Accepting the Destiny - Part 7

Date: 2011-07-05 Author: Vaijayantimala dasi

Hare Prabhujis and Matajis,

Please accept my humble pranams! All glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev!

This is the concluding portion of the previous offerings transcribing the lecture delivered by our beloved God brother HG Devakinandan prabhuji in Chennai on 27th May 2011 on Srimad Bhagavatam verse 7.2.40. 7. Seeing the hand of Krishna in everything: The conclusion to the verse SB 7.2.40 is very beautiful that until and unless we see the hand of Krishna in everything, we will not accept the destiny of the Lord as ours. When reverses come and difficulties come, we should not be disturbed. Maharaj said, for a while we may be disturbed but that duration depends on our sadhana and faith. If your faith and sadhana is very nice and sadhu sanga is there, the lead time between the initial point of your being upset and the immediate getting out of the bewilderment will become shorter and shorter and shorter until it takes just little less than two minutes to recover your senses and say, "Krishna, I am trying to see your hand", and you become peaceful. Otherwise, it may take days and months before we see the hand of the Lord and because the Lord works in mysterious ways, we cannot see that hand of the Lord. Maharaj says it might sometimes take even for lives and lives. We cannot see it. But those who accept it, they see it because Krishna gives them the vision from within to understand His purpose. So if you have the acceptance of seeing the hand of Krishna, then we will always have everything easy. There is a nice verse in Caitanya Caritamrta, Adi lila 14.1:

kathañcana smṛte yasmin duṣkaraṁ sukaraṁ bhavet vismṛte viparītaṁ syāt śrī-caitanyaṁ namāmi tam

Things that are very difficult to do become easy to execute if one somehow or other, one simply remembers Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu. But if one does not remember Him, even easy things become very difficult. To this Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu I offer my respectful obeisances.

This is the way to accept the hand of Krishna and for those who accept it, then Maharaj said, this intimate connection will result in peace in our lives. This is the way we connect to Krishna. Without connection we cannot be peaceful. Krishna says in 2.66:

nāsti buddhir ayuktasya na cāyuktasya bhāvanā na cābhāvayataḥ śāntir aśāntasya kutaḥ sukham

One who is not connected with the Supreme [in Krishna consciousness] can have neither transcendental intelligence nor a steady mind, without which there is no possibility of peace. And how can there be any happiness without peace? If we are not connected to Krishna by accepting His destiny, then we cannot have transcendental intelligence. Maharaj said, "You can read Bhagavad gita from cover to cover, you can remember and memorize all the slokas, you can be a walking Bhagavatam, but if you are not connected to Krishna, if you do not accept, then the transcendental intelligence is lost and your mind becomes unsteady. You become disturbed. You are reading Bhagavatam, but you are disturbed. It is not the fault of Bhagavatam. We are not accepting Bhagavatam. That is the difference." And then there is no possibility of peace. When there is no peace, how can there be happiness? It ends with a question. This is the conclusion of the wonderful point. Please see the hand of Krishna. Please remember that Krishna is Yogehswara, if He wants, He can just make night into day. So we should obey the orders of our spiritual master because our spiritual master is our life and our soul.

8.Obedience to spiritual master: The instructions of the spiritual master must relieve the distress in our hearts ( tapta jivanam) and it must be cent percent, cent percent. I asked Maharaj, "Maharaj how should I obey you?" and he said, "If you want to breathe, you take permission, then you breathe. To that extent you can obey me. Then you do not worry about where you are going. Wherever you are going, I will find you and I will bring you back to Krishna." That is why, Maharaj in one of his famous statements says, "Obedience is the greatest remembrance of Krishna." Very deep point.

There is one nice story of obedience that Maharaj told me and it is in the Mahabharat. You know that the devatas and were always fighting. ’s spiritual master was Sukracharya. Brhaspati was on the other side. For some reason or the other, the demons were quite submissive to Sukracharya and because of their submission, they were actually doing better on the battlefield than the devas. Because , forever in his svargaloka mood, was offending Brhaspati. But the day came when the devas were really in difficulty and they came to find out through the spies that the reason why the asuras would always get up after any kind of wounds or injuries was simply because, they had the power of one mantra and that mantra was Amrta sanjeevani. This mantra was possessed only by Sukracharya. Brhaspati decided that somebody has to go and get it.

So Brhaspati summoned his son and told him, "Kacha, are you ready to do this?" Kacha is a very obedient person. Kacha replied, "Father, I will obey whatever you say. I will go and I will only take this as my goal. Please pray for me that I will not be deterred in my service." So Kacha went to other camp. He paid his obeisances to Sukracharya and said, "I want to learn all the sciences from you." Sukracharya thought in his heart, "You think you are smart. I know why you have come. For Amrta sanjeevani. But that is the last thing that I will teach you". Then he said, "Alright, out of my magnanimity, though you are from opposite camp, come, my boy, stay in my ashram. I will teach you all the arts that your father does not know." Months and years passed by.

Sukracharya had a daughter called . She fell in love with Kacha. She decided that she will marry him. The asuras were watching all this and they became a little uneasy. We have an enemy amidst us and we cannot afford him to continue here. They planned to kill him. One day when Kacha was out tending to the cows, they ambushed him; they chopped him into pieces and threw all the pieces in all the directions. Then they went back thinking that everything is done. In the evening Devayani was waiting for Kacha and not finding him she went to her father and said, "Father, I feel that something has happened. Please use your Amrta sanjeevani and bring him back." Sukracharya said, "why? he is just a boy like others." But Devayani now revealed her heart to him and said "I like him, I am going to marry him. So please bring him back to life." So to please his daughter, Sukracharya chanted the mantra and from nowhere Kacha appeared. He said, "My dear sir, how did you bring me back from the eight directions?" Sukracharya said, "You are not going to get the mantra." Asuras were worried. Second time, they ambush him. They get him to a faraway place and kill him. They ground his body in the grinding mortar into a nice paste. Then they threw the paste into the ocean and felt everything was finished.

Again Devayani wanted him back. When her father refused to chant the mantra, she said, "Father, I will die in separation from him." Amrta sanjeevani is chanted and Kacha came back. Kacha said, "Now please, you must tell me how it is done?" Sukracharya said, "No. I am not going to reveal. My loyalty is with the demons." Kacha did not lose heart. He remembered the force and power of obedience - the potency of obedience. Now the asuras are really frustrated. They found a way now to make sure that the mantra is not used. They killed him, they chopped him up, they ground him, made him into a paste and then they took a glass of wine and they poured the powder into the wine. They went and met Sukracharya in the hermitage. Sukracarya had one weakness. He loved wine. They said that we have brought some nice wine for you. So Sukracharya took the same bottle in which the dust of Kacha is there.

So in the evening, Devayani was waiting. She again went back to her father and said, "You have to bring him back father. I am really worried." Sukracharya realized that they had little bit of an issue there. He said, "My dear daughter, Kacha is not in some far off ocean. He is not in the directions. He is in my stomach. But in coming out, he will kill me. So who do you want? You want father or husband? You choose." Devayani said, "that’s a choice I am not going to make. I want both." How to make this?

Kacha from within the stomach spoke. Kacha said, "Sukracharya, I have a suggestion. You have no choice. If you want to live, you have to teach me Amrta sanjeevani because when you first use Amrta sanjeevani, and I come out, you are dead. Before that if you teach me Amrta snjeevani, then when you are dead, I will use Amrta sanjeevani and bring you back to life." Sukracharya thought and thought and said, "This fellow really caught me. I have to teach him Amrta sanjeevani now". Then he chanted the mantra and Kacha came out bursting Sukracharya’s stomach. Sukracharya was dead. Devayani said, "Please wake my father." Kacha is a sweet soul. He did not want to hurt anyone. He just wanted Amrta sanjeevani. He got it and so he chanted the mantra. It was a good practice anyway to see whether it worked. He tried and it worked. Sukracharya got up and he had no choice. Grudgingly he blessed Kacha and said, "I do not know where you learnt this trait, but by the power of your obedience to your father and spiritual master, you have literally extricated this mantra which even the greatest of the devatas could not learn." Maharaj ended by telling, "Be like Kacha. Be patient. Execute your devotional service, but do it on the platform of your obedience to the good Lord, to your elders, to your spiritual master. In this way, there is only one thing that will greet you at the end and that is success."

So if we really want to be successful in devotional service, if we really want to see the hand of Krishna in everything, if we want to accept the destiny of the Lord that He is pulling us through, let us remember these wonderful points form Bhagavatam and let us try to see the hand of Krishna and not blame others, but always look to ourselves and in doing so we become very very sober, never become bewildered, distressed or disturbed.

Our heartfelt thanks to HG Devakinandan prabhuji for these valuable instructions.

Thank you very much, Yours in service of Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudev, Vaijayantimala devi dasi, Chennai.