Learning from the guru named death

Congregation program at Bahrain

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
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Hare Krishna. So, thank you for inviting us today. I will speak briefly on the topic of learning from the guru named death.
In our life, we all can learn from various situations and whatever we do, the death of someone close to us, there are few things which are as jarring as death and it raises some fundamental questions. The question it raises most is, first we may have the question, why does this happen? But then if we move forward, we will find that death is something which happens to everyone. But just because it is inevitable, that alone doesn’t make it acceptable.
Just because it is going to happen to everyone doesn’t necessarily mean that, no, I accept it’s happening. Why does it happen? So, that question remains. And if we go deeper, we can explore what is the reason why we feel as if death is an intrusion in life.
It’s an interruption in life, it’s an intrusion in life. It’s like a unnatural predator that has come and destroyed things for us. Ultimately, whatever we do in life, we are looking for some sense of meaning, some sense of understanding.
So, spirituality helps us understand that God’s power to heal is greater than the world’s power to hurt. This world has an enormous power to hurt us in many different ways, but God’s power to heal is greater than the world’s power to hurt. So, when we look around in our life, we all try to make sense of things.
So, in fact, if we consider today our world as… If any of you are uncomfortable, you want to sit above, please feel comfortable. You can sit on chairs. So, today the world has been dramatically transformed by science.
And science is also basically an attempt to make sense of things. So, for example, when Newton saw a fruit falling, last month I was in Cambridge, went to the tree where Newton had actually seen the fruit falling, at least some successor of that tree, not the same tree. But there he wanted to make sense, what made this tree fall, what made this fruit fall.
So, science is an attempt to make sense of things. And through various theories, through various laws, basically science does make sense of things for us. At the same time, science alone cannot help us to make sense of the big picture.
Albert Einstein said that the sciences, the religions and the arts, they are all fruits of the same tree of human knowledge, the same human intelligence that wants to make sense of things. When it explores in this world, in the material world, trying to understand things here, that’s how science comes up. When we try to make sense by depicting things, that’s when art comes up.
And then we want to explore what lies beyond this world. That is when religion and spirituality comes up. But it’s essentially the same human urge to try to make sense of things.
Now, if you look at science alone, science helps us to make sense, okay, why does this fruit fall? Why do the planets move? What makes them move? All those things, okay, I just pick up a phone and I can talk with anyone in any part of the world. How does this happen? It helps us to make sense of things. But then, as I said, the big picture, okay, why do I exist? What is the purpose of life? Why does life go in a particular way where all of us are fated or doomed to death eventually? These are things for which science alone cannot offer answers.
So, if we stick only to science, then we end up with some islands of meaning in an ocean of meaninglessness. Islands of meaning. Yes, you know, why does this fruit fall like this? Now, why do planets move like this? Why does electricity lead to increase in temperature? All those things we understand, but we don’t understand our own existence.
So, we get islands of meaning in an ocean of meaninglessness. So, spirituality helps us to understand that actually even the ocean has meaning. It’s not an ocean of meaninglessness.
And if we look at our own urge, we all want to live forever and we want our loved ones to live forever. So, where does this urge come from? If basically we have, when we approach the world, we have two broad ways of looking at the world. One is the materialistic worldview, the other is the spiritual worldview.
The materialistic worldview tells us that we are just products of matter and somehow the matter that makes all of us, it has come alive, it stays alive for some time and then it gets extinguished. So, basically existence is just two infinities of nothingness with a fraction of life in between. So, before my birth, I didn’t exist, nothingness.
After my death, I won’t exist. Just a little bit of flash of life that I have. A life itself becomes just pointless.
And not only do we have a small flash of life, but also this small flash, it can end at any moment. Oh, just some bug can enter into the body, some car can bang into a person and then we consider our life to be so meaningful. You know, we make plans, okay, I want to get a home, I want to get a job, I want to build a career.
We strive purposefully in life and in just one moment everything can be finished. So, when the question comes, what does it mean? What is the point of it all? So, these are questions which we have the capacity to explore. Darwin talked about theory of the survival of the fittest.
Now, Srila Prabhupada, the founder of ISKCON, he pointed out that actually in this world, even the fittest don’t survive. No one survives. The fitter may survive more than others, but ultimately no one survives.
So, on one side, if we consider that we are simply products of matter, then we just exist for some time and then we die. And then everything is over. So, it all becomes so meaningless.
And then the question comes up, okay, it’s all just meaningless, then why do we have an urge to try to find meaning? If we were just meant to be everything is just meant to be meaningless, then we would not have an urge to look for meaning in life also. So, if you look at nature, now we have the urge for thirst and there is water in nature. We have the urge for food and we have the hunger and there is food in nature.
Now, we have the desire to procreate and we have the desire to have children and there is a mechanism in nature by which that is fulfilled. So, we see all the fundamental urges that are there in us, there are means by which they are fulfilled. So, the search for meaning is also a very fundamental urge in us.
So, that search for meaning, spirituality helps us to fulfil that. And it helps us to understand that actually we are on a multi-life journey. We are eternal beings.
We are souls and as souls, eternal beings, we are not meant to die. We are meant for an eternal existence. And the present life that we have, this is actually simply one stage in a multi-life journey.
Like suppose somebody has to go to a very distant place, remote place, that they may go from one place to another by plane and then after that they get off the plane, then they catch a car, then they may catch a boat, then they may trek and then finally they reach on top of a mountain. So, like this is a multi-vehicle journey that they have. So, like that in our existence, each body that we have is like a vehicle.
And with a vehicle, we go to a particular distance and then after that we leave the vehicle, but our journey goes on. We continue to exist and our journey continues to go on. So, this life should, as I said, talk about learning from the Guru of death.
So, now somebody may say, okay, what happens after death? How do I know? Yes, we may not know what happens after death, but what we can know is that our very longing for life to go on, that indicates that there must be some aspect to our being which goes on. A, this floor is made of tiles and suddenly if I find there is a gold earring over here. The gold earring does not belong to this floor.
Actually, the question will come, where did this earring come from? Does it belong to someone? Maybe it fell out of somewhere, some treasure, something like that. So, when we see something which does not belong to that place, the question comes up, where did this come from? So, if we look at the world around us, everything here is temporary. Nothing is enduring.
Even the biggest of buildings, the tallest of trees, the highest of mountains, the deepest of oceans, none of them are going to last forever. So, everything here is temporary and yet we have a desire to live on and on and on. So, this desire is actually out of place.
Just like a gold earring in this floor made of tiles is out of place and that raises the question, where did this come from? So, like that our desire to live on and on, that is out of place in this world where everything is temporary. And this to a perceptive person, it indicates that there is some aspect of our being which is out of place, that there is some aspect of our being which does not belong here. This world is temporary but something within us wants to be eternal, wants to live on and on.
So, that aspect is what the Bhagavad Gita calls as the Atma and the Atma is on a multi-life chain and the Atma is meant for eternal life. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that, In 8th chapter 20th verse, Krishna says that, beyond this world, everything in this world will be destroyed but beyond this world there is an eternal world and that is where we belong, that is where, that is the place for which we actually long. Even if we don’t realise it right now, we are actually longing for that place where life will be eternal, where love will be eternal and the relationships will go on.
And in our life, we are all having that opportunity to move our life in that direction. So, as I was telling that all living beings are going to die and we human beings among the various living beings in this world, we have the intelligence to ask the question not just why do we have to die but rather why is it that we don’t want to die. That is because something is there within us which is eternal.
This other species, they can’t ask this question. They all have to face death and for them death is the end. For us, we understand that death is not a termination, it is a transition.
And the people whom we love, they continue to exist at some other level, in some other arena of reality. And that’s why the Bhagavad Gita, actually the broad body of the wisdom of bhakti which emerges from the Bhagavad Gita talks about two kinds of relationships. There’s a vertical relationship with God and there’s a horizontal relationship with other living beings, with our family members, with our relatives, with our friends.
And this capacity to harmonise both these relationships, the vertical relationship and the horizontal relationship, that is the capacity that will bring the maximum fulfilment from our life. So, the lower species, the non-human species, they also have relationships. Their relationships are only horizontal.
They can’t really conceive of God or of connecting with Him. We can and the vertical relationship, when we connect with God through the process of bhakti, this relationship is our eternal relationship. Now, the eternal relationship and the relationships in this world, they both can be harmonised if you understand the interconnectedness.
That we are all parts of God. So, I’m a part of God, you are a part of God, every single one of us is a part of God. And we are all meant to be together as one whole.
So, our vertical relationship connects us with the whole and our horizontal relationship connects us with other parts. And these two relationships can work together. Whenever we have any relationship, there can be dependence, there can be independence, there can be interdependence.
Sometimes some people are very emotionally dependent on someone else. When they are very emotionally needy or emotionally dependent on others, then whenever that other person does something which they feel is uncaring, just get completely shaken. Or if some people are very emotionally demanding, then the relationship, although it is essential, it is not comfortable.
We can’t live without that relationship, but still we feel very shaky. So, when there is too much dependence in a relationship, then navigating that relationship is like walking through a landmine-filled area. Any moment, anything can cause an explosion.
On the other hand, if there is too much independence in the relationship, basically I do what I want to do, you do what you don’t want to do. But then there is no relationship only in that. A relationship means there has to be interconnectedness.
So, there is beyond dependence and independence, there is interdependence. So, interdependence, that can happen. Actually, interdependence is possible only when there is independence.
Independent people can choose to become interdependent. And in dependence on God, we get independence. When we learn to depend on God, that gives us inner security.
So, our vertical relationship with God, when we develop that through the practise of bhakti, then that gives us peace, that gives us serenity, that gives us stability. Whatever things may go wrong in life, somebody may misunderstand me, I may lose someone, whatever happens, God is still there with me, He is in my heart, and by connecting with Him, I can gain stability, I can gain peace. So, with that shelter of that relationship, then whatever horizontal relationship we form, then we can act with maturity in those relationships.
This way, our vertical relationship brings stability and maturity to our horizontal relationships. And conversely, our horizontal relationship can also inspire our vertical relationship. If we have people who are around us, our relatives, our friends, who are spiritually minded, who give time and attention for their vertical relationship, then by their inspiration, we also become inspired.
Oh, yeah, they are also doing this, I also want to do this. I just, last month I was in America, and there I met many Indian expatriates. One of the major concerns of parents when they are outside India is how to preserve our culture and pass it on to our children.
Now, when the parents, say, are having some religious culture, and the parents, they go to a temple, and say the father folds his hands and bows down, or the mother folds her hands and bows down before the Lord, and the child says, what is my parent doing? The child also does that. Now, what is happening over here? The child may not understand what I am doing, but there is a, there is subconscious learning that is happening. So, here, the child is horizontally related with the parents, but by the parents’ example, child is also internalising spiritual ideas.
You may not understand it at a conscious level at all, but at a subconscious level, this is the meaning of samskara, impressions are happening. So, in any relationship, if the horizontal relationships connect us with somebody who is spiritual, that strengthens our vertical relationships. Now, the horizontal relationships, they may or may not endure for whatever reason, but the vertical relationship endures, and the purpose and perfection of the horizontal relationships is to inspire us to connect and develop in the vertical relationship.
There is a famous prayer, many of you may have heard it, So, what this prayer means is, this is addressed to God. It says, you are the mother, you are the father. You are my brother, you are my friend.
And not only people, relationships also talks about things. You are knowledge. You are wealth.
Oh God, you are my everything. Oh God of Gods, in fact. You are my everything.
What this means is, it is not literally saying that the mother is God or the father is God. Rather it is saying, you are the mother, you are the father, you are the friend. What does this mean? In the Srimad Bhagavatam, in Srimad Bhagavatam, the Bhagavata Purana is one of the most important devotional classics from the Indian tradition, and there it is described that there was a small boy, Prahlad, sorry, Dhruva, and this boy was very grievously insulted by his stepmother.
And his father was actually partial towards the stepmother. And he, in order to not displease her, remained silent. And his mother was powerless when she was insulted.
So, at that time, she told her son, don’t just cry. Crying will not achieve anything. She says, I want to show my father.
I want to have a kingdom bigger than my father’s kingdom. And I’ll show him. How can I do that? And this is just a five-year-old boy.
What is Dhruva’s mother telling? That it is Vishnu only who can fulfil your desire. And now for a small child, the mother is practically everything. And the father is often away.
The mother is always close relatively speaking. So, then Dhruva’s mother told him that whatever love I can offer you, Vishnu can offer you millions of times more love. Whatever love I can offer you, Vishnu can offer you millions of times more love.
What this means is two things. First is that the love that we experience in the relationships in this world is real. Some people think spirituality means we think that everything in this world is false and just leave everything and go towards spirituality.
That is not the understanding. If everything in this world were false, then millions of, it is said Vishnu’s love for us is millions of times more than say a mother’s love for us. But if the mother’s love is false, that way the understanding is zero.
And millions of times zero would also stay zero. So, it’s saying here the love that we experience in this world is real. It is real, but it is finite.
It is finite. So, it’s like a drop, whereas Vishnu’s love is like an ocean. So, the drops, we don’t deny the reality of the drops.
Whatever love we experience in a relationship, that shelters us, that inspires us, that guides us, and we are grateful for that. At the same time, the drop is meant to help us, to remind us of the ocean. The drop alone is not going to satisfy our need for love.
You know, there are a few, there is practically, there are very few other experiences of love as intimate and as selfless as the way a mother cares for her child. First, she has a child in her own womb, and when a child comes out, then she offers her own breast milk to the child. So, that’s a very intimate bond between child and mother.
And even in this bond, we can see that God plays a role. The mother may say, you know, I fed you my breast milk, that is true, but the mother did not make the breast milk. The same God who sent a child into her womb and helped the child be delivered, that same God has also sent milk in her breast.
So, there is this harmony of human love and divine love. And whatever love we experience in our relationship in this world, we are grateful for that love. And in return, we try to return and offer our love to them.
All along, we understand that this is a drop. And if the drop can be so fulfilling, if the loss of the drop can be so shattering at times, then how much more will be the, will be the sublime power and glory of the ocean. So, when a loved one passes away, there is, there are multiple emotions that go through us.
One is we have lost that person, whatever place that they are filled in our life, we lost that. Another is that we don’t know what has happened to them, where they are, what is happening to them. That also causes anxiety for us.
Spirituality helps us to actually see with the light of wisdom that ultimately it was God who brought two people together. And we will be with each other for some time, whatever relationship it may be. But God is there with everyone at all times.
Now, the Bhagavad Gita says, In everyone’s heart, I am situated. So, God is the companion who goes from this life to next life to each life. He is there, He is there with us and He is there with our loved ones.
So, wherever they are, they are under the care of God. And when they are there with us, we can do something for them physically. When they are not there with us in this life, we cannot do anything for them physically now.
But still, we can help them spiritually. Because the same God who is present in our heart, the same God is present with them wherever they are. And when we offer our prayers, when we do spiritual activities dedicated for them, and all this is a way by which we can express our love for them even now.
And the same God who has guided us in our life, the same God who has guided them in their life, that God is there in a future life, wherever they are, to guide them on. And so, for us, the loss of the drop, now it is not to minimise anyone’s love by saying that it’s a drop, but from the point of view of the ultimate reality, it is finite. It cannot last even if we want it to last.
So, in that sense, it is a drop. The drop is meant to remind us of the ocean, that actually our need for relationship, our need for love, that is fulfilled in our relationship with God. And we reorient our life in such a way that we harmonise our vertical and horizontal relationships.
And that is the practise of bhakti. So, bhakti yoga is, there is, there is, there is, in, basically, I’ll conclude with this point. There are, in the world’s religious traditions, there are three broad approaches.
There is the approach of karma, there is the approach of bhakti. The approach of karma is that God will help me to make my life better here, that I pray to God that God will arrange things better for me in life. And this is the prominent approach of most religions and of most followers.
So, for example, in the Bible, they pray that, O father, thou art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, give us our daily bread. So, Prabhupada would say that this is good, we are going to God and asking for bread. We’re connecting with God in this.
At the same time, the nature of this world is that everything is temporary. So, when we approach God with the level of karma, thinking that God will make things better for me in life, God can do that, and in many ways God does do that, but the nature of this world itself is that everything is temporary. So, the karma way of approaching God and approaching life, that inevitably leads to frustration, because everything here is temporary.
And the other approach is the jnana way. The jnana way is that, oh, this world is temporary, this world is filled with illusion, just reject the world. So, in karma, people romanticise the world.
They think, oh, if I just make some adjustments financially, socially, religiously, then everything will be wonderful in life. But the jnana approach goes to the other extreme and says, everything in life is dreadful. I just don’t want to have anything to do with this world.
So, this is where we demonise the world. I don’t give up everything. Nothing in this world is real.
But actually, we are really here in this world and we have to live in this world, whatever we do. So, if you consider the pendulum, the karma approach is like one extreme of the pendulum. The jnana approach is another extreme.
The bhakti approach is the balance. We don’t romanticise the world. We don’t demonise the world.
We utilise the world. Utilise the world means that we understand that although the things in this world are temporary, they are also the pathways to the eternal. They are the pathways to the eternal.
That means whatever relationships we have with others, those relationships, even if they are not going to last, but if we function those relationships in a mood of loving service, service to our relatives and service to God of whom we are all parts, and we develop our relationship spiritually by giving due time to connect with God in our vertical relationship by practising bhakti, by chanting his holy names, by studying Bhagavad Gita, by associating with devotees, and then we bring that mood of spiritual service or devotional service in our other relationships in this world, then that is the way the temporary leads us to the eternal. And thus, bhakti helps us to find meaning and healing even amidst suffering. I said death is a guru and it brings suffering, but there is a higher meaning to life which can be found by understanding our spiritual identity.
And there’s a higher healing to be got when we connect with the supreme figure, when we connect with the one with whom we have an eternal relationship. And reversals in our life, they forcefully prompt us to explore this higher dimension of life. And thus, although in life we may get a lot of hurts, but the world’s power to hurt, it when confronted with God’s power to heal, when we connect with him, then the world’s power to hurt, it subsides.
And within, through the connection with God bhakti, we find healing, we find meaning, and we progress towards fulfilment. So, I’ll summarise. So, I spoke about learning from the guru of death.
So, in the routine course of our life as we’re going, if some death occurs, it very joltingly raises questions. Now, what does it mean? What is the point of it all? Why does this happen? So, now if we look at all our life, whatever we do, it’s a search for meaning. For example, science is a search for understanding why things work the way they work.
So, when we try to explore in terms of mechanisms of interaction between material things, we try to, we come up with science. When we try to look for meaning through depicting things and representing things, that’s how art comes up. And when we try to explore meaning beyond this world, that is where religion and spirituality comes up.
So, we all want to live forever. None of us wants to die, and we don’t want our loved ones to die. So, we may ask the question, why does death occur? If we could turn that question around and ask, now, why do we want that death should not occur? If everything around us is temporary, why do we at all have a desire for eternal life? It’s out of place, just like a gold earring is out of place in this floor.
So, that desire itself points to some aspect of our being which is eternal. And that aspect is the soul. The soul is eternal and is meant for an eternal destination.
We are in a multi-lifetime journey where each body is like a vehicle. That vehicle takes us from one point to another point. And during this journey, different people come together.
But we are all headed ultimately towards the same destination. And in that connection, we discussed about the vertical and the horizontal relationships. So, our desire for eternal relationship points to an eternal object relationship.
So, the Bhagavad Gita explains that that is God. And God is the whole, we are all parts. So, our horizontal relationships are also real.
The love that we experience in those relationships is real. At the same time, it’s like a drop. So, the love that we experience in the relationship with God, that is like the ocean.
It is eternal. And only human beings have the capacity to understand these two relationships and harmonise them. All living beings live.
All living beings struggle against death. And ultimately, all living beings succumb to death. But human beings have the capacity to question why death occurs and what is there beyond death.
So, the process of Bhakti Yoga helps us to harmonise. We talked about dependence, independence, and interdependence. When there is too much dependence in the relationship, then the relationship is like walking in a minefield area.
Any small thing can be seen as a very big afferent. And when there is independence, there is no connection. There has to be interdependence.
And interdependence comes in a relationship only when there is independence, which has come from dependence on God. Our connection with God gives us security, gives us stability, gives us maturity. We can relate with our horizontal relationship better.
Similarly, our horizontal relationships, if they are with spiritually-minded people, then they nourish our vertical relationship. And in this way, even when in a horizontal relationship we lose someone, we understand that that person still exists and their vertical relationship is still going on. God is still with them and God is still with us also.
So, although the relationships are temporary, we see them as pathways to the eternal. Even if we can’t do something for our loved ones physically because they are no longer with us physically, but still by our prayers, by our devotional activities, we can express our love for them even now. And death is a guru who reminds us or who compels us to look for meaning and healing beyond the immediate.
And because the immediate is temporary, when something prompts us to look beyond the immediate, that actually points us towards the eternal. And this world can hurt us in many ways, but when we turn towards God and connect with Him in bhakti, then God has a power to heal. That exceeds the world’s power to hurt.
Bhakti offers a balanced approach to life, not romanticising the world, thinking that everything will be nice in life and that God should be the guarantor of making everything nice. Nor that we don’t romanticise the world, we don’t demonise the world, we don’t think that everything is dreadful, I have to just give up everything. No, we utilise.
And in that mood of loving utilisation, we harmonise the temporary with the eternal. So, thank you very much. Anyone like to ask any questions? Yeah, so when we do shraddha, yes, definitely.
The soul is spiritual. At the same time, the soul, there are three kinds of, there are three levels of existence, basically. There is the soul, there is the mind and there is the body.
So, the body is what we leave when we go from this life to another life. The soul and the mind go together. So, now, when we do shraddha, shraddha is specific rituals by which the soul’s post-mortem journey, post-mortem after death, post-mortem journey of the soul is auspiciously directed.
And the credits from that shraddha, they benefit that person wherever they are going. Yeah, right. Yeah, so when the reversals come, we become a little more spiritual, but then after things become all right, we relapse back into a complacent way of living.
Yes, that is because, two reasons, mainly. One is that the mind has a tendency which is like a momentum. See, if a vehicle has been moving very fast, if you have been moving a car 100 kilometres per hour, then even if you press the brake, it is not going to stop and it is not going to turn around and go in the opposite direction.
It is still going to keep, it is slowed down. It is slowed down, but if you, after some time, you take the foot off the brake, again it will gain speed. So, what has happened is, we have got a momentum of materialism, which has been going on for many lifetimes.
And when adversities come in our life, they just put a brake on it. So, adversities are, they can be reminders of spirituality, but ultimately, it is we who have to choose. And that is why Krishna, in the seventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, he talks about people who are distressed, as one kind of people who come to him.
But then he says that it is good that the people come to him, but from that point of approaching God in distress, there is, that is the beginning, in a sense. After many lifetimes from there, it may take many lifetimes for a person to understand that God is my be-all and end-all, that he is the embodiment and fulfilment of all my aspirations for love, peace and joy. And when you understand that, then one becomes fully devoted to God.
Now, of course, it does not have to take many lifetimes, but the point is these two are different things. So, we have to choose voluntarily. And that choosing of God, there is devotion which is under tribulation.
When I have difficulty, when I have no other solace, I go to God. It is good that I am going to God at that time. But that is, there is devotion that is forced by circumstances.
That is not really, that is not really pure love. That is like, you know, say a son has left his parents’ home and gone away somewhere. And then, you know, one day the son calls the parents after many months or, you know, I am in trouble, I need some money, can you give me some money? And the parents will be happy, at least you have called me, isn’t it? But, you know, the parents had some money and then the child forgets again.
Only after seven, eight months, I need some more money. Well, that is one kind of relationship. That is also better than the son who has gone away and never comes back, never connects with the parents at all.
But then, there has to be a loving connection. So, like that, we have to connect with Krishna and that happens when we associate with devotees. So, devotees who are striving to develop love for Krishna, that is pure.
By their association, we see that, see, normally we think that God is here and the world is here and God should give me blessings here. But as we become purified, we understand that God is God’s greatest blessing. That when we get devotion for Krishna, when His presence, His remembrance permeates our heart, when we are filled with love for Him, there is no happiness that is greater than that.
In 6.22 in the Gita, Krishna says that there is no achievement greater than the achievement of constant absorption in God. And when we get that, then we are voluntarily ourselves choosing the journey from turning towards God under trouble and turning to a God because we love, because we understand that He is my ultimate benefactor. That journey happens through our choice and through the association of devotees.
So, if we associate with devotees regularly, then our bhakti won’t be just adversity driven. It will be more inspiration driven, it will be more choice driven. And even within the realm of bhakti, it has to be more positively orientated.
That means within the realm of bhakti, we find out something which we feel inspired to do, by which we connect with Krishna. Then we want to do it ourselves for Krishna’s sake. It’s not that because there are problems, so I come to Krishna.
But because I want to do something purposeful in the service of Krishna, then our bhakti can become more positively driven.