How does the hladini shakti entering our consciousness please Krishna?

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Transcript

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The question is that if the purpose of bhakti is to please Krishna then how does our making our disposition receptive to ladhan shakti how does this please Krishna? We shouldn’t think of Krishna’s pleasure and our pleasure as being mutually contradictory it is not that they are completely non-intersecting circles it is not that we have to give up our pleasure entirely to give Krishna pleasure Krishna loves us and do you think that Krishna wants us to be miserable for all of eternity just to give him pleasure obviously not rather than thinking of giving up pleasure we have to understand that there are what we call as pleasure if you put it in a circle there are pro-devotional there is non-devotional and there is anti-devotional so what we have to give up is the anti-devotional pleasures for example the regular principle that we follow that involves giving up the anti-devotional pleasures that’s one example of that but there are pro-devotional pleasures for example if somebody can sing nicely now I will give a more graphic example suppose somebody makes a joke in a class now if instead of laughing about the joke I start thinking am I laughing for Krishna’s pleasure or am I am I laughing for Krishna’s pleasure or am I directly paralysis by analysis directly paralysis by analysis it wasn’t so much just laugh so now it is within the purview of bhakti if the discussion is about spiritual subject matter and some spiritual subject matter is being illustrated through a humorous theme there is nothing wrong in fact it is desirable so the whole process of bhakti centers on recognizing that our pleasure and Krishna’s pleasure in the truest sense are intersecting sets or rather our pleasure is like a sub-circle or a subset within the super set of Krishna’s pleasure so whatever gives Krishna pleasure will also give us pleasure when the root of a tree is watered the branches and the leaves are also watered so back at present when we are not pure we may not perceive it right so in general it is not that to practice bhakti means we have to deprive ourselves of all pleasure or it is not that we have to give up all the activities that give us pleasure I like singing very much therefore I will never sing because I like it so much what kind of twisted reasoning is that? no, so now it is possible that if I like singing so much I may like to sing just for the sake of singing and it may happen like if I am not a sadhaka then today I will be singing some bhajans tomorrow I will be singing Bollywood songs but if I am a sadhaka I may still have an inclination to sing Bollywood songs but I will not sing them so I will keep my singing within the scope of bhakti now within that also initially I will be singing yes there is certainly a devotional element to it because I am singing about Krishna but my focus will be on how nicely I am singing and my focus will be on how many people appreciate me after my singing so if I am giving a class I will think how much are people impressed by my class and in the early days I started giving classes one day I just gave a class nobody came and appreciated the class so I started feeling so disappointed and then it struck me that actually I was happier when I was giving the class than after the class because when I was giving the class I was absorbing Krishna but after the class instead of being absorbed in Krishna I was expecting something apart from remembrance of Krishna so over a period of time as we start realizing that engagement in bhakti itself gives us more fulfillment than whatever result we may get by engaging in bhakti once we start realizing that it’s not that we don’t care for the result but it’s that we don’t focus on the result we focus on doing the activity well if people appreciate yes we see that as Krishna encouraging us but we don’t do it just for appreciation or encouragement so gradually our bhakti becomes more and more selfless so it’s a process that will happen gradually so how does Krishna get happiness when the ladhan shakti enters our heart? Krishna as the supreme parent wants us to be happy and just seeing us happy will make him happy but there are different kinds of happiness also say a son may drink and think I am happy but will that make the father happy? not really unless the father is also a drunkard our religion thinking that we are happy but otherwise the father will want the son to be happy in a healthy way similarly we may think we are happy engaging in sensual activities but Krishna knows that is just a superficial happiness which will end in misery Krishna wants us to be happy in a healthy way so when he sees us happy in bhakti that itself makes him happy further he is he is complete at the same time he wants the nature of love is to expand we will discuss this more in the next class there is reciprocation of love that brings happiness to Krishna so although we may not right now be doing bhakti with great level of affection but there is definitely some level of affection and that level of affection also pleases Krishna just that we have entered into a circle of love and we are trying to serve him even with some impure motives or whatever but still we are trying to serve him that pleases Krishna and as we become purer and purer he will be more and more pleased so as our purity increases the pleasure that Krishna gets through our service increases but even now the very fact that we are in his circle of devotion that itself pleases him so the ladri shakti when it enters into our heart that means that actually we are entering into Krishna’s circle of love and the fact that we are coming closer to Krishna that pleases him because we are reciprocating affection with him that pleases him so the test for our bhakti we shouldn’t think that just because something gives me pleasure so I’ll stop doing it nor should we think that because something doesn’t give me pleasure I’ll stop doing it so I will do my devotional activities as a discipline but while doing them as a discipline if there are some ways in which I can maximize the taste I get in them there is nothing wrong with that if I have to study shastra but if I find that I feel more inspired by studying Shri Adan Charita Amrit than Bhagavatam then does it mean that because I’m not getting taste in Bhagavatam so I’ll study Bhagavatam and not Shri Adan Charita Amrit no we don’t have to have that kind of logic now whatever gives us taste we do that and we go onwards closer to Krishna that way so different senior devotees different prabhupadas, different gurus they may sing in different tunes Hare Krishna, Maa Madhavati now why does it you know if somebody may say Prabhupada sang in Prabhupada, why can’t everyone sing in Prabhupada and we are all individuals and individuals will express bhakti in an individual way and that’s perfectly alright so there is within the purview of devotion like a big circle of devotion all of us can find us what is it that gives us the taste gives us strength, gives us stability and we can do that relatively more and that way we can move onwards towards Krishna and by that we’ll become purified by that our bhakti will become stable and we’ll become purified and we’ll move closer to Krishna and then as we become purer and go closer to Krishna our bhakti will please him more and more so we shouldn’t worry too much right now whether our bhakti is pleasing to Krishna or not what we should focus on is how can I make my bhakti as steady as possible we have to study the bhakti because right now how will we even know whether we are pleasing Krishna or not even if we may say that when Krishna is pleased then I get when Krishna is pleased then I also get spiritual taste so if I am getting taste that means Krishna is pleased but sometimes we don’t get taste does that mean that Krishna is not pleased we’ll get into a whole mental mode it may not be that we may not be getting taste not because Krishna is displeased it may be simply because the modes are too much troubling us so we don’t have to get too much into a devotionally speculative zone of what is pleasing to Krishna and what is not pleasing to Krishna we can focus primarily on what enables us to practice bhakti steadily if we keep practicing bhakti steadily we’ll become purer and automatically we’ll keep pleasing Krishna more and more ok