier about inner seer, inner screen and outer scene. So our inner screen, the mind either acts like a window or it acts like a TV screen But when we become purified and the consciousness becomes purged of materialistic inclinations, then This stops acting like a TV directing or whatever But it becomes like a mirror And that mirror we see ourselves and we see the super soul next to us When that consciousness becomes cleansed then we start seeing ourselves and when this purified when the soul by seeing in the mirror of the purified mind the self, the Atma as well as the Paramatma the soul becomes joyful So that will take time But at our level when we experience the joy and relief that comes by trying to connect with Krishna, we can see that joy and relief itself as Krishna reciprocating with us Like a mother putting a comforter Krishna is putting the comforter of his of absorption in him as his reciprocation with our devotion