On the first day of Kartik Yatra, HH Radhanath Swami Maharaj’s important message was “Never leave the shelter of Krishna.” Maharaj spoke that we should tolerate all the difficulties and inconveniences in life and always be Krishna Conscious.
He further said that we should take maximum spiritual benefit from this Kartik Yatra at Jagannath Puri. Maharaj spoke for around 3 hours. More than 10000 devotees were in rapt attention listening to Maharaj.
3 important lessons from Maharaj’s first day Kartik Yatra lecture which touched my heart are:
1. Spiritual life does not mean things will go as per our plan
HH Radhanath Swami Maharaj in the class said, “Only a neophyte devotee thinks that when he starts practicing bhakti then things will go as per his plan.”
This statement of Maharaj is so true. When we come to bhakti then we start naively believing that everything will occur as per our wishes. But it’s not going to happen. I have personally experienced it and I think all the devotees might have experienced the same.
We may plan many things about our smooth life, but this world is very complicated, people ae unpredictable, so, things may not go as per our plan. What to speak as per our plan but it may go diametrically opposite too. This is how this material world functions.
So, we should not be much surprised when things are not going as per our way. Material world is meant to frustrate us.
We think that since I have started practicing bhakti, so Krishna is going to act as per our desires. But Krishna knows what is good for us and what is required for our purification. So, he will act accordingly.
2. Mature devotee never leaves the shelter of Krishna in spite of difficulties, obstacles, heartbreaks.
Maharaj said that a mature devotee never leaves the shelter of Krishna. It does not matter whether a devotee is facing difficulties in life or whether everything is going smoothly.
In all situations and circumstances a devotee who is mature remains under the shelter of Krishna. This is what we see in the life of pure devotees.
For example, Srila Prabhupada had to face so many challenges, but he was least concerned about it. His only focus was to spread the message of Krishna all over the globe.
We see that Maharaj has also faced many obstacles and difficulties in his life but with same enthusiasm he keeps on sharing the message of Krishna to thousands of devotees all over the world.
So, Maharaj gave a very important message that our spiritual life should be unconditional.
Sometimes when things are not going in our favour, we become heart broken. We begin blaming Krishna that why he is giving us so many troubles? Or is he actually bothered about our life or not? We start thinking that Krishna is not reciprocating with us.
But we do not know how Krishna is helping us during the difficult phases of our life. We have been in this material world for unlimited number of years and have committed many sins. Whatever, we are suffering is because of our sins.
We had to suffer a lot more, but Krishna is mercifully minimising our suffering and giving us a token punishment for our purification.
For eternal bliss there may be temporary pain
We may be obsessed with certain things, or we may want some people in our life but Krishna being the Supreme Lord knows what is best for us. So, to save us from future dangerous situations Krishna may not be giving us certain things. Or he might be taking away certain people from our life.
When we are going through such phases in life then we may not understand that how Krishna is being merciful by giving us pain but may be after few years when we look back then we can really be thankful to Krishna for taking away some people from our life or not giving something which we desperately wanted. For eternal bliss we will have to go through some little temporary pain.
Krisha is our best well – wisher. He is our best friend. He knows what is good for us and what is not good for us. So, we should have faith in Krishna and allow Krishna to purify us. This is what surrender means.
We should loudly say to Krishna, “In all situations and circumstances I will not leave your lotus feet. I am yours forever. Please accept me and take me out from this miserable material life which is full of unpredictable sufferings.”
Also, Maharaj was saying that even if we are unhappy and we are taking shelter of Krishna then that unhappiness is actually not unhappiness because Krishna is there with us always.
3. After billions of births & deaths we have got an opportunity to associate with the devotees and come for yatra
Maharaj said that that we have taken birth billions and billions of times and have died billions and billions of times in this material world. And after that we have got this human form of life.
And in this human form of life, we have got an opportunity to get the association of the devotees and come to this holy place of Jagannath Puri. So, HH Radhanath Swami Maharaj was saying that we should consider how fortunate we are and how valuable this opportunity is during this Kartik Yatra at Sri Jagannath Puri Dham!
We should be grateful to what we are getting by the mercy of devotees and by the mercy of acharyas like Srila Prabhupada. It is because of Srila Prabhupada that today we know what is the actual purpose of or life. We should not waste this great human birth else again we will have to transmigrate through different species of life.
Maharaj emphasised that since there are thousands of devotees in the Kartik yatra so there will be inconveniences. But we should ignore it and focus on the purpose for which we have come to Jagannath Puri dham.
he purpose of Kartik Yatra is to take the association of the devotees and sincerely absorb in chanting the names and glories of the Lord. This is the best way to purify our hearts of all the anarthas.
And if we do so sincerely during this yatra then when we return back to our homes, we will be a transformed person. Our hearts will be purer and we will continue to sincerely and happy practice Krishna Consciousness.
Praying for Maharaj’s mercy
I pray at the lotus feet of HH Radhanath Swami Maharaj to give me his shelter so that I can follow his instructions sincerely and be more absorbed in chanting the names of Krishna and also, I should consider myself fortunate to be in the association of so many wonderful devotees of Krishna during this Kartik Yatra at Sri Jagannath Puri Dham.
