“Love me, Love my dog” – Saint Bernard (a French monk of the 11th century)
How do we pray or remember the Lord is best taught by the authors of
Lord Chaitanya’s pastimes.
Vrindavan Das Thakur, the author of ‘Chaitanya Bhagavat’ and
Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami who wrote ‘Chaitanya Charitamrita’, have
both repeatedly glorified their spiritual masters and other devotees
of the Lord, before beginning to glorify the Lord directly. The
essence of relationship with God in our Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition
is: we always see God in connection with other devotees of God and our
gurus- spiritual masters. This is a sign of humility and a starting
point for connecting with the Lord.
The Supreme Lord can be understood only by His own mercy. Brahma is
the original being, the first born in this material world, who
appeared from the lotus flower springing from the navel of Lord
Vishnu. On his birth, he was clueless. He went up and down the lotus
stem of Lord Vishnu’s navel who lay on the Garbodhak ocean. Suddenly,
waves from the ocean lashed and Brahma became fearful. He was
desperate for direction; he wondered, ‘who am I’ and ‘where do I
belong to’. So many questions and yet no answers. Fear gripped his
soul and he wondered what to do. Seeing his sincere desire, the Lord
reciprocated with two letters, ‘tapa’- means penance. Lord Brahma thus
‘received’ guidance from a higher source; it was mercy that descended
from a transcendental realm.
By performing tapasya, austerities, he pleased God. But it wasn’t the
tapasya; rather his sincere desire to please the Lord helped him
experience spiritual realization. God, by His own sweet will reveals
Himself to us. There is no formula except wait for His grace to
descend. From our side, we can only show our sincerity to Him.
Ultimately, it isn’t our academic skills, or the heaps of charity that
we give; or chanting of many mantras or rigorous austerities and
elaborate rituals that we perform; none of these matter. Not even our
high cleanliness standards can help us access God. Only when He is
pleased can we understand Him. And the practises of Bhakti Yoga are
designed to please God. The focus in Bhakti Yoga is to give pleasure
to Lord’s senses; it’s to ‘recieve’ grace by our efforts, and not
‘achieve’ it.
Therefore Bhakti Yoga is the supreme path because here we acknowledge
the Lord’s transcendental autocracy and depend on His grace. The more
we try to achieve and control our lives, as in other paths, the more
unlikely we’d access the Lord.
And the path of Bhakti begins by understanding that devotees are most
dear to Lord. By serving and pleasing the devotees, led by the
spiritual master, we attract Krishna’s grace. This is confirmed in the
Srimad Bhagavatam (11.19.20) where the Lord declares that He is
extremely satisfied with those who offer worship to His pure devotees
(spiritual masters); in fact He describes it as superior to the
worship of the Lord Himself.
And the spiritual master is most happy when we serve the Lord in the
mood of the servant of the servant of His devotees. Srila Prabhupada,
during his last days on this planet said that we can show our love to
him by how we cooperate with each other.
Therefore the formula is clear: we please devotees and as they glorify
the Lord, with faith, we hear from them. Thus when we please sincere
devotees of God, we also understand and develop love for God.
To be continued…
