Raghunandan Thakura – Devotion inverts the father-son relationship

Transcript

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On the sacred occasion associated with Shri Raghunandan Thakur, let us meditate on his extraordinary example of intense devotion. Raghunandan Thakur was born in a devotee family to a great Vaishnava and his father taught him right from his childhood how to practice devotional service. His father being a physician often had to go out at unpredictable times to attend to physicians, attend to patients.
So once at the time of offering, his father had gone out. His mother told little Raghunandan, this is a small child at that time. He told, your father is not here and therefore you make offering to the deities.
So he went in the temple hall and he placed himself, placed the laddu before the deity and started praying, my dear lord, I don’t know how to offer to you. I am utterly unqualified, but please, I’ve been told to offer this to you. This is how my father does it.
This is what my mother wants me to do it. Please accept this offering. And he stood there and he was waiting and he waited expecting the lord to come and take the offering and then nothing happened.
He waited. My dear lord, please accept this offering. He knew certain prayers he offered them, but more than the prayers, the intense calling of his heart, desperately, my dear lord, please accept the offering.
And nothing happened and the lord spoke in a mystical voice to him. He said, I have accepted the offering with my eyes. Now it is prasad, it is no longer bhoga, you can take it back.
He says, no, it’s still there. You have to accept it, my dear lord. And he begged, please, this is what, it’s the only service I’m doing for you.
Please accept this service. This is what my father does. Please accept it.
And he was so fervent, so intense, so desperate in his offering that Krishna, being Bahapagraha, he could not refuse. And as Krishna could not refuse, he came and took the prasad. He took the bhoga and he honored it, not just with his eyes, but with his tongue and he ate all of it.
Had a well and was delighted to see that the lord had accepted this bhoga. Such was the simple and sweet devotion of his heart. He did not bother about the philosophy.
The philosophy is true, no doubt, that just with the eyes the lord accepts our offerings. But here, there was the simplicity, the sweetness and the intensity of devotion. It transcended the logicality, the coherence, the cogency of the philosophy.
And what remained was the pure reciprocation of love between his tender-hearted devotee and the supremely caring, sensitive and loving lord. And he brought his plate back to his mother and says, you offered? Yes. Where is the prasad? He took it.
His mother was surprised. She didn’t know what to say. When her husband came back, he told him that this is what has happened.
So now, they knew their child was such a sweet devotee, but after all, he’s a child. Was he being mischievous? Had he taken the food himself? They didn’t know. So they decided to find out for themselves.
So they told Raghunandan, Raghunandan, please offer this now. And then, when he was offering, at that time, Mukunda peeked through and observed. And he was begging, my dear lord, please come and accept.
Please accept this. Please accept this. And as he was begging, the lord came.
And because Mukunda was watching, so the lord took only some of the prasad from there. And he took some of the prasad and he left some back. And then, Raghunandan came out.
His father and mother embraced him and said, thank the lord, so supremely grateful and proud and humbled. All simultaneously, so many different emotions going to their hearts. How blessed they were to have a child like him.
As later on, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu came to his house and he asked him, he asked his father, is Raghunandan your son or is he your father? So his father happily replied, he is my father. Because anyone who teaches us about devotion to the lord, he is our father. That’s what the father is supposed to do.
And he has taught me the glory of sweet and intense devotion. And therefore, he is my father. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu heard this and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was so pleased.
Because just as pure devotion can invert the normal hierarchy, the yajic brahmin patnis become more, although they are not so learned about Vedic rituals or Vedic scriptures, they become far greater than their husbands, although normally they are subordinate to their husbands. A kshatriya and a king is lower than a sannyasi and a brahmana. But Ambarish Maharaj becomes higher than Durvasa Muni.
So bhakti inverts the normal hierarchy. The devatas are higher than the demons. But Vritrasura, because of his devotion, becomes higher than Indra.
So just as devotion inverts the normal hierarchy, so similarly here, the parent-child relationship, the father-son relationship is inverted by Raghunandan’s pure devotion. And that is the glory of both devotion itself and of the devotee. Ultimately, the Lord, who by these exchanges of love, invites us to his wonderful world of love.
Such are the glories of Raghunandan Thakur. And we can pray to him to give us also his blessings so that we can advance in the path of bhakti and ultimately attain that world of eternal ecstatic love. Thank you.
Hare Krishna.