Waves of Devotion

I renewed a cherished old daily practice. Early in the morning, before the dawn of the day, I walk out into Vṛndāvana to experience its beauty. And what is that beauty? Is it the visual as I negotiate through the meandering streets to the town’s center, or circumambulate the city on the path now paved around it? Is it the dilapidated structures, open sewers, and sleeping street dogs, or piles of strewn trash with the pigs feasting on it? What exactly is the beauty of Vṛndāvana?

In the far distance I periodically hear the birth of a kīrtana and then another and another. I can’t see them, but it’s so mystical to witness a city gradually awakening to the sweet sound of the holy name.

An elderly bābā sits on the side of the parikramā path in the cold. He sits in the same spot every day without fail, beautifully chanting the morning melody of Hare Krishna on an old harmonium. His smile reflects the beauty of his heart. I read his mind: “I am the most fortunate person in the world!”

I pass through the narrow corridors that embrace the once grand but now in disrepair Keśī-ghāṭa. I step over the small powerful stream of sewage rushing towards the river. I continue down the long dark corridor where on my left the path finally fully opens to the river in descending sandstone steps. A smattering of small rooms and platforms in the palace wall house sādhus and paṇḍitas huddled for joyous worship with incense and mantra. I pass a family sleeping together to the side of the path under a pile of thick blankets. The father’s head pops up “Haribol!” The children follow suit. They all smile. A blissful family in the most unlikely of places.

Thank God the celebrated, nasty eye glass-hat-purse snatching monkeys are still asleep as I walk the narrow street to the center of town, carefully negotiating my stroll around the resting bulls and sleeping dogs. Even I am overwhelmed, Venus and all,[1] by the thick ambrosial fragrance of devotion surrounding me. I whiff what I feel is the hearts of the vrajavāsīs’ offering incense to their Lord. My heart is buoyed by their devotion.

An old sādhu bathes by the hand pump in just his kaupīnas.[2] A barefoot shop keeper throws water in front of his shop to clean the ground, and then waves incense before baby Gopāla[3] on the shelf. I see the same souls every day. What happy hearts with so little!

A simple man on a bike passes me on my right singing odes to Krishna in joy. An old widow scurries past with soft, deep prayers to Radha under her breath. I occasionally pass a full throttled maṅgala-ārati kīrtana as I peer into the various temples behind the worn, intricately carved entrances. A few temple hopping souls occasionally rush past me to catch another ārati on their morning rounds. A whole city gradually awakening to devotion. A joyous sight!

I meet a simple mālī (gardener) as I walk through the beautiful flower gardens of Vṛndāvana just minutes from the town. Hundreds of acres of lush, colorful floral acres rest before me, a splash of hue if I ever saw one. Yes, the real Vṛndāvana is also still there hidden through a secret black gate that seems to forever preserve its beauty. Amidst the truly paradisiacal Vṛndāvana the mālī tells me his woes. The floods wiped out his crop. As he is complaining I am puzzled as his eyes and body still sparkle with immense joy. I ask a simple question, “How can you be so happy?” His answer was like a mantra revealing the true glory of Vṛndāvana, whether walking through its run-down town or strolling through its splendid gardens.

Happiness is a heart filled with devotion. Ah, Vṛndāvana the beautiful!

[1] I sometimes joke about the weak Venus in my astrological chart, which is not overly sensitive to refined things like fine scents.

[2] Loin cloth

[3] His deity of baby Krishna

Faith is what you value the most. Defined in this way, faith is not an intellectual choice, as in “I believe this or don’t believe this”. It is based on an experience of happiness that determines what one cherishes or has faith in.

Of course, one can’t make up his own definitions. The problem here is that I am trying to communicate what the Sanskrit word śraddhā means in English, but it doesn’t exactly translate into the English word “faith”. I have therefore taken leeway with its translation to try to better express its import. My explanation is actually based on Śrīla Prabhupāda’s definition of śraddhā as “unflinching trust in something sublime”. Sublimity is not a person’s decision intellectually. It is a choice one makes based on what one is spontaneously attracted to. By defining faith in this way, as what one values or is attracted to the most, I hope to enhance our understanding of śraddhā, and maybe even challenge our faith in a healthy way. I hope you will see what I am getting at as I apply this understanding first to devotion.

A devotee’s faith is that the highest pleasure, what they value most, is sevā, loving service to God or Krishna. Now, according to our definition, let’s test our faith. If given a choice, would you rather chant and serve the holy name of Krishna or surf the web? In other words, what do you really value most from the heart? If it’s the web, then by this definition, that’s your faith.

Naturally what I am writing early in the morning comes into my mind throughout the day. When I was chanting during maṅgala-ārati in the Krishna Balarama Mandir, I listened carefully to the quality of my entreaty. It hit me. The degree to which I enjoy chanting is my level of faith. It can’t be bluffed.

I like the definition of bhakti as the mood of being available for service. How much are you in that mood and how much do you enjoy serving? That is your level of faith, regardless of how much you think you believe in Krishna. When there is a big feast do you enjoy serving it or eating it more? Which is your faith?

Śrī Rūpa Gosvāmī was referring to this experiential definition of faith when he described the first stage of bhakti as ādau śraddhā, beginning with faith. The path of devotion usually starts with innocent contact with the holy name of Krishna that awakens a sublimity exceeding any previous type of joy. That encounter engenders such a strong trust in devotion that despite challenges on the path of devotion it remains our most valued objective, even if we have failed to recapture that initial sublimity, or “religious experience”.

The question naturally arises of how to maintain and increase our faith, for if an experience is not renewed it will gradually recede within the consciousness. Faith is rekindled by engaging with it by practice, which means four things: concentration, done over a prolonged period time, without interruption, and in the right mood. Except for some special mercy, such prolonged and uninterrupted attention is the basis of any profound renewed spiritual experience, which is the foundation of faith.

To translate practically what this faith generating practice implies for us, it means at least a period of time during the day reserved exclusively for our meditation on Krishna. Without that type of concentrated effort daily, the intensity of devotion that kindled our initial faith will not be strongly felt, just as the heat reflected through a magnifying glass by the light of the sun only becomes fire if focused or concentrated on a piece of paper without interruption over some time.

As usual, and I hope you don’t get bored of me saying it, this topic goes far beyond the limited scope of the present paper. There is so much more to discuss about faith. For example, in devotional service people become absorbed and awaken faith in bhakti in various ways according to their taste. That’s certainly worth a discussion. Also, no discussion of faith is complete without understanding the role of sacred texts in increasing our devotional aspirations and consequently our faith. There is also no time to discuss that here, but I will leave you with just one more point about faith that I think is relevant to everyone.

The greatest tragedy is to have the wrong objective in life and to realize that your attainment is unsatisfactory and ephemeral. Intelligent people therefore strive to awaken their eternal nature, the substantive and eternal happiness of devotion. That is the real definition of śraddhā. My simple faith:

Chant and be happy!

There are many subtleties to the law of karma. I thus feel impelled to tackle this question from several angles. First a story that sheds some initial light on our inquiry.

Five friends walk into a forest of mango trees to eat. In a very crass tone the first friend advises, “Cut down the tree!” “Why cut down the tree?” the next friend advises, “Just break off one branch.” “Why saw off the whole branch?” the third one protests, “Just break off the part where the mangos are.” The fourth suggest something more sensitive: “Why not just pick the mangos?” The fifth friend is even more considerate: “Why do we have to pick the mangos at all? Why not just take the ripe ones that have fallen on the ground?”[1]

The different friends entering the forest indicate different levels of egocentric acts requiring karmic reactions of progressive intensity for purification. For example, the person who expediently wants to cut the whole tree is the most selfish and requires the heaviest reaction, a reaction that certainly can’t be thwarted. The person who simply eats the fallen ripe mangos is the least selfish and accordingly requires, if any, the least self-correction. His fate certainly can be thwarted.  

The Jain text below hopefully puts the above points in perspective:

If one unwittingly makes an imperceptible and minor mistake in dealing with someone, simply regretting one’s mistake may be sufficient to mitigate the reaction. For a more serious mistake an apology may do. An even more severe offense may require atonement. For the most egregious offenses, however, only by suffering a commensurate reaction to the offense can one be purified of that transgression. In such a case one’s destiny is certainly set in stone.

To sum up the first consideration of our initial inquiry, there are certainly rituals of atonement outlined in various spiritual traditions that may mitigate or change destiny, but their efficacy, if at all, is limited by the severity of the offense originally committed.

As one advances spiritually, however, one’s tact in altering destiny changes. Rather than putting more effort into stopping what is manifest or what is to come, one puts more effort into countering destiny by properly responding to it. After all, the real fruit of karma is the happiness and distress meted out by destiny, which certainly can be changed by the proper understanding and response to it. Socrates condemnation to death is a perfect example of this.

Socrates was sentenced to die by the Senate of Athens for the trumped-up charges of contaminating the youth with his teachings. He accepted his fate peacefully, and simply requested an audience with the Senate to address his accusers. His powerful words recorded by Plato in “The Apology” are worth pondering: “If you think you will harm me, you cannot harm me. You only will harm yourself.” Because Socrates responded to his death with thoughtfulness and dignity his fate therefore did not affect or disturb him, while his accusers were actually karmically digging their own graves. Was not Socrates fate changed by his enlightened perspective? Imagine the fate of a person in a similar situation without his realization of karma and the eternality of the soul. Would not that person’s fate be quite different?

The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam is filled with many such examples where by a deeper perspective on life, the happiness and distress meted out by the mace of destiny, is altered. I would love to write about King Parīkṣit’s response to being cursed to die, or Vidura’s reaction to being banned from his kingdom. For the purpose of this article I will just share Bhīṣmadeva’s advice to his grandson Yudhiṣṭhira, who inquired from him about how to digest his terrible fate in life.

There is no cause for despondency in life, no matter how trying circumstances get, if one, through understanding destiny as God’s beneficent and absolute will, does three things. One should bow one’s head in gratitude, respond in righteousness, and do so under one’s qualified mentors, thus extracting the fruit of destiny, a personal realization elevating one to a better life.[2]

Let’s sum up again where we are in reference to answering this article’s initial inquiry about changing our fate. We can best counter destiny, which is ultimately our distress and happiness, by appropriately responding to destiny rather than changing it. In this way, by extracting the fruit of destiny, which is the realization meant to elevate our consciousness, we remain free from despondency, and in that sense change the essence of our destiny, which ultimately is our happiness and distress.

Topics like this often raise more questions than are answered. I can never do justice to such a subject in such a short article. I welcome further questions from our readers and perhaps we can have a part two where I attempt to answer them. Although I have now exceeded my preferred word count, I need just a little more time to complete my explanation. Please bear with me for just a half page more as I share three more examples to further drive home the point that while the broad parameters of our destiny are mostly fixed, within those parameters our destiny can very much can be changed by how we view and experience it.

Example 1

A friend of mine was diagnosed with Chrohn’s disease, a serious stomach ailment that he would suffer from for the rest of his life. He reacted responsibly to his fate by a strict diet, and the symptoms of his disease have gradually been alleviated. He lives normally. Has he then not changed his karma? In a sense he has, because he no longer suffers the pain of the disease, but in a sense he also hasn’t because his diet is still restricted due to the disease.   

Example 2

Destiny is like being on a rocky road to a particular destination that we have no choice but to ride. In that sense destiny is fixed. One can, however, pave that road to make the journey smooth. In that sense, destiny is changed. In other words, within the parameters of our fate we can certainly mitigate the reactions of our karma, and in that sense change our fate.  

Example 3

Destiny is like being dealt a bad hand in poker. Your cards are fixed. Still, if you play your cards properly you can minimize your losses or even win. This is a nice analogy to show both the fixedness of destiny and the scope to change it by how we play our hand. 

Can destiny be changed? In the most important way, yes. I will leave you with Rumi:

“When providence seems to be digging a hole to throw us in, it is actually planning to quench our thirst by drawing water from the ground.”

[1] This story is from a Jain treatise on karma that a friend shared with me many years ago when I was preparing a seminar on karma.

[2] This is my summary of Bhīṣmadeva’s instructions from Bhag. 1.9.12-15

Stuck again. People ask me how I come up with something to write every week. All I can say is that Krishna is in the heart and from Him comes remembrance, forgetfulness, and knowledge. When I finish one article I pray and generally something comes, and what comes is usually a realization from the past week. That’s the only way I can explain it. Well, something has come.

I arrived Friday evening after long, arduous travel from Puri. I am pretty much useless the next day, especially in terms of concentrated thought. I only now started writing the next entry, but nothing is coming. I am worried. I can’t risk waiting until later in the week to come up with an idea because the process of writing needs sufficient time to fructify to ensure I meet my deadline with something of quality. I hate traveling. Voilà! That’s what I feel now, so why not write about it? It’s kind of my Aikido writing trick, using the force of my opposition for my strength. So here it is, my latest Monday Morning Greeting.

A great deal of my service is writing and chanting, activities that require concentration. Traveling, which increases the mood of passion, is thus especially brutal for my service. After I travel it takes some time to shift into a productive mode for these services. Perhaps that’s just me. Śrīla Prabhupāda certainly wasn’t affected.

When I was younger, I remember sometimes walking out of my house to go to a social event and often just walking back. I just liked staying in one place so much better than the hassle of going to somewhere else.

My nature is not to get shaken or frazzled, even in crisis, but still, when it comes to travel I needlessly fret over the possibility of missing my plane or worry that I left something essential behind. I have written about that before, how I often arrive at the airport ridiculously early.

One of my important services is hosting people in the holy dhāma. Traveling out with people to holy places, however, is one of the last things I like to do. Those on my Puri yatra may have noticed that I skipped our visit to the famous Saksi Gopal temple, our only bus trip during the retreat.

I could go on and on about my repugnance for and jitters with long journeys, but I think there is an important point here to discuss. It is also a very personal one. Where do we tell our likes and dislikes to get off on the path of bhakti?

First, when to tell our likes and dislikes not to get off the path of bhakti. I think the best way I can do that is by sharing some of my favorite sayings on the subject:

“Our taste in Krishna consciousness is the door for us to gain entrance to the spiritual world.”[1]

“Whatever we like best we can offer to Krishna with the most devotion.”[2]

“The spiritual master finds the ways and means to engage one in devotional service.”[3]

Now where do they get off? A short story to illustrate the point:

About twenty-five years ago, when I had to leave India for six months, my solace was giving a weekly class at 26 2^nd Avenue. At that time, I would especially relish listening to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s classes from when he preached there. One class particularly piqued my interest. Śrīla Prabhupāda was reflecting on living on the Lower East Side, which, frankly, was the dreck of New York at the time.

“Why have I come to this place? Why have I come to this place? Because it was the order of my spiritual master.”

When a person chooses a place to live, it generally reflects their proclivities and desires. The Lower East Side was the last place in the world that a very well cultured elderly devotional Bengali gentleman would retire, especially when he had already achieved residence in Vṛndāvana. Śrīla Prabhupāda’s residence in the Lower East Side was thus starkly not about his likes or dislike. And that’s the point. We accept things that are pleasing to guru and Krishna, sometimes in line with our nature and sometimes not. We tell everything else to get off, no matter what that means for our life. That’s called real love, or pure devotional service. And we won’t be cheated. Real happiness is a heart filled with such devotion.

I will finish this week with one more of my favorite sayings that I think is relevant to our discussion, a definition of bhakti that succinctly sums up the heart of pure devotion:

Bhakti means to make oneself available [for service].[4] And I may add, even traveling when one has absolutely no desire to do so.

[1] This insight was once shared with me by Bhurijana Dasa.

[2] I loved this answer to a question asked to one of the most prominent scholars in Vṛndāvana when a devotee asked if we can offer pizza to Krishna.

[3] This is a paraphrase of a quote by Śrīla Prabhupāda in the Nectar of Devotion about how the spiritual master engages the disciple according to his or her proclivities.

[4] This definition of bhakti was once shared to me personally by Pradyumna Dasa, Śrīla Prabhupāda’s Sanskrit editor.