What does crying for Krishna, as Srila Prabhupada recommends, mean practically?

Transcript

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Okay.
Thank you. Yes, Prabhu. What does crying for Krishna as Shri Ramapala recommends in answer? Crying for Krishna doesn’t necessarily mean shedding tears physically from the eyes.
Crying indicates a state of such intense emotional longing accompanied with such a feeling of helplessness that tears break out. When do we cry? When there are intense emotions and when we feel helpless about those emotions. Helpless about doing anything to deal with the situations that have caused those emotions.
So that is the time when tears erupt. So when Ramapala is saying crying for Krishna, what it essentially means is that we need to have a strong desperate longing to attain Krishna and we also feel that we are utterly unqualified. That we don’t have any devotion, nor do we have any strength or discipline, nor do we have determination to acquire the discipline.
So we are utterly unqualified. And that’s why we feel totally dependent on Krishna’s mercy. And then that state of intense longing for Krishna along with the feeling of helplessness is what is referred to by crying for Krishna.
We in our world of understanding of the Bhopal statements also have to look at his life and his other teachings. There were some precious occasions when Srila Prabhupada shed tears of ecstasy by feeling separation from Krishna. But most of the time Srila Prabhupada expressed his longing for Krishna by vigorously and tirelessly serving Krishna.
And that’s what he recommended to his disciples. One of his disciples who was actually his personal servant would travel from place to place to Srila Prabhupada and he saw that whenever Prabhupada was leaving devotees would be overwhelmed by emotions. He decided himself in crying to see him separated from Prabhupada.
And wherever he would arrive devotees would be in tears of ecstasy to welcome him over there. And he felt that these devotees have so much devotion to Srila Prabhupada and I am constantly traveling, I am constantly with him and I don’t feel any tears. So he was dejected feeling his lack of devotion and he asked Srila Prabhupada one day and Prabhupada said, but you are serving.
Srila Prabhupada emphasized that yes, we are serving, we are dedicating, that is important. So that means we don’t want sentimental, sentimentality and just superficial tears and we don’t want to pretend to ourselves or pretend to the world that just by having those tears we have become spiritually advanced. We want committed service to Krishna and that commitment is the way we express our longing for Krishna.
Krishna, I want to get your mercy and the way I express that the spirit desire for the mercy is by dedicating, committing myself to your service. And in this way as we keep serving Krishna, Krishna becomes pleased and uses mercy. Srila Prabhupada says that at one level the tears of love for Krishna or tears longing for the love for Krishna are the perfection of life.
But then in the Chaitanya Chaitanya Amitabha what he also says, first he says that tears are the conclusion of scripture, tears of love for Krishna. But then he says that Sahajiya’s tears wash away the conclusions of the scriptures. Why? Because they are superficial.
Gautam Srila Prabhupadaji would say that when a woman is pregnant and is about to deliver she has labour pain and she screams but when she screams everyone becomes excited although they are concerned for the pain of the mother but they are also excited the child is about to be born. Similarly when a devotee goes into ecstasy and cries at that time everybody goes into, people around that devotee go into ecstasy. But if a woman who is not pregnant seeing all the attention that the pregnant woman is getting on her cries starts crying then this non-pregnant woman may cry as much as she wants but no child is going to come out.
Even if some people pay some attention the child is not going to come out because she is not pregnant. Similarly a devotee whose heart is not pregnant with devotion or a Sahajiya whose heart is not having sincere devotion even if such a Sahajiya cries then some people become ecstatic. Nothing is, no spiritual advancement, no steady proximity to Krishna, no increased proximity to Krishna is going to result by those tears.
So in our practical life we can focus on committed service to Krishna and also focus on some manifestations of Krishna like some pictures of the nipis, some kirtans, some hajans which evoke an intense longing within our heart to become more and more attracted to Krishna which attract us to Krishna and by cherishing these that little spark of longing which is there, by cherishing that longing we will be refining it and it will blaze forth gradually till it will burn away all the arthaas in our heart and then elevate us to the state of intense emotional longing for Krishna then we will be able to shed authentic tears. So when Sri Ramapal said we should learn the art of crying for Krishna that means we should develop the state of internal longing and external committed service to Krishna by which gradually we will get authentic tears of love for Krishna. Thank you.
Hare Krishna.