Skip to main content

WHAT IS YOUR SELLING PRICE?

"For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

One time a few guests came to meet Srila Prabhupada, the founder acharya of ISKCON. Srila Prabhupada pointing to his disciples told these guests very proudly, "Just see, these boys and girls are so dedicated to this Krishna consciousness movement and me that even if you give them a million dollars, they will not leave me."


The guests were highly impressed with the disciples commitment to Srila Prabhupada and the disciples in turn were floating in the air feeling very proud of their dedication. After the guests left, Srila Prabhupada turned to his disciples and told them that there is nothing for them to be proud about because till now no one has given them a million dollars. Only when they reject such a kind of alluring offer will they prove their loyalty and dedication to this movement.

Maya in various ways keeps alluring us with her irresistible attractive offers. She knows very well that everyone has a price at which he or she may sell his soul and give up his spiritual life or at least compromise it. Thus, she regularly offers us things a little more than our price of dedication. She is literally ruthless in testing one's loyalty and dedication to God. She has done her multiple PhD in corrupting our souls. The offer could come in the form of a huge sum of money, beautiful women, luxury, followers, name or fame. What form the offer will come depends on what our weakest point is, and Maya is super expert in en cashing on our weaknesses. Therefore, we need to be extremely careful, mindful and prayerful. We should try to align our desires in such a way that we only and only want Krishna and nothing else. And we should keep regularly sending this plea of ours again and again to Krishna and keep reminding ourselves of not giving in to the cheap offers of Maya. We have to work relentlessly (just like Maya works relentlessly to derail our spiritual life) to increase the value of our dedication and loyalty to God up-to the point of infinity, up-to the point where the possibility of falling to Maya's proposal becomes impossible. Then we are safe. Till then we can keep this beautiful prayer of Lord Chaitanya continuously on our tongue and etched deeply in our hearts.

na dhanaḿ na janaḿ na sundarīḿ
kavitāḿ vā jagad-īśa kāmaye
mama janmani janmanīśvare
bhavatād bhaktir ahaitukī tvayi

"O Lord of the universe, I do not desire material wealth, materialistic followers, a beautiful wife or fruitive activities described in flowery language. All I want, life after life, is unmotivated devotional service to You."

- Achyut Gopal Das

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

POWER OF BELEIFS

One time Prabhupada asked the devotees "How can we say Krishna is God?". One devotee said, "Because you say so, Prabhupada". Prabhupada replied "I am an old man, how can you believe me". Someone said "Because it is mentioned in Scriptures". Prabhupada countered "But people will say that is simply blind faith". Prabhupada finally answered "Krishna is God because you can experience Him". Prabhupada was not minimising the importance of hearing from Guru and Scriptures, but the point he was making here was that we should be eager to experience God and genuine spiritual emotions in our lives. As devotees we know that Krishna is God, that we are spirit souls and that we can experience great bliss in the process of Krishna consciousness. The question is, shouldn't our lives be examples of someone who has genuine experience and realisations of all these aspects of spiritual life. And if the answer is 'Yes', then the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

THE BREATHING BELLOWS

Every morning when I wake up and notice my breathing and observe my chest swelling up and down being pumped with air, I invariably remember a verse from the Srimad-bhagvatam which states that our breathing is like the breathing of the bellows of a blacksmith. Both the bellow and our body is made of leather. The bellow may feel that it is breathing on it's own and is fully independent but, it does not know that as soon as the blacksmith stops pumping air in it, it will stop breathing and lay lifeless. Similarly, we may be proud of our breathing and our life and may feel fully independent but, we don't realise that as soon as God decides to stop pumping air into our system, our body will stop breathing and lay lifeless.  What is there to be proud of when we don't even have control over our breath?  We should be grateful to God for giving us the wonderful opportunity and gift to breathe and live. And, the way we express that gratitude is by using ...
Post a Comment
Read more

GLORIOUS LIFE OF A GLORIOUS DEVOTEE

"What is the value of a prolonged life which is wasted, inexperienced by years in this world? Better a moment of full consciousness, because that gives one a start in searching after his supreme interest." - Srimad-bhagvatam 2.1.12 THE WINNER OF HEARTS Today is the disappearance day of His Grace Jayananda Prabhu. He left his body, a day before Narasimha chaturdashi in the year 1977. Jayananda Prabhu is an example of a perfect devotee whom every devotee should follow. Born as Jim Khor, Jayananda Prabhu became one of the intital and senior most disciple of Srila Prabhupada. He was a mechanical engineer by education but he chose a simple, humble profession of a taxi driver in order to be free from an artificial life of name and fame. He was already a kind of spiritual seeker therefore, as soon as he came in touch with Srila Prabhupada and the Krishna Conscious movement, he got hooked onto it and took it up with all seriousness right from day one. He was enthusiasm ...
Post a Comment
Read more