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

GAINING by GIVING - WINNING by SERVING

"Life is like a game of tennis - in order to win, you have to serve well." For two consecutive years, 2011 and 2012, we organised a contest for the school children across Goa called Gita Champions League (Henceforth referred to as GCL). We had a massive success with 3800 children participating the first year and 8600 children participating the second year. But, all this didn't come easily, we had to literally slog it out. Well, for that matter nothing wonderful comes easily, does it! THE BURDEN OF LOVE I took up GCL or rather GCL came to me at a time when I was going through intense personal struggles on literally every front - physically, mentally and institutionally. Yes, I was desperately praying for a service that could literally pull me out of the quagmire of my problems. I have always believed and witnessed the power of service. Service has always saved me in difficult times. The only reason, I am intact in my spiritual life despite the numerous challenges is beca
1 comment
Read more

GOOD TO EXPECT BAD

Mosquitoes are something that bother me and very often as an unconscious reflex action and many times as a conscious action, I catch myself killing many of them. This is just one of the many sins and offenses I commit, mentally, verbally and physically. How can I then not expect any reactions for these actions of mine. Why should I pray for a life of no difficulties. Rather, I should be praying to God to give me my quota of reactions so that I learn my lessons quickly and rectify my offensive and sinful mentality.  The Srimad-bhagvatam mentions the episode of King Pariksit garlanding Shamika Rsi with a dead snake due to being afflicted with unbearable hunger and anger which is very unusual of the tolerant and saintly King. What is commendable is his thought process as soon as he commits this offense.  The Srimad-bhagvatam 1.19.1-3 mentions it in this way - "While returning home, King Parīkṣit felt that the act he had committed against the faultless and pow
Post a Comment
Read more

EVERYTHING COMES IN A CIRCLE

"Life is a full circle. Everything comes back the way it is handled." - Elsie Mathew Once, I was drinking some fruit juice in a stainless steel glass in our ashram. I had to leave for some place in a hurry. I left the glass thinking that someone would wash it. I came back after two days and saw that the glass was there in the exact place I had kept it, as if waiting for me. The irony is that not only I had to wash it personally but it took me more time and energy because by now the juice particles got dry and stuck to the glass. I had to do a lot of scrubbing. I realised the fallacy of procrastination. If I had washed it as soon I had drunk the juice, the job would have been accomplished in seconds. Small incidences like this have happened time and again, teaching me that in life everything comes in a circle. What goes around, comes around. That's the law of karma in action. We can't avoid responsibilities in life - what we are supposed to do, we will have to do - t
Post a Comment
Read more