Dear Krsna

Oh sweet Krsna

Thank You for being there for me. I feel your sweetness and can taste your Holy Names as I get closer to You on my string of tulasi beads. I notice that "Oh, I'm tasting something sweet, I must be getting closer to the Krsna bead", and sure enough, a few moments later my fingers are tickled by your curling fuzzy tassle hair.

You're so there, directly present in so many ways. Yet I still think you're far away, distant.

Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong directions.

My heart is breaking, apart at the seams.. holding it together is patience, hard earned but steady now, at least I don't fall apart so quickly these days.

Sweet surrender is seducing my soul, to see You, to love You, to know You, to hold Your lotus feet to my head... I'm simply a fool Krsna.

I've been seeking shelter in this world... projects, places, beautiful people... they all reflect something wonderful, some manifestation of Your glories... but it's all temporary isn't it?

That's why you have denied me shelter in those things, they change, go away, fall apart after a time. Repeatedly You tell me to stop trying to find shelter in this world, it's durasraya "Bad Shelter" and to take shelter in Your pure loving devotional service.

It's so nice actually. You're inviting me to enter into Your most intimate association, "Don't settle for less" You tell me when you steal away my next scheme to stick around in Maya.

Oh and how You're so right, but I'm so scared. I want to turn towards You, to give up this mad chase after illusion after illusion... "but there's just this one more chance..." I keep saying... Yes Krsna I'll surrender, but you know, there's this one other avenue I can pursue that might work so I won't have to surrender all the way, right to You exactly. I can be safe somewhere over here, where i can get what I want, some cozy snugly sappy existence of what? Sense gratification? What good does that do me?

Been there, done that a billion times over. Useless waste of time. But somehow the illusion continues, and the cycle prevails, and on I go.

What makes the difference between those who keep going, and those who stop and surrender?
Do I have to wait for it to come "naturally" like some sort of spiritual maturity point that just reveals itself as it manifests?

I suppose that's it. But how long do I have to wait? And what relationship does it have to what I'm doing now? Is it just linked to my chanting? Is that it? If I chant attentively and with sincere intention, along with performing devotional service selflessly, that should be enough right? Please devotees, help them out, encourage them, but I have to do more.

I have to be exemplary. Stand up against my fallbacks... laziness, fear, lust, pride, illusion.

What does it take to be strong? A strong purpose, to fight for who I know I am, myself... who I forget most of the time...

Who am I? Really? I love me, and I love You, and I love everyone else because they're all special parts of You really, it's all so amazingly beautiful when I even begin to think about it, me being a little part of You. So intimately nice, perfect, complete, totally in love. Can't get much more than that.

I want someone who is like You, who can show me how to love You, who I can love as I should You, selflessly, thoroughly, with all my heart and soul. That's for You only I suppose. Anyone else is only to the degree they are connected with You.

I suppose that's not a problem. My Spiritual Master is just like You. He's fully empowered by You and gives You to me and others as freely as You would do Yourself.

I forget sometimes and take him for granted. I treat him like an ordinary person. I really shouldn't do that, and I wish I knew how to stop. Stop thinking that I know anything. Stop thinking that I'm special. As soon as I think I'm special then I'm the exact opposite, I'm completely insignificant. Which is actually the case.

Especially since I'm not chanting my rounds as attentively and steadily as I should. I'm writing all this instead of chanting, and therefore I'm being an irresponsible disciple, and therefore I'm not having any taste in my chanting due to offenses to my Guru. There's my problem. I'm offending my Spiritual Master, therefore I have no taste for chanting, therefore I'm falling apart in my heart and I just want to break down and sob the rest of my life.

No good that will do. Better to chant. Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare, over and over, surrender to Guru's instructions... chant from the heart, be real he said, just be simple, surrender my heart and hear. Krsna will reveal Himself when He is pleased with me. And He won't be pleased if I don't really try, and really give myself, and try to give the best of myself.

I have no courage, I'm so afraid. I'm cowering in pity and guilt and sorrow, for what? For choosing to be away from You Krsna. For shunning Your causeless mercy and coming here to be selfish.

Please help me. Guide me, show me the way, light my path with the light of Your love and allow me to help others find the way back to You.

Thank You for your infinite patience with me.

Effortless Humility

Krsna is the protector of the cows, who are completely dependent on Him to provide everything they need to survive, the grass, the land, the sun, the water, their masters, and each other. All they can do to give back, is to give their love in the form of their milk, their byproducts, their work, and their affection. Such a small price to pay for having such a wonderful Loving Master.

I was sitting down yesterday to engage in the ritual of American eating, getting a big plate of dinner on a TV tray and watching something for entertainment.

I've been exposed to too much information on how skewed and distortedly disturbing the news and basically everything else produced from consumeristic culture really is, so I saw vol.5 of "Following Srila Prabhupada: A Chronological Series" and popped it in.

I had the great opportunity to help Yadubara Prabhu design the series, so it has a special place in my memory and heart.

While watching it one devotee was remarking how Srila Prabhupada said, "Real humility is knowing that there is no other shelter than Krsna. When one knows that in the entire material world, nothing can give us any shelter, not our friends, our families, our husbands or wives, our bank balance, our education, our social positions, nothing can help us, except taking shelter of Krsna, who is the proprietor and controller of everything, then only can we be truly humble."

That rung so true for me.

I've been seeking shelter in so many places, in so many circumstances, in so many people, places, and projects, leaving surrendering to Krsna as my last resort. Knowing that praying to Krsna for material things is foolish, I would pray that "My dear Lord, I only want your pure devotional service. Please only give me unalloyed unmotivated uninterrupted loving devotional service to Your lotus feet through the mercy of the servant of the servant of your millions of servants. But I have this desire, so if you like, please help me."

Krsna has so kindly allowed me to explore every option for shelter to the full capacity and has very nicely shown the dead end of each and every option. There's a little sign saying "You have reached the dead end. Surrender to Krsna is your only option left." But then I would turn around and go down the next alley way to see if that might work, but no, it wouldn't and again I would engage in the same insane ritual, looking for some way out of distress through the pathways of material channels.

So, having explored the vast reaches of outer space and inner space and coming full circle, I'm back where I started, with Krsna saying "Here I am, come on and love me. You can do that without restriction, nobody can tell you no, nothing can stop you, there's no prerequisite qualification, just chant my Holy Names, love Me, serve Me, be kind to others, and give up looking for shelter elsewhere."

I've been trying to implement all of the above, but that last part, giving up all other shelters, has been my biggest hangup.

I'm just convinced that, I can have my unalloyed shelter in Krsna, and still get a little protection from the material circumstances. You know, have your cake and eat it too.

Well, it just doesn't work that way. Only fools attempt the same thing over and over and over again expecting new results, and well, I certainly qualify.

"When will it all end?" I ask Krsna. "When will this burning fire of material existence be extinguished? I keep putting fuel in it, but it just won't go out!"

I'm good for a laugh I expect, but not too many knowers of the truth think I'm good for much else, until I figure out that what I'm doing isn't the right way to go about doing things.

So now I'm here, trying to chant, trying to keep my mind off hankering for some material shelter, and trying to find it in the service of the Lord.

That's my only option, my only solution, and the trouble it takes to persevere in this endeavor is the price I have to pay for all the misdeeds of my past millenia of sinful life in the material world, investing my life in faulty shelters. It's a habit I ought to kick. So there's no time like the present.

The price to look up is the cost of not looking down.

Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

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Happy Humbly Hari Hari'ing