Surrender by service and meditation – Sarvasva tomara meaning

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
thank you song song song song song song song song song song song song song song song song song song song song song maintenance maintenance so the lord will be the maintainer song song song song song song song song song I offer to you song at your lotus feet song song means I fall at your feet I stay in your house what this essentially means is that actually the devotee surrenders to the lord the devotee seeks to Attain the Lord by offering himself to the Lord. tumi to thakur, tomar kukur, holi ya jaan hain more, tumi to thakur. You are a master.
Thakur is a general term of reference used, general term of respect used for referring to someone respectfully, especially someone who is in a master’s position. So tumi to thakur, you are a master and I am your ami to kukur, I am your dog. Boliya jaan hain more, no need to be your dog, you can call me and I will come.
Dogs have acquired quite a place of privilege among pets in the modern times. Dogs have been domesticated and acted as pets, but they would act as watchdogs, quite often some big dogs are there who act as watchdogs and small dogs, they are poodles say, bhej, act as pets, play friends for children and in this way the dogs today have become very privileged. But bhakta no thakur is writing at a time when to be a dog is not at all privileged.
Generally even today, if somebody is to be insulted, they say you are like a dog. So now the dog has its virtues, especially the virtue of faithfulness, the dog is very faithful to the master. When the dog is trained properly, it stays with the master and even risks his own life to be with the master.
Now bhakta no thakur says that please, in this song he is offering himself to the lord and he is saying please accept me as your dog. So in that culture dogs are not given free access to roam around in the house, sit on the sofa, dogs may have had some kennels outside. So when he is comparing himself to a dog, he is putting himself in a humble position while also conveying that he aspires for a sense of faithfulness similar to that of the dogs.
So just tie me somewhere nearby my lord, he is not demanding that you give me a central place in the house, somewhere close by my lord, keep me to you, tie me and keep me close to you and make me domesticated, maintain me, so palana means to protect, to maintain but also means that something which is wild, that is to be tamed, domesticated. So we are wild, we are not domesticated and we need to actually be tamed, especially when we say we, it refers to our mind and we are often faithful followers of our mind. Whatever our mind suggests we start doing that and that way we stay trapped at the material level of reality because the mind is attracted to various material things, it gets awoken up about various material things usually and that is how the mind drags us to locks us in, in fact, at the material level of consciousness.
So he says amara palive, just as a wild animal is dangerous and needs to be tamed and trained, similarly Uttaradhapur is saying please chain me somewhere close by and tame me. Now when a master tames an animal, after taming or during the process of taming also, even before the animal is tamed, the master maintains the animal, the master is interested in the animal and naturally feeds on time, takes care on time and rohibo tomara dwari, I will stay at your door place, some rohibo, that’s where I live, you may put a chain around me, tame me and I will stay there. So what is the idea of this? So actually Uttaradhapur is literally entering into the mood of a dog.
Some of the authors have this creative faculty by which they can try to place themselves in someone else’s place. A characteristic of empathy is that we feel as the other person is feeling and we feel not from our perspective but from that person’s perspective. So empathy, especially those who are writers of emotions, they need to have a great level of empathy.
Bhaktanath Thakur is using this faculty of empathy now to put himself into the position of a dog who has a good master and is thinking how the dog will think, that’s how I will think now. So the dog does some service to the master. What is the service? Those who are hostile people, that your enemies, I won’t let them come to your place.
I will keep them at the boundaries of the moats surrounding your house. In the past, if there was a king or some other wealthy person and that person was living in an area where there was fear of attack, then often there will be moats surrounding the house. So moats are bodies of water which are often quite, even if they are not deep, they are dangerous, treacherous.
They can suck in people and invaders when they come, it’s not very easy for them to cross the moat unless there is a bridge available and the bridge would be lifted when anybody hostile would come and those hostile people would be trapped at the other side of the moat with no ability to come across. So he is saying, I as a dog, I also do that, that I will bark and I will ensure that they are not able to come. They will feel threatened and they will not be able to come.
I will just say, keep them out of your way and keep them from troubling you. So any master-servant relationship, the master does something for the servant, the servant does something for the master. So he requested in this verse, my dear lord, you please keep, chain me and keep me, maintain me and keep me at the door and what will I do at the door? I will not be a nuisance, rather I will keep those who are nuisances away.
Tava nija jan prasad seviya, uchishta rakhi be jaha, amar bhojan paramanande, prati dinah betaha. So he says, Tava nija jan prasad seviya, your nija jan, your servants, prasad seviya, they will take your remnants, they will take your prasad and whatever will be the remnants from that, uchishta rakhi be jaha, amar bhojan paramanande, prati dinah betaha. Amar bhojan, that will be my meal and paramanande, I will be taking it very happily, not just once or twice, prati dinah betaha, everyday I will take that meal.
So, Bhaktivinoda Thakura is considering the lord to be the master of the house. So, this can also refer to a temple where the lord resides, in fact wherever the lord resides that can be considered to be a temple and in the temple the lord is offered bhoga and after that the devotees take the prasad of the lord. So, quite often in temple, because guests come, visitors come, so prasad is often made in greater quantity than what is the immediate need.
So, sometimes prasad remains, quite often it may remain and Bhaktivinoda Thakura is saying that as your dog, I won’t demand food from you. There is no, nowadays when dogs are pampered, there is special dog food that comes and sometimes the dog gets indigestion, then some medicine for the dog comes along or some special diet comes along, there is so much pampering that happens. But Bhaktivinoda Thakura is saying that I do not expect this pampering, whatever is offered to you my dear lord and whatever is honored by your devotees, whatever remains in that, I will accept that and I will consider accepting that as great fortune, paramananday, not just ananday, but paramananday, supreme joy.
Why is that? Because this prasad will be so potent, anything that contacts with the lord becomes pure and potent by that divine contact. Uddhav in the Uddhav Gita says to Krishna that we, your devotees, just by accepting and enjoying the remnants that you have enjoyed, we will conquer our material existence. So, those remnants include, but are not limited to food.
It can be garlands the lord has worn, flowers the lord has smelled. Even the clothes that the lord has worn, we can cherish them for our purposes, whatever our purposes may be. The point is that he is saying that Bhaktivinoda Thakura knows that and he is reminding us here that the lord’s prasad has so much potency that to get the lord’s prasad itself is a great treasure.
On top of that, if it is not just the lord’s prasad, but it is also the prasad of his devotees, then that contact with them also makes the food further potent. And whoever wants that food, whoever gets that food is very fortunate. And in this case, normally if we have eaten some food, we having made it sort of jhuta, we will not want anyone else to take it, certainly not as a human being.
But often people throw away their whatever prasad remains into near some dustbin or something like that. And some animals just put their head into it or go with their full body inside it and out of their hunger, they may try to get the food out to satisfy the annoying bites of hunger that are tormenting them. But Bhaktivinoda Thakura is saying over here that actually this was not a humbling activity because I was very fortunate that I had this interaction.
And he states over here that the lord is a very good master. I am recognizing that there are different masters who can do different things. That helps us in moving onwards towards Krishna, who is supreme master, who is the one person who can do everything for us.
In this world, different people can do different things. But Krishna is the one master who can do everything. So, when we take his prasad, we become purified, we will be imbued with devotion for him, pure love for him.
And in this way, our life will attain perfection. nācite nācite nikaṭe jayi jakhona dākhi betu nī busīya śūrya So, when there are no enemies to drive away, I will sit down peacefully and tamāra charana cintibo sattatāmi I will constantly meditate on your lotus feet. Just as a master, this is a dog who meditates on his master.
Sometimes, if there is a pet dog, and there is a young boy in the family with whom that dog has played frequently, the pet dog is the pet of the whole family. But that boy has a special relationship with that pet dog. So, when the boy goes away, say to a hostel or for studies or grows up and goes for a job somewhere, and then after many years, the master comes back, that young dog is delighted, jumps up and wants to lick the face and wags the tail and jumps on the lap of its master.
It’s very delighted. So, that means that even that pet dog recognizes the master. It recognizes the master.
It remembers the master. So, Aptanathakur is saying that, you are not going far away from me, but when I am not directly in your presence, when I am not interacting with you, at that time, cintibo sattatāmi, I will constantly think about you. So, a servant does not just serve the master when required by doing practical activities, but a servant also meditates on the master constantly with affection, with gratitude, with joy.
Whenever you call me, my lord, at that time, dancing and dancing, I will go towards you. So, I will think that, Oh, my master is remembering, master wants me to do some service. What is the service? I want to do that service for my master.
Please send me your master. What do you want me to do? So, if we have affection for a person, then naturally, we want to please that person. And Aptanathakur is putting himself in the position of a dog who has great affection for his master.
And as a dog, the dog doesn’t want to come in the way of the master, but at the same time, the dog can help master anywhere on the way. So, when he sees the master has called me, then immediately, Dancing and dancing. Dancing is an expression of great happiness.
I will go close to you eagerly to carry out your order, whatever it may be. So, both in the presence of the master and not in the presence, the faithful dog remains a servant of the master. And like that, Aptanathakur Singh, as devotees, we have at times active services for the Lord.
At that time, we do those practical services. And when we don’t have services, at that time, we meditate on the Lord. Meditation on the Lord is also a service that increases our affection, that deepens our relationship with Him and that actually brings greater depth and breadth to our relationship with Him because we realize that Krishna is so wonderful that He can be served just by meditation and that He is so inclusive that even those who are not doing anything for Him, their devotion is exposed and He appreciates that and He accepts their service, whatever temporary they are meditating on Him, that also He accepts.
bholiya varanakore nije reposhan kabhu na bhavibo So, nije reposhan, my own maintenance, kabhu na bhavibo, I’ll never worry about that. rohibo bhave rebhore And I’ll be absorbing devotion. rohibo bhave rebhore In waves of devotion, I’ll be absorbing.
bhakti vinod tomar palak bholiya varanakore Bhakti means that I accept you, O Lord, as my master. tomar palak bholiya varanakore Accepting you as my master, I take shelter of you, I surrender to you. tomar bholiya varanakore I accept you as my only shelter, as my only support, as my only protector.
So, Sharanagati, which is the theme illustrated by this song, and within that, usgopthi kve varanam that the Lord is my maintainer. Bhaktivinoda Thakura tells us how that is so through this sweet meditation. And herein, he is telling, he is using the relationship of a dog with the master to convey the mood.
So, for us, we have our various obligations in life. We have our careers, we have our families. We wonder how does this mood of surrender apply.
We cannot just sit near a temple and wait for the Lord to call us for some service. Yes, we are running around doing so many things. How is it practical? Then we can actually ask this question to Bhaktivinoda Thakura himself, in the sense that he is not available for us to answer, but we can look at his life, how he applied it.
He himself had multiple responsibilities, had many children, he had a demanding job as a deputy magistrate. So, it was not easy for him to do anything like this. it’s more of mood for internal meditation, not necessarily for external imitation.
So, whatever we are doing, Bhaktivinoda Thakura in another song, he says that, my dear Lord, I feel that my house is like जे देन गृहे बजनने की, गृहिते गो लोक भाई, that I see my house to be like Goloka. And the idea is that a devotee, wherever he is, he thinks of that place as belonging to the Lord. And because it belongs to the Lord, the Lord is the master and he is our protector.
So, because he is our protector, he takes care of us, whatever happens. And we we may be going around, running around, doing various things, but we can try to have this mood. My dear Lord, I am dependent on you and whatever I am doing, that is just to express my desire to serve you.
Now, actually, Prabhupada was so industrious in trying to find out some way by which he could go abroad to America so that he could carry out his spiritual master’s instruction. And yet, in the song, Markine Bhagavad Dharma, he writes that I am helpless, I am unfortunate. He signs that as an unfortunate beggar, Bhaktivinoda, Bhaktivedanta Swami.
And then he also writes that actually, I don’t have the ability to speak. It is you who have brought me here. Now, you please do with me whatever you want to do.
If you look at the Leela Amrit, prior to that, it was not that Prabhupada sitting passively and the Lord arranged for a ticket for him. No, Prabhupada was busy, super busy doing all that he could with whatever little finances and resources that he had. But still, despite being, despite having done so much to try to keep the service going on, he had the mood internally that ultimately, I am just a servant, a small and significant servant and whatever way the Lord wants to engage me, I accept that and I will try to serve the Lord in that capacity.
So, we can try to by reciting songs like this, by meditating on songs like this, have that mood of humility and dependence irrespective of externally whatever roles we may be having. And although for a non-devotee, this may appear denigrating. You may think, I want to be the boss in a big mansion.
Not that I want to be a dog outside a small, some house. But for a devotee, when we understand how great Krishna is and what a wonderful master he is, then actually to be a servant of such a master is a matter of great joy. So, Yamunacharya says in Stotra Ratna that that my dear Lord, ever since I have surrendered to you, I have made you as my master and since then, all my anxiety has gone.
I have become bhavantam evanucharam nirantaram nirantara when I have become you, I have started following you. Manorat So, prashantan hishesh manorathantara The mind which is very restless, which on the chariots was taking me here and there and everywhere, prashantan hishesh this becomes completely peaceful and kadaham aikantika nitya kinkaraha prahrishyami sanata jeetam So, he said nitya kinkara now I have understood how wonderful serving you is. So, then I want to be your eternal servant and not just I want to be your servant prahrishyami I want to delight in being your servant because I understand that without you I was anath but when I have got you as my shelter now I have become sanath jeetam I have got you as my master and with you as my master I have become sanath So, a stray dog is beaten here but a dog with a good master is protected and cared for and Krishna is the ultimate best master So, we may be like for a if the master is going hunting in some countries especially while hunting some raccoons or something dogs are used for tracking the prey and a master follows behind the dog sometimes a dog in its faithful service to the master may also be aggressive going here, going there so like that we may be running around here and there and we may even get with positions Prabhupada at one time when his yajna puja was going on and disciples were washing his feet Prabhupada spoke softly Krishna, just see how your dog is being respected how your dog is being worshipped so although there are people bathing his feet Prabhupada’s internal mood was that I am a dog of Krishna so the internal mood of service of submission of humility of dependence of reverential affection is what we can cultivate irrespective of whatever activities we are doing externally by meditating on songs like this that mood will come in us gradually thank you