śrī śrī guru gaurāṅga jayataḥ!
Year-1, Issue 12
Posted: 15 January 2009
Dedicated to
nitya-līlā praviṣṭa oṁ viṣṇupāda
Śrī Śrīmad Bhakti Prajñāna Keśava Gosvāmī Mahārāja
Inspired by and under the guidance of
Śrī Śrīmad Bhaktivedānta Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja
Our only duty is to serve Krsna
by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada
Some people attempt to become heroes through action (karma), some strive to fulfil other desires (anyabhilasa), others (jnanis) strive to cultivate realization of brahma and yet others (yogis) try to achieve oneness with God. However, we know that worship done to acquire dharma (religiousity), artha (material prosperity), kama (selfish desires) or moksa (liberation), which are connected with base selfishness only, is mere pretence. It has nothing to do with liberated souls. Rather, it is nothing more than the ravings of conditioned souls in bondage. Sri Caitanyadeva gave the order to people throughout India, “Advise everyone, whomever you encounter: worship Krsna!” Thus He told them to make endeavours for God from whatever position they occupied, no matter where or when they lived or who they were.
Now, to carry out His commandment, there is no other course than to cultivate what we have learned at the lotus feet of our Sri Gurudeva. The only work for a worshipper of God is to see that His worship increases more and more. Our prayer should ever be that our attachment to Krsna may increase more and more. We do not want power and pelf. Nay, we do not even want cessation of further births.
The special advice that Sri Caitanya-deva has given us regarding the easiest process to rid ourselves of those desires that are so natural to mankind is simply that we take shelter in devotion. He has said, “Alas! For someone who is seriously engaged in cultivating devotional service (bhagavad-bhajana) so that he may cross the ocean of nescience, who has completely abandoned all material activities, it is considered more abominable to expectantly see a visayi (sense enjoyer) or to savour gazing at a woman, than willingly drinking poison” (Caitanya-candrodaya 8.23).
One may take poison and die, but one should never keep company with a sense enjoyer or an object of sense enjoyment. He who after beginning hari-bhajana (divine service to Sri Hari) becomes entangled with objects of sense enjoyment is ruined. It is for this reason that we receive the teaching from the lotus feet of Sri Gurudeva that we have no other duty to perform than serving Krsna. His only blessing has been, “May your mind rest in Krsna.”
Sriman Mahaprabhu has advised those who seek true well-being to totally shun the company of those who are occupied with becoming emancipated by achieving oneness with non-distinct brahma, since such men are even more insincere than those who hanker for worldly enjoyments. We should shun all such bad company and associate with true sadhus. Their only duty is to cut through all varieties of accumulated evil designed by the jivas, and doing so is truly their natural motiveless desire.
Worldly people, cherishing the duplicity of their hearts, generally announce one thing publicly while concealing something quite different. And the funny part of it is that they are anxious to show the public that the duplicity of their hearts is liberality or the virtue of reconciling opposites. These double-tongued men brand the creeds of men who are candid and who do not adopt duplicity themselves as sectarian, bigoted and so forth.
We should only associate with those candid fellows, not with the others.
Adapted from The Gaudiya, Volume 25, Number 2
by the Rays of The Harmonist team
