Swami Prakashanand Saraswati often highlights that Krishna’s Divine Grace is universally available, yet it is activated through the soul’s dedication and sincere devotion. Today’s speech echoes his wisdom by explaining that Krishna’s Grace, though always present, shines brightly in a heart that earnestly seeks Him.
The Blessed Souls!
This is the last speech of the seminar. The topic for today is “Devotion to Krishna in a Devotee’s Life.” Up till now, we have learned that Krishna’s Grace is always upon all souls. He is the Supreme personality of the Godhead. He is the Supreme Divine love power that dominates all other Divine powers. Every soul is equal for Him; He equally loves all souls, whether they are human beings, or in some vegetation form, animals or birds. All the souls, whatever they are, are part of His power. He loves all souls, but His power of Grace can only be activated when a person consciously dedicates to Him. For instance, electricity is everywhere in the atmosphere, but if you are shivering cold and it is snowing, you need to generate electricity first, then you can get heat, not before, although it is in the atmosphere. So, unless you generate it you cannot get the effect of electricity like cooling or heating. Similarly, His grace is omnipresent, He is also omnipresent and Vrindaban is also omnipresent, but He is simply a Paramatma for all the souls. He simply makes a record of all the actions and thoughts of human beings.
Accordingly, Maya gives all the consequences of actions, but Krishna keeps the record (of the actions). He equally loves all souls. Krishna as a Paramatma loves all the souls equally and resides with every soul, wherever it is and in whatever form it is. It doesn’t matter. But His power of grace is only activated when you consciously think of Him. When there’s no link, there cannot be the reception of Grace. Divine Vrindaban and His Divine personality are also omnipresent. You see, the Gopis say, “Wherever I see, I see Krishna! Whatever I do, I find Krishna! IfI sleep, Krishna is there! When I am awake, Krishna is there! All the time, Krishna and myself are together! I am never alone!” So they were on this Earth, all the Gopis and the souls on this Earth were not finding anything like this blissfulness.
The great Saint of his time, Kabir said, “I wonder when a fish is thirsty? The fish lives in water and is thirsty! The fish lives in water and she’s thirsty.”Similarly, all souls live in the blissful ocean of Krishna, yet are not experiencing His bliss. They are devoid of bliss and are experiencing the pain of this Maya. This is the situation. Although the bliss of Krishna is always omnipresent, it has to be channeled. When you channel your positive thoughts through humbleness and dedication, you begin to receive something. When you become a Divine personality, you experience the DivineVrindaban everywhere. Divine Vrindaban is everywhere, and His Grace is everywhere and as a Paramatma, He is everywhere. He is simply a Paramatma looking for loving souls and waiting for them to come to Him. He becomes a gracious Krishna who is Gracing the devotees.
For instance, there’s a person who becomes blind because of some defect in his eyesight and cannot see. Some good doctor discovers that he can regain his sight. He gives him an infallible medicine, some kind of Indian herbs, that can cure his eye disease. As he uses that medicine, he gains a little sight – then a little more, and a little more. As he uses (the medicine), his eyesight is improving slowly and he begins to observe the world slowly, more and more. The world is here. The beauty is here, but because he was blind, he couldn’t see it. So, all the souls are blind. When they use the medicine of Divine love-consciousness, and when they develop their dedication, then their hearts unite with Krishna. And the Grace of Krishna begins to work on that particular soul.
There are two paths in this world: the path of vanity and ego, and the path of dedication. The path of ego is all material – material ego, material enjoyment, all kinds of meditations which relate to your psychic powers. It’s all based on ego. But when you come to your heart there’s no ego, there’s only dedication. It’s a dedicated ego, “Oh, I belong to Krishna!” There is some ego, but I belong to Krishna; it’s a dedication. So, dedication and ego: ego is for worldly attainments, and dedication for Divine attainments. The path of dedication starts from the heart. So when a soul finds his mistakes, that he was mistaken in the world for all these lifetimes, “These worldly attractions allured my mind, and I was fascinated with them!”, then he finds his mistake and accepts his mistake. Only then he can become humble and dedicated. Unless you accept your mistake, you cannot become dedicated. So, acceptance of mistakes, acceptance of your own weakness, and acceptance of your own faults make you dedicated -before that, there’s no dedication.
When a soul accepts his mistakes, faults, transgressions, and all the sins he has committed in the past, he becomes humble, and dedication starts for Krishna. From that very moment, he begins to think of Krishna as his Divine beloved, and the power of Krishna’s Grace begins to act. And when His power of Grace begins to act in his heart, although Krishna’s Grace is everywhere, the power of Grace is now activated. All the defilements of the mind are slowly cleaned up and washed away with that power of Grace. All those wrongs of the mind are slowly cleaned up by the power of Grace. You cannot clean them up. You simply dedicate and (the) power of Krishna’s Grace works. So, the devotee begins to experience the charm of Krishna’s name. He feels more dedicated, and he develops his affinity for Radha and Krishna. Now for that particular soul, although Krishna is omnipresent, the same Paramatma has become Krishna and now he has the Grace of Krishna.
It’s called bhao in Hindi and Sanskrit terms. Your feelings, your affinity for Krishna, is now personified. Affinity has a shape. Affinity is not simply an imagination; imagination are always false. Affinity is something solid which you experience in your heart and when it remains all the time, so you experience all the time. So, affinity is not imagination. Affinity is a power of devotional love. That affinity which you maintain in your heart, you maintain that affinity with proper feeding with your devotional attitude and dedication for Radha and Krishna. And that affinity is in your heart, so Krishna’s Grace was omnipresent but according to the affinity in your heart that power of Grace is more active according to your strength of affinity. It becomes more activated. Although the power of Grace is everywhere, but you have affinity in your heart, so in that area – and only for you – that power of Grace is more active.
For example, there’s a big piece of ice and you light a matchstick and put it at one particular spot; that spot becomes slightly melted. So, the power of Grace is everywhere but when your heart is melted, when you have affinity in your heart, the power of Krishna’s Grace is now active. You maintain that affinity according to your faith, dedication, humbleness and service from your side. And from Krishna’s side, His Grace and He are not two; They are one. Krishna Himself is Grace. In a bhao form He begins to live in your heart. Bhao means affinity. That active affinity becomes the Grace of Krishna, and a reflection of Krishna begins to stay in that affinity. That affinity further grows, and Krishna’s Grace becomes more and more vivid. It further grows and His Grace becomes even more vivid.
A Saint says, “When your heart is melted the Grace of Krishna is there. In the melted heart the Grace of Krishna is experienced, and the devotee has the experience of Krishna love according to his state of Divine love consciousness. Thebhaoroopi Krishna, the form of affinity that develops Krishna’s Grace in your heart, remains in your heart, and that Krishna helps in cleaning all the negativities of your mind.
A devotee dedicates himself through dedication, devotion and service, and the Grace of Krishna purifies the heart of the devotee. This is the process of how Divine love consciousness works on any and every soul. No matter what a soul is or whatever he was, the moment he comes to Krishna dedication, the power of Grace begins to work. Krishna forgets everything that a soul has done. Radha is so simple; She never remembers what the soul has done in the past. She thinks, “He has come to me; that’s enough.” That is all. She never remembers.
When a soul comes to Radha Krishna the past is forgotten and from that present onwards, if that soul remains a devotee, the power of Radha Krishna’s Grace is working on him. This is a very sweet and stable relationship because a devotee feels Krishna with him all the time. Affinity is in the heart of a devotee, so His love is in the heart of the devotee. He is also omnipresent, so the devotee feels the presence of his own Divine Beloved and that is enough.
Suppose a devotee does not reach the final stage of God realization when he dies, yet he died with that feeling of affinity. He may forget what he had done in his past life when he takes rebirth. When he is reborn Krishna will be there because he had Krishna in his heart when he died, so when he’s born Krishna will be there. He’s not going to leave that devotee. So, from the very beginning the devotee again starts Divine love consciousness is in his mind and develops his affinity for Radha Krishna.
So, in this way, this path of Divine love consciousness is very specific. It cannot be compared with other paths. As I explained, there are two definite, distinct and demarcated fields: the field of ego and the field of dedication for Krishna. The field of ego is all material. Whatever it is -material enjoyment or psychic enjoyment or celestial enjoyment – because they are on the basis of ego, they are all material. So, there’s no comparison. Some people come to think,“What is Divine love consciousness?How can that be compared to that form of meditation?” They must know that they are two definite things, there’s no comparison. Comparison happens between two similar things, like this girl is beautiful or that girl is beautiful. You can compare who is more beautiful,but you can’t compare a girl with a pig; pig is pig, girl is girl.
The world is the world and dedication is dedication. So material is material; everything on the basis of ego is material, there’s no comparison. It’s all purely material. Again, on the path of dedication there’s no other comparison because there’s only one path for Krishna. So the path of dedication is exclusive on its own and very special on its own. So, this path is exclusive and very special.
So those who accept their faults and they come back in the field of dedication, they can start at any moment because for Radha Krishna or for any spiritual Master, any soul that comes to a real Master he forgets all the past of that devotee. He never remembers anything, “Oh that soul has come to me? That is enough.” The same power of Grace is in Radha Krishna and in a Rasik Saint. It has same nature. So when a soul comes and is dedicated, he is accepted – although he might have committed lots of transgressions or sins, it does not matter. But he has to be dedicated, and that dedication must be single-minded, not dual-minded.; single-minded dedication wholeheartedly accepting the supremacy of this path of Divine love consciousness. That is all a soul has to do. Then after, the power of Grace takes over, and that does the whole thing. That is all for today and I finish my speech with my blessings on all of you.
