The smile and joy on the face of the devotees, who recently became part of our Krishna conscious family, while offering ghee lamp to Lord Damodara showed how Krishna has stolen their hearts. All had come for special program on this holy month of Kartik. Last Saturday was also Karva Chauth and many ladies were fasting on this occasion. But some while fasting came to attend the program. They left in the middle as soon as the moon appeared in the night sky and after worshipping the moon they came back to chant the holy names of Krishna. While offering the lamps everyone sang the Damodarastakam prayers, its lyrics is little difficult but when we sing it regularly we get used to it.
We all have love for Krishna but sadly because of heaps of material desires our hearts natural desire to love Krishna does not manifest immediately.
Krishna with his open hands always invites us to join him. Our heart too longs for Krishna’s love but we fail to understand this and force our heart to fall in love with the love things of this world. The worldly things cannot satisfy our hungry heart and so here in spite of having material positions and possessions we do not feel complete satisfaction.
Whether we love Krishna or not Krishna loves us unconditionally. When we decided to leave him in the spiritual world, he did not leave us. He came with us residing in our heart as Paramatma. In happiness and in distress he is with us. In whatever species of life we choose to be by our actions he accompanied us.
Krishna is more eager to be with us than we are. He wants us to be back with him. In fact he immediately comes under the control of those who starts loving him selflessly.
One of the most famous pictures of Krishna is of being bound by mother Yashoda to a grinding motor. When mother Yasoda was trying to tie Krishna every time the rope fell short by two fingers. Scriptures explain that one finger represents our endeavour and other the mercy of Krishna. When Krishna was pleased by his mother’s endeavour he showered his mercy upon her and happily agreed to be bound by his mother’s love.
Devotees offer lamp to this picture of Krishna. As the ghee lamp burns our material desires burns and our heart gets illuminated with Krishna’s love.
Krishna wants us but he also wants to see how much eager we are to be with him.
So the scriptures tell us to cleanse our hearts of all material allurements by chanting the holy names. The process takes time not because the medicine of the holy name is less powerful but because many times we do not follow the prescription of the spiritual doctors as it is. But if we continue to remain in the process and put in our best efforts to the best of our capability then slowly we would succeed in purging all our material desires. Our heart will then become as soft as butter and Krishna, the eternal butter thief, will immediately come and steal our heart.
Krishna will become ours and we will be of Krishna – a relationship which will give us so much joy that cannot be experienced here and cannot be explained in words.
Photo Courtesy: Kancana Madhavi
Haribol! !!