Last month I had written a post on Love. I have always been a devotee of Krishna and was inspired and moved by the divine concepts of love that he taught us. In spiritual language we call it "Radhe bhava" or the state in which Radha was when she was with Krishna. It is a state of divine consciousness where we are not bound by any sense of duty or responsibility but a transcendental state only thinking about the purest form of love that God gives us.
Unfortunately people around me don't feel the same way and it is very difficult to make them feel the same. I find myself very lucky and blessed because to have experienced such transcendental state of mind and I feel pity for those who never understands and probably will never will (at least not in this this life.) But those people are the ones who are always there to humiliate you and mock you for as long as you are alive.
I recently went through a very inspiring lecture by Gaur Gopal Prabhu, he is one of the ISCKON leaders and a very good orator. His speeches are simply excellent. I mean if you depressed or let down by anyone, please do listen to what he has to say, Its so inspiring.
This particular lecture of his is titled "Change must come from within". He says that we live such a fast paced life that we forget the things that give us real happiness or value in life. Our state of mind is influenced by the things we own or the situation that we are in.
Long time back when I was travelling to Delhi for a friend's wedding, my father, and I am talking about the father who has raised me with the values of Lord Krishna, taught me to believe in them and lead a honest life, tells me that it was because of me, that my mother died. I was the sole cause of it.
My only cause was, I was in love with a man, who was a non smoker, non alcoholic, comes from a extremely respectable family, well educated and enlightened.. My fault was that I did not take into perspective the fact that my parents did not like him. However my mother did not die of broken heart, she died of liver cancer by the way and of course I cannot really infect her with cancer.
I remember when the movie "My name is Khan" was released and me and my mom went to the movie theater to see it. There is a very famous dialogue which says........In this world there are only two types of people......good people who do good work and bad people who do bad work. My mother instantly told me to remember these words and said always judge people based on these two, otherwise we are just hypocrites like the others. It was very hard to believe when my father told me this because I knew that it was my mother who taught me not to judge people based on their caste, creed and religion, but to judge them only on their deeds.
Going back to Gaur Gopal Prabhuji, I could very much relate to him in all his lectures because just like me he too was blamed for his father's death. I was devastated by father's comment, heartbroken. I cried for several days just questioning God, tell me, if this is true. And finally he decided to answer by giving me Prabhuji's lecture.
Prabhuji here tells us that often in life we are misunderstood by people and when we are misunderstood by the people we love the most, we cannot handle it. It is too much for us! We react by sinking under pressure, by doing something wrong, or even crying for days just like me. But we have to learn how to choose and respond.
We can choose to love or we can can choose to hate.
We can choose to uplift ourselves or we can choose to degrade ourselves.
We can choose to cry for hours because someone we love choose to exploit our emotions or we can choose to be satisfied in the hands of God.
Therefore the change must come from to within....to react or to respond. All true paths of God, be it any religion teaches us the same.......to choose and follow the right path of life and let me tell you,it is always the toughest path.
I would like to quote the Bhagwad Gita:
upadekshyanti te jnyaanam jnyaaninastattvadarshinaha || 34 ||
This translates as Know that by complete surrender, inquiry and service, you will receive instruction from those who have gained knowledge through direct realization of the eternal essence.
This is exactly what happened to me. If I had'nt trusted Krishna in giving me answers, I would have never come to know of who Gaur Gopal Prabhu was,or the messages and lessons his lectures convey. When we try to connect to God, we are able to make the right choices. It is He who leads us to our right path and when we are on his path, there will be many, to criticize us, mock us, humiliate us, just to divert us. It is then that we must choose to respond and not react.
