Skip to main content

GETTING OUR ATTITUDES RIGHT

"Our altitude in life depends not on our aptitude but our attitude in life."

A few days ago was the appearance day of Sri Advait Acharya. Advaita Acharya is non different from Lord Vishnu and appeared as one of the most confidential associates of Lord Chaitanya. His life is filled with great lessons for all devotees in the line of Lord Chaitanya. Here are two most prominent and crucial lessons from His life that is very very important for devotees to understand.

RIGHT ATTITUDE OF A PREACHER
Advaita Acharya even though was Lord Vishnu Himself, still seeing the suffering condition of the human society, prayed to Lord Krishna to personally descend. Why? Because He thought, He was powerless to transform the hearts of the living entities. Just see, He Himself is the powerful Lord but still felt incapable. This is a true quality of a powerful preacher - he considers himself powerless and thus seeks and prays to access powers, higher than himself. By His earnest prayers, Lord Krishna appeared as Lord Chaitanya to inaugurate the Sankirtan movement. This mood is found in the lives of every great preacher - they never even consider that they can preach and transform the hearts of people, they always feel powerless to preach and thus they attract higher powers to act through them.

Srila Prabhupada, the Founder Acharya of ISKCON also felt that he wasn't capable of preaching in the Western countries and thus with utter humility, he prayed to his Guru and to Lord Krishna to give him the power to preach. While on the ship to America he wrote this famous poem and song, pouring out his heart and feeling to the world. In this song - "Boro Krpa Koile Krsna", he writes a stanza which says -

ki ko're bujhabo katha baro sei cahi
khudra ami dina hina kono sakti nahi

"How will I make them understand this message of Krishna consciousness? I am very unfortunate, unqualified and the most fallen. Therefore I am seeking Your benediction so that I can convince them, for I am powerless to do so on my own."

No wonder, Lord Krishna made Srila Prabhupada a huge success and fulfilled all his desires.

RIGHT ATTITUDE OF A DEVOTEE
Lord Chaitanya always respected and worshiped Advaita Acharya because of His age and seniority. But Advaita Acharya didn't like this, in fact the respect He got gave Him pain. He preferred and longed to hear Him being called Lord Chaitanya's servant than His superior. So, one day, He made a drama of preaching Impersonal philosophy that the form of Lord Krishna is an illusion and that we are all God. When this news reached Lord Chaitanya, He became furious and came running to the house of Advaita Acharya and dragged Him from the elevated seat on which He was sitting and preaching this bogus philosophy into the courtyard and in front of so many people He started to kick Advaita with His leg repeatedly. All the devotees were shocked to see this unprecedented anger of Lord Chaitanya but Advaita Acharya was in bliss, in ecstasy because this is what He wanted - to be treated like a servant. Finally, His desire was fulfilled - Lord Chaitanya forgot all the respect He had for Him and treated Him like a servant.

Advaita Acharya is teaching us that the greatest joy of a devotee is not when he is respected and worshiped but when he gets to act in his constitutional position as servant of the Lord. True joy is when we become a servant of God and not a master because we can never be a master anyway.

Let us follow in the footsteps of Sri Advaita Acharya and try to meditate, understand, assimilate and apply these invaluable lessons in our life and make our life valuable.

- Achyut Gopal Das

Comments

  1. Tirthapada das18 February 2021 at 20:22

    Right attitude of a devotee and preacher. Wonderful example from the life of Sri Advaitya Aachar ya.thank you very much Prji.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GIVING UP PETTINESS to EXPERIENCE PRETTINESS

"The process of Krishna consciousness will empower us when we empower it." The other day as I was taking a bath, the plastic bucket I was using, slipped and cracked. A piece from the rim of the bucket broke off and cut my finger. As I was waiting for the bucket to refill with water, I noticed that even after a long time the bucket wasn't filling up. It's at that time, I noticed a "not so apparent" crack at the bottom of the bucket which was causing all the water to leak out. I drew a lesson from this incident which is applicable to my spiritual life. SEALING THE LEAKS The process of spiritual life or Krishna consciousness which includes the nine fold limbs beginning with Shravanam (hearing) and Kirtanam (chanting) is like filling the container - the vessel of our hearts. For the vessel of our hearts to fill up, it should be leak free. If the container is faulty and contains many holes, the best of content, in the best of quantity will not help it fill. Ana...
Post a Comment
Read more

MAKE IT A POINT TO MAKE THE POINT

A few days ago, as I was traveling on the ferry that takes us to our ISKCON Center at Chodan island, a relatively young man approached me and started to talk to me. My Vaishnava (devotee) attire probably attracted him to me. He was asking me if I was a preist in a temple. To which I said "Yes". I asked him where he stays and what he does. He told me that he stays in Panjim and runs a chicken shop in Porvorim. I asked him his name and as I guessed, he happened to be a Muslim. I could see marks of dried up blood stains in different places in his shirt. I at once told him to try to switch his profession to one which involves less violence. I suggested to him to start a vegetable or a grocery shop.  He seemed to be taken a little aback by what might have appeared to him to be a stange suggestion by a stranger. I told him that killing innocent animals is not right. They too have life and feelings like us. He was hearing me out. He then asked me, if one can eat chicken ...
Post a Comment
Read more

LEARNING THE LANGUAGE OF "NEEDS"

  Before the lockdown, I never wanted to stay in the ashram throughout the day. I always wanted to go out and do programs or meet people. I always felt that I am "on the move guy" and always wanted action. Now after the lockdown period and being at ashram for quite sometime, I must confess that I have begun to love staying here. I guess once the lockdown opens, it will be difficult for me to move out. I was reflecting on how our mind functions. The situation that was not all to my liking has now become most likable. The mind after all gets adjusted to whatever the situation is. It keeps constantly fluctuating between likes and dislikes without any rationale. Probably, that's the reason sages and scriptures warn us not to trust our minds. We can't take it's thinking, feeling and willing too seriously.   Even though the mind has no rationale, there is another rationale which we need to understand. That is the rationale of "our needs"...
Post a Comment
Read more