Dhanurdhara Swami July 11th, 2001
New Jersey
Staying with Mahamuni and Nitai. They’re devotional and clean; a good place for some writing today.
Almost four months in the US?a long time for me. I?m feeling a need to go home to Vrindavan. It’s now time to concentrate more on chanting and writing. I have my own place there, so it’s conducive for that. In the US I am an itinerant preacher, but my mission is done?not done, but what I needed to accomplish is done, at least for this visit. I’ve met and encouraged the devotees I needed to see. I’ve helped to provide sadhu-sanga, opportunities for devotees to chant and hear about Krishna. I sense a change is now necessary, at least for some time, but when and where to go?
My prayers today are for clarity of direction. I have a theory about solving dilemmas, especially for a spiritual person. My theory is that dilemmas are often caused by the mental plane. The mental plane is that plane of selfish calculation where we hover over the mind?the mind being a repository of our desires?analyzing which desires eke out superior personal comforts and pleasures. One on the mental plane becomes concerned with even the smallest increments of personal enjoyment in his decisions, and thus even the smallest judgment is painstaking.
For a spiritually minded person, ultimately, his personal decisions are centered on deciding what God wants. On the most basic platform this is called seeking righteousness. Generally, such directions come easily when one makes a conscious effort to transcend the mental plane, for what God wants for us is usually clear and only obscured by our separate interests. In other words, God is always manifesting His will, either externally through His saints, or internally through the Supersoul, which can also manifest as our conscience. There is thus generally no dearth of clear direction for a devotee other than their own inability to hear and interpret those directions.
Based on my understanding and observations I am convinced that a God-conscious person can generally get decisive direction by an internal determination to supplicate his will to the will of God. Of course, it is helpful when a suitable guide is conveniently there for advice, but even when there is good advice, many decisions are still ultimately meant to be decided ourselves.
In Vrindaban, whenever I was agonizing over crucial decisions I would go to Srila Prabhupada’s samadhi and sincerely surrender. My simple prayer: ?What you want, I will do.? My experience was that if I sincerely cleared the haze of excessive self-interest, God would soon speak through a devotee or some unusual circumstance to tell me what to do, and I was sure of it.
My prayer again today: ?God, what you want I will do.?
It’s uncanny. As I am writing this essay some direction is coming. I will make some calls tomorrow to get further indication. What happened? As I was writing and meditating on the nature of the mental plane and the obstacles it places to realizing God’s will, I began to meditate on the various options to my present dilemma and realized that subconsciously some of the alternatives were not being given appropriate consideration based on self-interest.
In conclusion: Dilemmas are often caused by analyzing things selfishly?where we get caught up in the minute details of what gives us more or less pleasure?but if we consciously desire what Krishna wants, it usually becomes much easier to attain clarity of direction.
