Our Relationship with Krishna

Posted by Webmaster on 25. May 2009 02:39

Our Relationship with Krishna

Love for Krishna resides eternally in the heart of every soul. It is reawakened by hearing and chanting about Krishna. When that love is awakened and attains its purest stage, the soul returns to Krishna and lives with Him eternally, never to return to this world again.

Spiritual life is based on the exchange of love, or Bhakti. Pure Bhakti attracts God. Krishna likes it best when the Bhakti is so pure it isn't touched by feelings of awe and reverence toward Him.

That type of love allows for the greatest intimacy. Krishna is most attracted by intimate love: a love that loves Krishna just because He is so wonderful, not because He is God and deserves or commands our love.

Each soul has a unique relationship with Krishna in one of five moods:

• with feelings of awe and reverence
• as a servant or one who gives protection
• as a friend
• as a parent or elder
• as a lover

"It is the living entity's constitutional position to be an eternal servant of Krishna because he is the marginal energy of Krishna and a manifestation simultaneously one and different from the Lord, like a molecular particle of sunshine or fire." —Sri Chaitanya in Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya 20.108

Who is Krishna??

Krishna is the Supreme Person, the Godhead.

Krishna is the speaker of the Bhagavad-gita, recognized throughout the world as one of mankind's greatest books of wisdom. In the Gita, as it is also known, Krishna says repeatedly that He is God Himself, the source of everything.

Arjuna, to whom Krishna is speaking, accepts Krishna's words as true, adding that the greatest spiritual authorities of that time also confirm that Krishna is God. Traditions that follow in the line of these authorities have carried Krishna's teachings down to the present day.

Krishna Consciousness

The word Bhakti can be translated as "Krishna consciousness," a term Srila Prabhupada often used. When he started an institution where persons on the Bhakti path could find fellowship and inspiration, he called it "The International Society for Krishna Consciousness." As souls with an eternal relationship with Krishna (a relationship that defines our identity), we are all originally Krishna consciousness—aware of our relationship with Krishna and always acting in that relationship. Now, in our material condition, we've forgotten that relationship, which is one of pure love. So awakening our Krishna consciousness means awakening our Bhakti.

The heart of Bhakti practice is to hear about Krishna, because hearing makes us conscious of Him. And the more we are conscious of Krishna, the more our natural love for Him is drawn out.

All Bhakti practices are meant to serve the purpose of remembering Krishna. An understanding of this principle guides each Bhakti practitioner in how to apply Krishna consciousness in daily life.

The Goal of Life

The goal of human life is to re-awaken our original pure love for God, Krishna. We souls exist to have an intimate loving relationship with Him. We can never be happy by rejecting that relationship and denying our true nature.

The things we do in this world indicate our true, eternal nature. We have to love; it's unavoidable. Having turned away from Krishna, we try to fulfill our need to love and be loved by searching for ideal relationships in this world. But exchanges of love here are never perfect and cannot last forever.

Awakening pure love for Krishna is perfection. Nothing else will satisfy us. Everything that exists in the material and spiritual worlds is meant to support our relationship with Krishna. Human life is a chance for us to reestablish that relationship. That endeavor should be the focus of our lives.

Because love includes service, pure love for God is called pure devotional service, or Bhakti. The ways to awaken Bhakti are the substance of the practice of Bhakti yoga.

Putting Other Goals in Perspective

Because a devotee of Lord Krishna is desireless, he is peaceful. Fruitive workers desire material enjoyment, jnanis desire liberation, and yogis desire material opulence; therefore they are all full of desires and cannot be peaceful.—Sri Chaitanya, Chaitanya-charitamrita, Madhya 19.149

There are as many goals as there are people, but all goals other than pure love of God can be put into three categories:

• people seek material enjoyment (even within the context of religion)
• people seek salvation, or liberation
• people seek perfections of mystic or subtle powers

Each goal has varying degrees of benefit. But each goal, along with its benefits, is material, temporary, and based on selfish desires, no matter how enticing or seemingly lofty.

While living in the material world, we naturally pursue temporary goals. But when love of God gradually begins to awaken within the heart, we souls naturally lose interest in temporary things that offer us no ultimate benefit.

Your servants,

Sri Jagannath Mandir Congregation Team