Waves of Devotion

I wake up in the morning and chant for several hours and then chant more during the day. Does that make one advanced on the path of bhakti? It is certainly good to chant more, and it could reflect some internal devotion, but not necessarily. Could it also reflect that one has little else to do, or is lazy and shirking responsibilities or pretending to be an advanced devotee? In fact, Krishna warns in the Gītā of prematurely becoming renounced with the motive of seeking adulation:

“One who restrains the senses and organs of action, but whose mind dwells on sense objects, certainly deludes himself and is called a pretender.” (Bg 3.6)

Śrīla Prabhupāda also makes clear that what makes one advanced is one’s inner mood and not necessarily what one is doing externally:

“…The Supreme Personality of Godhead is known as bhāva-grāhī janārdana because He takes only the essence of a devotee’s attitude. If a devotee sincerely surrenders, the Lord, as the Supersoul in everyone’s heart, immediately understands this. Thus even though, externally, a devotee may not render full service, if he is internally sincere and serious the Lord welcomes his service nonetheless. Thus the Lord is known as bhāva-grāhī janārdana because He takes the essence of one’s devotional mentality.” (Bhag. 8.23.2, purport)

When I read the above, I thought of a devotee, a disciple of Śrīla Prabhupāda, who seemed to me spiritually evolved in many ways although he had very little sādhana. I don’t know why, but early in his devotional career he came down with a severe mental disability. For him to function his doctors were forced to prescribe lithium. It is a very high-risk toxic drug which now is only given in the most serious cases, if at all. As a result, when I met him years ago he lived in government housing and rose from bed around 4:00 pm. When visiting the Boston temple and exchanging with him, however, I was always impressed with the depth of his humility and his dedication to service. Without fail for hours and hours every evening he would clean every nook and corner of the four-story ISKCON Boston temple with the utmost devotion and use whatever extra money he got from the government to serve the devotees.

But how can we say he was advanced in spiritual life when he woke up so late and probably rarely chanted? I composed an analogy that I hope helps resolve this quandary.

In Olympic diving a participant is not just judged by his score on a particular dive, but by multiplying that score by its degree of difficulty. Similarly, a devotee’s advancement is gauged not just by the amount of spiritual practice performed, but also by the degree of difficulty—the challenges they face in its execution.

In other words, my god-brother was extremely limited karmically in the amount of basic sādhana he could do, but the great effort he gave to overcome his challenges demonstrated a very sincere desire to serve Śrīla Prabhupāda. I don’t think it would be too much to claim that that he scored higher on the platform of devotion in the eyes of Krishna than many who were more accomplished on the level of sādhana, but not as deep in humility and devotion.

Of course, this doesn’t diminish the status of those with strict devotional practices which usually reflect a deep devotional mentality, nor does it indicate that those wasting time on social media are not plagued with weak faith and devotion. I am only stating that what’s ultimately important in devotional life, and what is the truest indicator of spiritual advancement, is “the essence of our devotional mentality.”

During the Memorial Day weekend, I held several programs in the New York/New Jersey area. The events were accommodating to newcomers, but for the most part they were gatherings of like-minded people with deep, longstanding bonds. There was no dearth of volunteers, and the many services were all done expertly, especially the Memorial Day feast—chapatis, rice, sweet potato soup, koftas in tomato sauce, creamy paneer subji, bhel puri, handva, coriander chutney, potato patra, cupcakes, ladoo, kheer, mango lassi, and nimbu pani.

There was such a strong sense of community. I was impressed, and right after kirtan, at the beginning of my class, I made a simple point based on what I had just seen: “Bhakti is easy. Just chant Hare Krishna with people who like each other.” Like Christianity, the Hare Krishna movement must offer different “churches” for different people—eventually more localized, to bring nearby like-minded people together and provide community to the maximum number of those interested in devotion.

The modern world is increasingly exploitative, and it does not provide sufficient genuine community to give people respite from our dog-eat-dog modern society. As the Catholic social activist Dorothy Day said, “We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community.” More than ever, people need gathering places that can foster a deep sense of care and belonging, where one is inspired by the community’s service mood to serve others before themselves, the first step in spiritual life. It’s with this vulnerability, this letting down of the guard of self-centeredness that covers the soul, that one’s heart can be open to God’s grace—essential to experiencing the divinity of the holy name.

Bhakti is best expressed through seva, humble service, and genuine community inspires and offers opportunities for service; it is one of the most attractive and powerful tools to draw people toward devotion and keep them within the association of devotees. So, this week I am sharing a very simple realization: We need more of what I saw on Memorial Day—devotees who know and like each other gathered with a sense of belonging and care in genuine community expertly and selflessly engaged in service.

To address this need, I have started Metro Mantra Sanga. It’s a simple idea: I am organizing a yearly calendar of events—home programs and festivals—in the metropolitan area to provide more opportunities for participation and service in devotion and thus bring like-minded people together in spiritual community. On occasion we will also invite other devotees to enlighten us—some of whom are close to us but don’t have local platforms to share their wisdom.

Many of my students and followers render service and/or participate in other communities’ gatherings, events, and online groups, and I encourage them to continue to do so. Metro Mantra Sanga just adds another resource for in-person community and devotional service.

A reasonable person wants to understand what is true and live by it. But how to ascertain the truth? The wisdom traditions of India generally outline three main means of knowing called pramāṇa.[1] The three main pramāṇas are verbal testimony (śabda—what we accept as true in the form of the testimony of a recognized authority), pratyakṣa (direct experience), and anumāna (inference or logical conclusions). In our tradition we consider śabda, our sacred texts, as the highest pramāṇa.

Of course, there are limits to śabda when communicating the truth. The audience may not accept the authority of one’s tradition or may accept the authority of śāstra but misunderstand the point being referenced. I therefore find upamān or analogy, making comparison between things that have similar features, helpful in communicating certain points, especially those which are somewhat abstract.

For this Greetings I would therefore like to share a few of the analogies I composed to hopefully demonstrate how helpful analogy can be in illustrating concepts that are sometimes challenging to explain.

What is Bhakti?

Introduction: Is bhakti our nature, an energy of God, or a practice to achieve perfection? It is all of these, but in explaining what bhakti is, especially to an audience not familiar with our tradition, I composed the following analogy.

Analogy: Just as there is a natural love that flows between a newborn calf and its mother, there is a natural love that flows between the soul and God called bhakti.

Comment: I was in the flower gardens of Vrindavan visiting a gardener friend when I saw a calf being born for the first time in my life. The calf got up immediately to drink its mother’s milk and the mother began to intensely lick its calf. I had an epiphany. There is a universal principle of natural love between two beings that have a relationship clearly seen in this innate love between a cow and its calf. It perfectly illustrates what bhakti is, except that in bhakti the natural affection is between the soul and God.

Why devotional practice must be concentrated, uninterrupted and prolonged to bear the fruit of realization.

Analogy: Just as a piece of paper under the intense rays of the sun focused upon it through a magnifying glass will not burn immediately but only catch fire when those rays are focused steadily for some time, similarly the experience of the holy name will only touch one’s heart in the practice of japa meditation when one is concentrated on the holy name uninterruptedly over a prolonged period.

Comment: This analogy came to me after reading in the Yoga-sūtras the definition of practice—meditation that is concentrated, uninterrupted and prolonged over a period of time.

How can the same divine energy of the holy dhāma which pushes us so sweetly and easily towards God feel sometimes so challenging?

Analogy: The same eastern wind, which is very pleasant for a sailboat moving east, is oppositional and unpleasant when the sailboat is moving west. Similarly, the divine energy of Vrindavan is helpful towards the service of Krishna and makes residing in Vrindavan so sweet. But it is oppositional to our desires when we are moving in the direction of false ego and makes residing in Vrindavan quite unpleasant.

What does śuddha-nāma, or the pure name mean? Isn’t the holy name pure itself?

Analogy: Sometimes a person whom we don’t recognize, although they are right before us, doesn’t reveal their full self and remains a stranger. But when we serve and love them, they reveal their full being as a child, friend or lover. Similarly, when we chant the holy name with neglect, although the holy name is right before us, it remains distant like a stranger. But when chanted with pure love, the holy name reveals itself fully as our child, friend or lover and that is called śuddha-nāma.

Analogies are a powerful tool in communicating principles of truth that we seek to share with others. I hope you found mine effective.

[1] From root mā, “to measure”. Pra usually means “completely”.

I was surprised by the emotional reaction from some to my class and the questions and dialogue that ensued.

I was speaking on Nṛsiṁha-līlā and somehow a point in the class was made about reconciling evil in the world with the existence of God. This is just a summary of the perspectives on that issue.

“If one has lived a life of dharma and has thus gained the realizations one was meant to get by appropriately responding to one’s karma (destiny), one should be able to look back on all those experiences and understand that the consciousness that has evolved by the lessons of destiny has been worth any of the suffering needed to get there.”

The audience was divided, some seemed to be enlivened by my point and others disturbed. When I say disturbed, no one was disrespectful, but they expressed their personal challenges concerning my point, somewhat intellectually, but more emotionally. Here were the responses as far as I understood them at the time:

“There are so many horrible things that happen to one and it is so difficult to go through them. It seems this kind of philosophy, that it is all one’s fault, just adds to the burden.”

“I can accept that I have learned from my past, but I will find it hard to accept it if God puts me through more.”

“I am trying in devotional service, but these powerful emotions come up again and again. Why?”

“I was just so relieved when the doctor told me after my diagnosis of breast cancer that it wasn’t my fault. Now I find out it is.” [Related to me later.]

I tried to engage with each doubt by tackling the problem of evil comprehensively as I have done before as outlined in a previous Monday Morning Greeting[1], at the same time trying to remain sensitive to people’s individual feelings. It is not easy, however, to satisfactorily respond to a person’s trauma individually, while at the same time remaining cognizant of the collective mind of a whole audience. In fact, there were just as many who expressed how the philosophy has pacified them as people who felt challenged by the discussion. One lady offered a quote from the famous book A Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, a survivor of Auschwitz:

“Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses suggest that inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him, mentally and spiritually.”

The discussion seemed to be so relevant that the following day I addressed the issue again to another audience in even a more thorough, and in a sense, refined way.[2] A few days later, I contacted one of the people initially raising doubts and asked for the question to be expressed so that I could understand it more clearly. This is what I received:

“It seems like an added cruelty to also hold the victim responsible to fix or move on from the dilemma and also blame them for not having enough faith or mental wherewith-all in the face of their circumstances—how to see God’s benevolence in the actual moment of pain’s infliction, when contending with what seems like that added cruelty?”

After receiving the reply, I began to contemplate if I could’ve responded in class more effectively. I don’t think there is anything more I could have added philosophically during my class or by my writings. I have dealt with this problem comprehensively.[3] In terms, of seeing God’s benevolence in the actual moment of pain, it’s a question of application of the philosophy. I therefore doubt, except in the rarest of instances, if it is the time and place for utilizing the philosophy of karma at all. In terms of speaking of it in a class of devotees, if the point comes up it must be addressed. But perhaps one should be a little cognizant of the trauma and pain that people, especially those growing up in the modern world, experience. The Yoga-sūtras make it clear that compassion (ahiṁsā) is the most important or most foundational yama (abstentions) and if there is any conflict with any other principle, such as satya (speaking truthfully), compassion takes precedence.

So, if such a situation arises again, in addition to tackling the issue comprehensively from a philosophical standpoint, I would stress to the audience how carefully the philosophy must be presented, and, of course, how it rarely should be the first response to trauma. Perhaps I could have also stressed another point, that an understanding that we are the ultimate cause of our destiny affirms our agency to change things in the future. That is comforting, while a sense of victimhood robs us of our own agency by externalizing the cause of our suffering, which dampens hope and is depressing.

Conclusion: There is the problem evil, an intellectual challenge, and the problem of the problem of evil, an emotional one. Both are not easily addressed, but I haven’t seen a better approach to this quandary than the Bhāgavatam.

[1] https://wavesofdevotion.com/2018/03/26/believers-and-the-elephant-in-the-room-tackling-the-challenge-of-evil/

[2] Home Program – May 26, 2024

[3] https://wavesofdevotion.com/2017/03/20/the-problem-of-evil/