KKSblog.com - The Spirit of Humility |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2011 04:29 PM PDT (Kadamba Kanana Swami, 2005)
So, he made some special banana bread for me, which was kind of very nice. He would just put it in my cupboard and then write a note for me, and he would sign it as: "Your dog servant". And I thought: "Oh my God! How can anyone in the world call himself your dog servant? It's like its too much! If he had written your servant, than I could have gotten that. But your dog servant! It's too much – its over the top!" I really felt that it was over the top, but he would write things like that. When that bread was there, it was so good. It was not just bananas inside, but there was also dried fruit, figs and so many things. It was too good, and it was a big flat bread, that I would just break a piece off and eat it. One day he told me: "You're just eating like a mouse!" Because, of the way I was eating the bread, that I looked like a mouse. It's true actually….I felt caught. He was calling himself my 'dog servant' and I could not understand how anyone could refer to himself as so low. This is too much, but now I understand better, that a vaisnava is looking at himself with a magnifying glass. He is very strict, and he is looking at himself and saying: " I have to grow…I have to grow and change. There is so many things in me that have to change! For so long I have been living in the wrong way, and for so long I have developed so many bad habits…and for so long I have just automatically let it go and I carry with me – bad habits from my last life. In this life I have picked up many more and some I picked up from my parents and so on. Here I am and full of bad habits and now I have to deal with that. So therefore I have to adjust and change!" "So whatever I am is not important. If whatever I am is important, than I cannot change. How can I change? I am like this – I have been like this my whole life! How can I change?" But if one is humble than he would say: "Yes I have been like this so many lifetimes, because of my foolishness". So in the spirit of humility, one can even change their habits of many lifetimes, but in the spirit of pride, one cannot change their habit even in a few years. Therefore, humility is required if we want to bring about a change of heart, but it is a fact that if one gets too much into finding faults, by looking at ones own faults with a magnifying glass to make it worse. One might say: "Well that's depressing…that's too depressing". And all day long they will say: "I'm so fallen. I'm a rat…I'm a dog…I'm low. I can't do anything. I've got two left hands. I'm going to jump off the bridge". This is what comes next. Therefore, with the combination that we realise that we have also got the mercy of the Supreme Lord and because of the mercy of the Supreme Lord, I am becoming qualified…because the mercy of the Supreme Lord is such that it gives us the right activity, and if I simply take to this mercy of the Lord and do the right activity – the activity that is not destructive but the one that is auspicious. The activity that with every step that I take, then I am coming closer to a perfect destination, and with my every action towards anyone, than that person is also coming closer to an ultimate better destination. So in this spirit of embracing the mercy, one becomes very positive, then one appreciates the greatness of Krishna, His kind mercy, and how we ourselves are not qualified! |
| Posted: 11 Jun 2011 02:05 AM PDT (Kadamba Kanana Swami, Durban – South Africa, April 2011)
In the second letter he writes: “But l know that my spiritual master, although he is now in the spiritual world, he is always looking at everything I do.” In other words, he is still actively involved with the here and now. And that’s the situation. So the great and pure devotees, they can manifest themselves either by appearing before devotees, either by appearing in the dreams of devotees, or either by appearing through someone else, by arranging for Krsna Conscious influence in the life of devotees. In this there is no doubt. We can understand that as Srila Prabhupada wrote that his spiritual master was watching over him, that Prabhupada is still watching over us. And isn’t that what we are experiencing? One devotee had done so much service and still had some rounds left and was chanting, and then, just so exhausted, went to bed. Immediately he had a dream that there was someone at the door. He opened the door and it was Prabhupada, and Prabhupada said: “Did you finish your rounds?” Which he didn’t! So Prabhupada will help us, will help us, and the great and pure devotees will continue to help us even though they are in the spiritual world. And there are others, other pure devotees who will emerge, and who will manifest themselves and who will carry the Vaisnavas. So one should not just look at the pure devotees who have passed on, but one should also look at the pure devotees in the present who will, somehow or the other, give us shelter. We take shelter there and then everything can be attained, because the same knowledge, the same mercy is coming in disciplic succession. |
Srila Prabhupada wrote 2 letters after the departure of his spiritual master. In the first letter he said: “My spiritual master has now returned back to the spiritual world and taken up his eternal position as a manjari in the spiritual world.”| You are subscribed to email updates from kksblog.com To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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