Pray not to get things done but to connect with Krishna

Bhagavatam class at ISKCON, Brisbane

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Namaskar! Hare Krishna! Today morning we are discussing from Bhagavad Gita. This is the last among the prayers that Gajendra offers to the Supreme Lord when he is in mortal danger.
After being on the verge of being defeated by the crocodile which has grabbed him by the leg. So I will talk of this class in three parts. I will talk about the principle of prayers as it is explained in the Srimad Bhagavatam.
Then I will talk about this particular prayer within the flow of prayers. And then we will discuss about how the mood of this prayer can apply in our life. So normally prayer is a universal language of humanity.
People from whatever culture, whatever background, whatever intellectual orientation throughout history, anthropologists have found that people tend to appeal to some higher power and they seek some help. So this is a natural human tendency that when we are in trouble we seek help with someone higher. As I said there are no atheists in the foxholes.
When a person is in great danger, then that person even that person hopes for some relief by seeking some help from someone higher. Now the conception of prayer that most people have is that what I can’t do God can do or some higher being can do. This acknowledges this mood of prayer acknowledges God’s omnipotence that God is far stronger than me and therefore what I can’t do, God can do.
And any level of God consciousness is good. That if we become conscious of God’s greatness and then see, connect with him, even if it be for our own purposes, still it is good because our God consciousness is big. And this level of praying or connecting with a higher power is called in the Vedic context as Karmakanda.
So, Karmakanda focusses primarily on trying to use religion as a tool for making things better in this world. And then the converse of Karmakanda is Jnanakanda wherein one feels that actually no matter how much things are improved in this world ultimately this is a place of misery. And the more things appear enjoyable, the more they are actually treacherous.
The more they allure, the more they mislead and the more they entrap. Therefore, one should just reject and renounce the world. So, Karma, the path of Karmakanda focusses on religiously improving the world and the path of Jnanakanda focusses on religiously rejecting the world.
But Bhakti goes beyond both these polarities. If you consider a pendulum, thinking that this world is enjoyable is one extreme of the pendulum. Thinking that this world is simply a place of suffering, that is the other end of the pendulum.
Bhakti brings the pendulum to the steady state where we understand that this world, we don’t have to romanticise it as is done in Karma. We don’t have to demonise it as it is done in Jnana. We are meant to utilise this world.
So, utilise this world means, Bhakti in both Karma and Jnana, the focus the eyes are focused on this world. This world can give me enjoyment or this world can cause me suffering. But Bhakti lifts the eyes beyond the world to the Supreme Lord.
And with the focus of the Supreme Lord, we see ourselves connected with the Supreme, we see the world connected with the Supreme and we see our role as connecting ourselves using the world and its resources to the Supreme. In the Bhagavad Gita in 18.46 Krishna says, … … … So, he is saying … One will attain perfection. How one will attain perfection? … … By doing your own work.
But how? Just don’t do your own work. … By doing your own work for the purpose of worshipping Him. … Who is that Tam? It is not just mentioning Krishna.
It is describing the connection of Krishna with this world. The first two lines say, … From whom this whole world has come? … By whom this world is pervaded? So, the verse stresses that we can worship God through our work because God is intimately connected with this world. He is the source of this world and He pervades this world.
That’s why the process of Bhakti doesn’t demonise the world. The process of Bhakti understands that this world also belongs to God. And things in this world are also meant for God’s service.
And with this understanding, the approach to prayer changes dramatically. If we see, Prahlad Maharaj talks about the nine limbs of Bhakti. … … … … … … … … … … So, he lists the nine limbs of devotional service and then he says, … … … … These comprise the nine symptoms, nine characteristics of Bhakti.
… … By this, attraction to the Supreme increases. … This I consider to be the best education. Prahlad Maharaj is actually saying this verse in response to Hiranyakashipu’s question, what is the best thing that you learned at school? So, he answers at different levels, at different occasions.
In this particular occasion, he answers that these nine activities, … … If we do for Vishnu, or rather offer these nine activities to Vishnu, then that comprises Bhakti, that increases the attraction to Supreme and that is the best education. So, all of us, through our lives, basically do these activities or we do all the time. All the newspapers are basically offering us … … politicians, of sports stars, of business magnets.
So, we are always hearing about someone, thinking about someone, speaking about someone. But when we do these for Krishna, then it becomes bhakti. So, interestingly, here prayer is also included as one of these means.
Vandanam, that is prayer. This is a significant re-conceptualisation of prayer. As I said, normally, prayer is conceived as a means of getting God to do what we are unable to do.
But here the Bhagavatam conceives prayer as a means for increasing attraction to the Lord. This is these nine activities, when they are done for Vishnu, then they increase our attraction to the Lord. This means that normally, when we hear about Krishna or we speak about Krishna, by doing these things, we are not trying to get Krishna to do something for us.
Rather, we are simply trying to increase our understanding of Krishna, increase our attraction to Krishna. So, in the path of karma, the path of bhakti is that Krishna is in the spiritual world, he is playing his flute and is inviting us all, come back to the spiritual world and enjoy pastimes with me. But the path of karma is that Krishna, I want to perform pastimes in this world.
You come here and help me in that. So, the idea is we want God to change things for the better in this world. Now, of course, when things, when we are in trouble, it is a natural instinct to ask God for help.
And Rupa Goswami in Bhaktira Samrat Sindhu says that when Draupadi calls out to Krishna for help, that is not a flaw in her devotion. Because that also indicates when we are in danger and we call out to Krishna for help, that also indicates how deeply Krishna has become ingrained within our psyche. Normally, when we are in danger, we will call out to that person through whom we have experienced the greatest shelter.
So, a small baby, we just call out to her mother. So, even the soldiers in war, often when they get wounded, at the time of being wounded, they may remember their mother or they may remember their father at that time. So, if in great danger, instinctively we call out to Krishna, that is also good because that indicates that Krishna has entered so deep into our consciousness that our first reaction in danger is not to seek some other person’s help, we are directly seeking Krishna’s help.
Then, this sort of approaching Krishna for help in danger, that is not a contamination in Bhakti. When it becomes a contamination in Bhakti is when it is only in danger that we approach Krishna and other times we don’t approach Krishna at all. That means we approach Krishna and when we are in danger, we pray to Krishna and we seek relief and when the relief comes, bye bye Krishna.
We say and go on with our life. No, if we are regularly connected with Krishna and danger intensifies our connection with Krishna, that is also a sign of serious devotion. But the point is, regularly when we pray, within Bhakti, prayer is not an effort to get God to do something for us.
Prayer is simply a means for connecting with God and through that connection increasing our attraction to God. And that’s why many times in the prayers in the Bhagavatam, we see in the conclusion there is no request. This is this prayer, Gajendra is in mortal danger, he is about to die and he is not asking, Oh Lord, please save me.
Actually, that was the intention with which he started his prayers. But the very act of praying clarifies and purifies his consciousness and by that, four verses earlier in the 25th verse, he says that, I do not wish to live. I do not wish to live.
Why? He says inside and outside, all living beings are covered by ignorance and that ignorance, kaalena naya sya vipalava, that vipalava, destruction, that ignorance is not destroyed even by time. Tasya loka vranasya moksham. He says, my dear Lord, please liberate me from that ignorance.
So, he doesn’t ask that I be liberated from the shackles of the crocodile. He says, pashupashya vimokshanam, that I am caught in the pashupashya. The pashupashya can literally mean, I am caught in an animal, caught by the animal, that is a crocodile.
But our Acharya, Vishwanath Chakravartha explains that pashupashya also means that he is thinking that I am caught in the bodily conception of life. The bodily conception of life reduces us to animalistic living, to living only for eating, sleeping, mating, defending. So, he says, this is the ignorance with which I am caught and please liberate me from that.
And then he concludes his prayer. He is simply offering obeisances to the Lord. The Lord is saying, itosmeham tam bhagavantam itosmeham.
And to that Supreme Lord, I offer my obeisances. So, here prayer is not seen as a means for asking God to do something for us. Prayer is seen simply as a meditation by which we connect deeper with Him.
And our only prayer is that let me stay connected with you. So, you say, I surrender to you, my Lord. We see a similar dynamic in the first major prayer in the Srimad Bhagavatam, that is the prayers of Queen Kunti.
That is from 1.8.18 to 1.8.43, 26 prayers she offers, 26 verses in prayer. And when she offers, she is also in a state of terrible anxiety and bereavement because Krishna is about to depart. And she is apprehensive that although they have won the Kurukshetra war, they have, in the process of the war, antagonised many of the other kings whose relatives have been killed in the war and they may attack again.
So, she starts off the prayer with the desire that Krishna stay there. And the fact that they were not out of danger was just demonstrated a few moments ago when Ashwathama’s Brahmastra came to kill Uttara’s womb. Krishna saved them.
But she starts off the prayer with the intention that Krishna please stay here. And after speaking around 17, 18 verses, 37, 38th verse, she does say Krishna, Krishna are you going to abandon us now? Now that we have no one but you, are you going to abandon us? If you abandon us, then we will be like Rishi Kya Naam Ime Shuto Hoon? We will be like a body without life in it. What is the use? But then she remembers that actually when Krishna is with us, Krishna is not with the Yadus.
And they also love Krishna. How long will they be separated from Krishna? And therefore she thinks that how can I ask Krishna that for my sake that the Yadus be deprived. And thus she is unable to decide.
But at the same time she thinks that we don’t want to be bereaved of Krishna. So, then she prays to Krishna. So, just cut off my attachment.
He says, I do not want to pray to you based on my own attachments. Now, Kunti is actually, if we go back to the genealogy, she is also connected to the Yadus. Before her marriage, she belonged to that dynasty.
And now she is belonging to Pandu dynasty after marriage. So, she is saying, I do not want my selfish attachments to sway you, sway my prayer to you, sway my decision. Just please cut off my attachments.
And her prayers conclude with what? My dear Lord, let my consciousness flow towards me. Just as the Ganga flows towards the ocean, let my consciousness flow towards me. And the last verse she offers is, she glorifies Krishna and she says, I offer obeisances to you.
She gives various names to describe Krishna and he says, to that Supreme Lord, I offer my obeisances. So, we see this prayer similar, Vijendra’s prayer and Kunti’s prayer are similar in the sense that at the start there is a specific desire from God, that this is what I want. But as one gets connected with God through the act of praying, one realises or one re-experiences.
So, what does one re-experience? That actually connection with God is the greatest blessing. And then when one feels connected with God, and one feels, okay, whatever happens, that’s okay. As Jesus prayed, let thy will be done, not mine.
So, here, Gajendra is not asking anything. Release me from this bondage, from this imminent death. He says, I just surrender to you.
So, sometimes when we pray to Krishna, we may sometimes have some reservations. That if I pray to Krishna and if Krishna doesn’t fulfil my prayer, then maybe my faith in Krishna will become weak. And therefore, maybe I should not pray to Krishna.
Or we may think that, oh, pure devotion means that I should pray to Krishna only for spiritual things. And if I pray to Krishna for anything material, then that is a contaminate devotion. Actually, no, we cannot become pure devotees without becoming devotees.
That means, if we are, when we are in the sadhaka stage at present, there are many material things that do matter to us. Our health, our job, our family, our financial situation. Now, all these ups and downs in this, they do disturb us, they do trouble us.
And if we can understand, if we think of praying as getting God to do something for us, then if our problem is not solved, we will think that God really doesn’t care. Or maybe God doesn’t even exist. We may lose our faith.
On the other hand, if we, so one extreme is to expect that God should answer all our prayers on our terms. The other extreme is to think that God should be approached, that Krishna should be approached only with pure devotion. And that’s why things that concern me, I should just not think about them when I’m praying to Krishna.
But both these are actually not very healthy for the steady progress of devotion, both these extremes. If we conceive or if we understand bhakti to be a relationship with Krishna, the process of bhakti yoga as a process for developing a relationship with Krishna, then in that case, we, if something is burdening our heart, sharing that with a person with whom we are trying to develop a relationship, that is a natural thing to do. And sometimes when we have a lot of problems, then the problems, the thought of those trouble burdens our heart.
And sometimes we just speak it out to someone, then speaking it out itself unburdens us to some extent. It is not that the problem is solved, but the burden to some extent is relieved. Quite often, if we consider there is a porter who is carrying a luggage, 20 kg luggage, so like that, the problem which we are having often is like a 20 kg luggage.
But when that problem itself weighs on our minds, we start feeling crushed by the problem, then the perception of the problem often becomes a bigger problem than the problem. That means the problem is 20 kg, the perception of the problem is 80 kg. And then we get totally crushed by that.
So, at such a time, if we conceive bhakti as developing a relationship with Krishna, then if something is troubling our hearts, then just sharing it with Krishna is also a limb of bhakti. My heart is very troubled by this. And Krishna, I feel that if things work out like this, this will be the solution.
Just sharing our heart with Krishna, that is a natural way in which we develop our relationship with Krishna. If we share our heart with the demand that Krishna solve the problem on our terms, then that may not always work out and expecting that may sometimes frustrate us and weaken our faith. But if we see simply bhakti as a relationship with Krishna, then what is in our heart, if we share that with Krishna, that also brings Krishna closer to our heart.
Just as if we have a problem, and we share that problem with someone, but that person just hears us, then we feel yes, this person has heard me, we feel closer to the person just by sharing the problem with him. And because Krishna is already closer than the closest to us, He is actually present in our heart all the time. So, when we connect with Him, when we share our heart with Him, our connection with Him becomes closer and closer.
See, Krishna is always close to us, but we are far away from Him. That means Krishna is close to us, our face is turned away from Him. And when we share our heart with Krishna, actually our heart comes closer to Him.
That’s how we come closer to Him. Now here, so I started by saying that how any act of praying involves acceptance of God’s omnipotence, that God is far more powerful than me, and He can solve the problem which I can’t solve. But if we have a more philosophically complete understanding of God, then we know that God is not just omnipotent, He is also omniscient.
He knows everything. That means He knows our problem better than ours. He knows the solution to the problem better than ours.
And He wants our good more than what we want also. So, that means if we trust only God’s omnipotence and not His omniscience, then we are actually half trusting God. Half trusting God means that God, this is the problem, so let us make a partnership and solve the problem.
The partnership is my intelligence and your strength. So, I have this plan for solving the problem, my intelligence and your strength, let us solve the problem. Now, that sort of expectation is not the way God works.
So, if we understand that God is omniscient, that Krishna knows everything, then we can certainly use our intelligence to think of how the problem can be solved. And we can offer a prayer, Krishna, I feel with my limited intelligence that if things work out this way, the problem will be solved. But then we conclude by surrendering to Krishna.
Whatever it is your will, Krishna, give me the strength to serve you. Once the Prabhupada was asked, what is the best prayer that you can offer to Krishna? Prabhupada said, ask Krishna, please give me the strength to serve you. Please give me the strength.
Whatever happens in life, let me serve you. So, when we approach Krishna with this prayer, now whatever happens in this world, now whether the things go wrong or things go right, we always we are servants of Krishna. And if we pray for the strength to serve Krishna, then we will stay steady.
Now, prayer and meditation, they are often thought of as similar. But there is a difference between the two. Prayer is when we speak and God hears.
Meditation is when God speaks and we hear. So, it is a two-way communication. Meditation is when God speaks and we hear.
And when we chant Hare Krishna, chanting is both a prayer and a meditation. It is a prayer because we are praying to Krishna. Chanting is holy names.
So, we are uttering the sound. And Prabhupada told us, the mood in which we chant the holy names is, Krishna, please engage me in your service. So, chanting is a prayer to Krishna.
At the same time, it is also a meditation. Why? Because Krishna is non-different from his name. And when we hear Krishna s name, we are actually hearing God.
And meditation means when God speaks and we hear. So, meditation actually restores us, meditation restores us to our right place in the scheme of things in the universe. When we think we are the controllers, we think we are the enjoyers.
And when we start thinking, seeing that things are not going according to my plan, I am not able to control things. I am not able to enjoy things, we get agitated. So, the path of karma is that I am not able to be a controller Krishna, I am not able to be enjoyers.
Krishna, you help me to be a controller enjoyer. But the path of bhakti is Krishna, I am your servant. Please let me remember this and guide me how I can serve you.
Krishna Prabhupada writes in a purport that a devotee may be perplexed, but a devotee is never discouraged. Perplexed means that we don’t know what to do. Discouraged means we don’t feel like doing anything.
So, for example, if our conception of life is that I am an enjoyer, and sometimes circumstances come in such a way that there is just no way we can do anything according to our plan. You know, we have lost our finances, our health has gone down, our relatives have abandoned us, everything seems to have gone wrong. That’s what happened to Gajendra over here.
At one moment, he was the king of the herd of elephants, enjoying and brandishing his power in front of all his family members. And the next moment, he was just caught by a crocodile. And he thought this crocodile can just knock it out.
But he tried and tried. For a person who prides in one’s own strength to be and who has displayed one’s strength before others, to be overpowered by some others, overpowered by someone is very mortifying. It’s very humiliating.
So, Gajendra in one moment lost everything. Now, he lost his position, he lost his prestige, and none of his relatives were able to help him. At that time, what is he saying? He was an enjoyer and he realised all my enjoyment just went off in one moment.
And as he prays to Krishna, as his prayers develop, he doesn’t ask Krishna, please release me from the crocodile’s clutches so that I can enjoy life. He says, I was in ignorance, please release me from this ignorance. And he prays to Krishna, whatever is your will, please don’t let me bound by ignorance once again.
And thus, he enables, he actually demonstrates surrendered pure devotion. And the mood of praying which the Bhagavatam shows us is, if we acknowledge Krishna’s omniscience, then we recognise that Krishna is far wiser than what I am. So, I will use my intelligence as far as it goes to pray for a solution, but I’ll also stay open to Krishna’s plan.
And sometimes the universe works in such a way that we may shake a mango tree and an apple may fall down. That means, if a child is hungry, a child goes to orchard and shakes a mango tree. And mangoes are high up and nothing falls down.
But if the child is caught in looking only for mangoes, and then no mangoes fall, the child feels, oh, my effort is a waste. The child is open, I’m hungry and an apple has fallen, I can eat apple also. So, sometimes when we are too attached to our own plans, we pray to God, we ask for a solution, a solution comes.
But when the solution doesn’t come the way we expect it to, we don’t see the solution. So, God will answer our prayers. But if we expect answer in a particular terms, then we miss the answer.
So, bhakti is not just about changing our desires. It is about not just changing our perception. It is actually about changing our frame of reference.
That means that there are many people who talk about positive thinking. You should not look at negative. If a glass is half full, don’t see it as half empty.
That is good. We should look at positive things. But bhakti is much more than positive thinking.
Normally, if say, we are moving in a fast moving vehicle and we look out of the car, at that time we see the trees, the buildings, all whizzing by and we can see that things are moving very fast. But if we are moving in a plane and say, actually, if we are moving in a plane, we may not even feel that the plane is moving. Because the sky is such a vast background that in front of that, although the plane is moving extremely fast, because the frame of reference is so vast, the plane’s motion does not seem to be all that fast.
Especially if you sit in a plane next to the wing of the plane. And you can see the wing, it is seen that the wing is moving so slowly. It is almost as if the plane is moving in slow motion.
But if we look at the display information, this is 500 miles per hour. So, what happens? Although the plane is moving very fast, if the frame of reference is very big, then the motion does not appear to be so fast. So, similarly, in this world, ups and downs will keep happening.
And if our frame of reference is the world, then every up will make us elated, every down will make us devastated. But if our frame of reference is Krishna, if we are focused on Krishna, then the changes of this world, the ups and downs of this world, we will understand, they will come, they will go. I do not have to get worked up by them.
Let me just continue my practise of bhakti and Krishna will work out things for my own good. And we will see that is what Krishna does. For Gajendra, because of his prayers to Krishna, the Lord appears, the Lord does not just release him from that shackle of the crocodile, the Lord releases him from exuberance.
And Gajendra is actually liberated from material existence itself. So, he gets a far greater result than what he started out asking for. And similarly, in our own life, if we connect with Krishna, and rather than expecting Krishna to do things on our terms, if we just surrender to Krishna and stay determined to serve him, then he will grant us fruits far greater than what we can imagine.
Prabhupada, when he started preaching, at that time, he had a desire to share Krishna consciousness all over the world. But in the later years of his life, in 1977, in one conversation, Prabhupada said that the success I got, it actually exceeded my expectations. Prabhupada had a vision, there are temples all over the world, there are devotees, but the sheer amount of success that he got, that was incredible.
And Prabhupada, he tried so much in the early years of his life and so many things went wrong. But yesterday I was speaking about the class and that one point I was speaking which got incomplete. So, I will just speak that and I will conclude the class.
I was talking about how in life, when we get reversals, our dreams become smaller and smaller. Somebody may think, I want to become the Prime Minister of Australia. And somebody may say, I just want, I want to become a billionaire or I want to become a millionaire.
And some further problems come. By the end, a person, by the time a young man who in school thought I am going to become the most powerful person in the world, by the time that young man comes out of college or university person thinks, if I just get a job, it will be good. So, life often beats down our dreams.
But in the case of Prabhupada, he faced so many reversals. He tried to start a business to assist his spiritual masters financially in his mission. The business just crumbled.
He tried to start a magazine with which he could share God Consciousness and he was distributing magazines on the streets and a cow came and ran into him and he fell unconscious. And there were no takers for the magazine. He tried to assist his God Brothers in running their magazines and their publishing houses.
They had a very parochial vision of things and they did not want things to expand. He tried to start a mission called League of Devotees in Jhansi. And there, when he tried to do that, the very group of people who had assisted him, invited him to come there, they formed a political clique against him.
And the very place which was his international headquarters, he was evicted from that place. He wrote a Bhagavatam commentary and initially what he wrote, some of his family members sold it as garbage just so that they could get some money for purchasing tea. He, after doing all this for the first 40 years of his life, from 1922 to 1965, everything that Srila Prabhupada did, all that he got was practically failure.
He had nothing to show. He had only one disciple and that disciple was also not very serious in spiritual life. So, Prabhupada had nothing to show.
But after not having succeeded in anything, Prabhupada’s dreams did not become smaller. They became bigger. Prabhupada dreamt that let me go to America and let me preach over there and let me make western people into devotees.
Now, Sunti Muraji, the lady who sponsors Prabhupada’s trip, she said, Swamiji, if you want to speak Bhagavatam, if that’s what you want to do, then you come to my house, every day I will hear Bhagavatam from you. Prabhupada was not interested in that kind of ritual recitation of the Bhagavatam. Prabhupada wanted the recitation of the Bhagavatam that would transform people’s hearts and transform people’s lives.
And that’s why he went all the way to America. And even when he came to America, he was just travelling all alone and he got a heart attack. And yet, no matter how many obstacles came, Prabhupada’s dreams did not shrink, rather they kept expanding.
And by Krishna’s mercy, in Krishna’s time, for the first 40-45 years, Prabhupada got no results. But in Krishna’s time, Krishna gave such incredible results. And it all happened because Prabhupada always persevered.
Prabhupada never gave up. And even when Prabhupada was just a lonely, one lonely old man, walking on the streets of New York, unknown to anyone, wondering whether he would be able to extend his visa and stay on in America, wondering whether anyone would hear his message, at that time also, Prabhupada was perfectly successful. How was he successful? Because for us as souls, our success is not in the results that we get.
Because the results are not always in our control. Our success is in the effort that we make. If we are striving to serve Krishna, in Krishna’s eyes, we are already successful.
And by Krishna’s will, he will grant the results in due course of time. So even if Prabhupada had not made a single devotee in America, still in Krishna’s eyes, he was fully successful. But by Krishna’s mercy, Krishna wanted to glorify his pure devotee and thus, he arranged for millions and millions of people to become inspired by him and to become devoted to him.
And today, we are relishing Sri Prabhupada’s gifts in the wonderful temple here, in the wonderful devotee community all over the world. And that is all because Sri Prabhupada did not pray to Krishna on his terms. He did not ask Krishna.
Prabhupada’s prayer, what was it in Jaladuta? He says, just make me dance, O Lord. Make me dance. Make me dance.
And Krishna made Prabhupada dance in such a wonderful way and millions of people all over the world came to behold his dance of devotion. And even today, that dance of devotion of Sri Prabhupada is going on through all of us, his followers. In our own small way, we are joining Sri Prabhupada’s dance of devotion and inviting the whole world to delight in that eternal dance of devotion.
I’ll summarise. I started by talking about how the Bhagavatam preconceptualizes prayer not as a means to get God to do the things that we can’t do. That is the Karmakant division.
That this world is wonderful if God just adds just a few things for me. That is Jnanakant division is, this world is dreadful, I just have to get liberated from it. Bhakti neither romanticises the world nor demonises the world.
Bhakti utilises the world. And in bhakti, our prayer is God, you also utilise me according to your plan. So, Bhagavatam says prayer is just a limb of bhakti like hearing and chanting.
The purpose is not to get God to do things for us. The purpose is to simply increase our connection and attraction to Krishna. And within this life of bhakti, the one extreme of in praying is to think that God should answer my prayers on my terms.
The other extreme is to think that I have to be a pure devotee, so I should not pray to God for anything material in my life. Both these are extremes. If we conceive bhakti as a relationship with Krishna, then just as we share our heart in any relationship, we share our heart with Krishna, but we don’t demand Krishna that he solve problems on our terms.
Just by unburdening our heart to Krishna, the problem’s crushing weight will decrease. And if we focus on the mood of serving Krishna, please Krishna, please guide me how I can serve you, then we will see that Krishna answers our prayers in wonderful ways on his own terms and by his plan. If we half trust Krishna, we trust only his omnipotence and we think Krishna should solve problems by our intelligence and his omnipotence, his energy.
But if we fully trust Krishna, his omnipotence and omniscience, then we serve Krishna and we are open to Krishna to how he may work in our life. And then we may shake a mango tree and an apple may fall. We will be open to accepting the apple also.
Krishna can work in his own terms. And we saw that in Prabhupada’s life, that he had a vision of how to share Krishna consciousness and he tried many times in India, but nothing worked out. But he stayed fixed in the principle of serving Krishna.
And he said, Krishna, just make me dance. And all the reversals, instead of discouraging Prabhupada, Prabhupada was perplexed at times. Nothing was working.
What should I do next? But Prabhupada never had any doubt whether I should serve Krishna or not. He was never discouraged in his service to Krishna. And Krishna made him dance wonderfully and is continuing that wonderful dance of devotion for our benefit and for our, he engaged so that we can also attract people