(Continuation of a talk given by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj in Chandigarh, India, on November 15, 2009)

Two forms of suffering affect us. One relates to the body and one to the mind. You all know what physical suffering is – today you caught a cold, you came down with a fever, your stomach is hurting. There are even bigger diseases than this like cancer. Everyone suffers from these, regardless if they are a king or a billionaire.

But the greatest suffering of all is mental suffering. What is that? Lust, anger, greed, jealousy and so on. These mental afflictions are the most frightening. A person may live in a house made of gold and lack nothing in this world, but he feels no peace. He is in depression. He takes sleeping pills just so he can get two or three hours of sleep. Why? Because he is wealthy.

If someone became the ruler of the entire earth, he would still feel unhappy. He thinks, “The human body is so dirty. It becomes diseased. But a celestial body is really something special! It always exudes perfume. I have heard that the celestial gods never feel hungry or thirsty. If only I could go there…” He went there as Indra, the king of the celestial abodes. Even then he felt, “Brahma’s abode is still better than mine!” This disease never ends. We have been in the celestial abodes hundreds of thousands of times. The residents there also feel tense and agitated if they see someone who has more then themselves. Desires, anger, greed and all the mental vices still exist there.

So these mental diseases that cause mental suffering are the most frightening. This is called the disease of Maya. Saint Tulsidas wrote,

Kama vata kapha lobha apara, krodha pitta nit chhati jara.

The root cause of physical disease are the three doshas of vata, kapha, and pitta. Similarly, the Bhagavad Gita describes that desire, anger and greed are not only the source of mental disease but also the doorway to hell and they lead to one’s utter destruction.

So just as we take medicine for a physical disease, so we should take some medicine for these mental afflictions, and there are many remedies prescribed for these that people practice. Saint Tulsidas writes,

Nem dharma achar tapa yoga yagya japa daan…

Proper behavior, good actions, physical austerities, yoga, Vedic rituals, repetition of God’s name, the giving of charity – even if you take millions of these remedies prescribed in the name of dharma, these mental afflictions won’t go away. No matter how many good actions you perform, you will only attain the celestial abode, and there this disease won’t stop. The source of this disease is Maya. If Maya goes away, then all these afflictions will also go away. If you cut the root of a tree, then the trunk, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers and fruits all will cease to exist. But if you cut just one branch, you won’t eliminate the tree. Instead two, four or six more branches will grow in place of the one that was cut.

Desires are such that if you fulfilled any one of them, it gives rise to greed. If you don’t fulfill desire, it gives rise to anger. Both these enemies are standing before you. It doesn’t matter if it’s a small desire or a big one. You had a desire that your child should obey you. “Son, give me some water.” He ran to get it. You thought, “He will really serve us when we become old.” Ten minutes later you said to him, “Bring my glasses.” He kept on sitting. “I said to bring my glasses.” He still continued to sit. “Are you deaf? Didn’t you hear me?” He again remained seated. “I gave birth to a demon!” He was the embodiment of service a few minutes earlier and now he is a demon!

You fight all the time in your home with your mother, father, husband and wife. Why? If your desire wasn’t fulfilled, you fought. If your desire was fulfilled, you developed more desires beyond this. Did you earn $100,000? “Yes, but now how can I get $200,000? What should I do?” Did you earn a billion? “Yes, but what business should I do so that I can double it?”

So desire, anger, and greed are the generals in Maya’s army. Absolutely no one can defeat them, no matter if they are a human being, a celestial god, or a demon. No one has ever been born anywhere in this universe who could defeat Maya, and no one ever will be. Why? Because as Shri Krishna said (Gita 7/14), “Oh souls, listen carefully! Maya is My power. It belongs to Me. Only when I say, ‘Go!’ will it go. You can’t remove it through your own efforts.”

So dasi raghubir ki samujhai mithya sopi,
chhutai na Ram kripa binu Natha kahahu pad ropi.

God and the scriptures are issuing a challenge. Maya is a power of God and without God’s grace, Maya will not go away. As long as Maya doesn’t go away, none of its children will go away.

So everyone is suffering and we will continue to suffer as long as we don’t receive God’s grace. So how do we receive it? There must be some condition we have to fulfill because, after all, Saints like Shankaracharya, Nimbarkacharya, Madhvacharya, Tulsi, Soor, Meera, Kabir, Nanak, and Tukaram received God’s grace. They must have fulfilled some condition that we did not, and that’s why we are continuing to suffer.

So what do we need to give to God so He bestows His grace on us? We can’t see Him to render service to Him directly so He graces us. In the world, if we needed something from some great king, we could at least sweep the footpath outside his door. He would occasionally glance at us and perhaps say, “He comes here every day to sweep. Alright, what do you want? Tell me.”

God is omnipresent. He also resides in our hearts and hears our desires. But we don’t see Him and realise His presence. Rather, we dispute this, “Listen, if you mixed salt in water, it would become salty. If you mix sugar in water, it would become sweet. But if God is omnipresent, He is also in this water. Then why don’t I experience Him? Where did He go? I drink water every day!” Yet The Ved, the Puranas, even the Bible, explain that God permeates every particle of this world. All the scriptures say this.

Our response to this is another argument, “It’s just hearsay that God is omnipresent. Even if He is omnipresent, that’s fine. But what is He doing for me? He’s not fulfilling my aim now, nor will He in the future.” So God says, “Have faith.” What should we have faith in? He says, “That I am residing in your heart. There’s no need to go anywhere to find Me. I am seated in the temple of your heart.”

The Mundaka Upanishad says there are two eternal friends that reside in your heart – you and God. Just believe it. But this is where we have a problem. We don’t accept this. If we did accept this, then there would only be one thing left to do after this: Beg. What is required is to believe and then to beg.

A person may say, “But when I go to the temple I beg all the time. ‘Oh, God, let me see You. Grace me’.” Everyone prays to God like this wherever God is worshiped, and you also do it in your own home. But your begging is just superficial. You are only asking with your voice and words. You are not begging from the heart.

Food offered to God in the temple

Food offered to God at home

If someone in your own family refused to eat, you would definitely feel bad. You also wouldn’t eat. You would cry and say, “He left without eating!” But if God left without eating what was offered to Him you have no reaction at all. Then why offer food to Him if you don’t believe He will actually eat it? You may respond, “It’s a tradition. My father did it so I do it, too, and besides that, everyone else does it. So I also sprinkle water over the food and say a few mantras.” So will God eat because you said a few mantras?

(Continued in Part 3)

© Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat and Bhakti Bliss, 2009

With love for the Baba

A grand event was staged to celebrate Puttaparthi Sathya Sai Baba’s 84th birthday.

To celebrate the 84th birthday of Puttaparthi Sri Satya Sai Baba, a five-day festival of music was organised. Several associations of his devotees, followers and members of the city seva samithi in association with the pupils and teachers of Sri Satya Sai Vidya Vihar in MVP Colony, organised the festival of music, dance and drama.

The ballet Sree Paadaalu scripted and directed by M. Prakasa Rao, staged on the penultimate evening on last Sunday was the highlight of the festival.

Enacted by about five scores of pupils of the Sri Satya Sai Vidya Vihara on the imposing stage, attracted a very large gathering. It depicted the story, how a very prideful scientist who was an atheist got totally reformed after coming to know about Sathya Sai Baba from one of his staunch devotees whom he came across by chance.

As was advised by the devotee, he went along with him on a pilgrimage to get ethically worthy enough to visit Prasanthi Nilayam, the abode of Sathya SaiBaba at Puttaparthi and fall on his feet to get blessed by him for deliverance from the ill effects of the sinful life that he had led.

Visualisation as to how his desire gets fulfilled marked the grand finale of the ballet. All dialogues in prose and lyrical form for all the dramatis-personae were perfectly rendered by professionals (evocatively, musically, melodiously and aesthetically) and were pre-recorded. Makeup, sound and stage management were admirably accomplished. No wonder, watching the ballet, spell bindingly turned out to be an enthralling and elated experience.

The Hindu Reference

(Synopsis of a talk give by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj in Chandigarh, India, on November 15, 2009)

There is only one thing that every living desires: happiness. There is variation and variety everywhere in the world. There are 8.4 million forms that a soul could enter and they are all unique. Some of these reside in water, some in the air, some on the earth. All living beings are born from one of 4 ways – some are born from a womb, some from eggs, some from moisture and some from the earth. If we take humans, out of 7 billion people on the earth, not even two people have the same features or fingerprints. What variation there is in this world!

Regardless of this, all embodied beings desire only one thing: happiness. Why? Have we never experienced happiness? We have indeed. We experienced this from our mother, father, husband, wife and other relations. We experienced this from sense objects. We saw from our eyes and felt happy. We heard with our ears and felt happy. We ate something and felt happy. Daily we are experiencing happiness. This is a fact. No one can deny this.

But this happiness has two defects. First, it is limited. There is always a greater happiness beyond your current experience of happiness. When you become aware of the greater happiness, your current happiness ends. A poor person got a motorcycle. While driving, he felt happy. He saw a car approaching and when its tire hit a puddle of water, it threw mud all him. He thought, “What’s the use of this motorcycle! Now if I had a car…” The joy of owning a motorcycle came to an end. This happens in every area of happiness. When you see a happiness you think better than your own, your current happiness ends.

A person studies hard in the university for four years to earn a degree to get a good job, and finally he finds one. His boss scolds him harshly on the very first day of work. He thinks, “What is this? Is this what I studied for?” His happiness comes to an end. He thinks, “One day I will take over his position.” Even if he does do this, he will still have another boss above him. So what we actually desire is unlimited happiness, a happiness beyond which there is no greater happiness.

Secondly, the happiness we desire should always remain. Worldly happiness steadily decreases and comes to an end. A mother’s son has disappeared. She is in a state of great distress. All night long, her anxiety causes her to wake up every hour. Her son was found and returned to her. She embraced her child with great joy. She hugged him a second time, but now her happiness was reduced. A third hug produced less happiness. By the fourth hug she said, “Go outside and play.”

Why does this happiness reduce? We receive happiness from our other loved ones, which also reduces until we say, “How did I get such a mother? Does anyone have such a father as mine? I have wasted my life on this kind of spouse!” and so on. The very thing that was a source of happiness becomes a source of sorrow.

What we actually desire is a happiness which is unlimited and remains forever. But what is the cause of this desire? There must be a few who desire unhappiness. Absolutely not! Every living being, from an ant to the creator Brahma, all desire happiness. But why is this? Because each and every living being is a part of God, who is the form of unlimited happiness.

God has uncountable names. Out of these, one name is ananda, supreme divine bliss. We are a part of that. We are not this physical body. Each of us is an individual soul, and this is why we desire God’s ananda. Apart from God and us, there is also all of ‘this’ – the world. There are three – you, the individual soul, He, Who is God, and all else, the world or Maya.

You have received so much of worldly happiness. You experience it every day in so many ways and everyone has experienced and knows its nature. Yet everyone remains unhappy. The more wealth a person possesses, the more unhappiness he feels. The richest billionaire, the most beautiful woman or man, the most powerful governmant official – each is surrounded by personal bodyguards. Neither they nor their children can go out in the public by themselves. Many continuously worry that someone may try to kill them. Why? For their wealth or due to their power. This fear causes great suffering.

In fact, there are two great sufferings that are important to understand.

(Continued in Part 2)

bhoktaram yajna-tapasam

sarva-loka-mahesvaram

suhrdam sarva-bhutanam

jnatva mam santim rcchati (Bg 5.29)

Real peace can only come when we accept Krishna as the proprietor and enjoyer of everything. We have nothing to fight about. So this is the devotee! Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu wants to reveals to the world what pleases Him through the prayers of His devotees. They were willing to stay in this material world, that was their humility, “But just let me be with Your devotees and chant Your names with them,” That is the beauty of the association of devotees. It is the place were people actually believe in the supreme eternal form and pastimes of the Lord. It is people who want to please the Lord eternally as His servants.

In the association of devotees the glories of the Lord are being discussed. The teachings of the Lord are being promoted and everyone is united finding the ultimate happiness in loudly glorifying His holy names – Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. When we chant the holy names and glories of the Lord as well as hear them Krishna is pleased, when Krishna is pleased within our heart He dispels all of the dirtiness of our hearts. It is not just a mechanical process. It is not that we are just chanting and therefore we are getting purified. We should understand how I am getting purified and why we are getting purified because Krishna is non different than His name. Krishna’s name has sweet will. It is not just a sound vibration. It is God who has incarnated in sound vibration.
- Association of Devotees is the Greatest Benediction SB-04.22.20

“In fact Caitanya Mahaprabhu said blaspheming a devotee is like drinking poison. Praising devotees and Krishna is like drinking nectar. So if we have actually a position of humility and pridelessness which Prabhupada is emphasising here in, then we can actually understand what is the spiritual principle of ahimsa. What is actual non-violence? Para upkar. Really living for the welfare of other living beings. As long as we want to be the master, as long as we want to be controller, as long as we have this desire for possession for pratistha, as long as we have this desire for enjoyment either on the gross or subtle levels then we are impelled to various activities that unnecessarily hurt other people’s hearts or disregard other species of lives hearts.”  – What Exactly is Non Violence SB-02.07.37

Daras kab daihau Nandakishor.
Oh, Nandakishor Krishna! When will You bless me and I will see You?

Lakhi Ghanshyam shyam ghan nachihain,
kabai mor man-mor.
When upon seeing Your beautiful complexion, which is like a dark rain-laden cloud, will my mind dance like a peacock in joy?

Kabai driganchal chanchal chanchal,
lakhihau hamarihun or.
When will you glance at me with Your mischievous, love-filled eyes, regarding me as Your own?

Kab laihou chit chor morahun,
braj banitani chit chor.
Oh, stealer of the hearts of the maidens of Braja! When will You steal my heart as well?

Kab brajavasini dasini dasini,
dasi banihaun tor.
When will I become Your servant by becoming a servant of a servant of those servants of Yours who reside in Braja?

Kab ‘Kripalu’ tanu-sudhi bisaraihaun, hwai ras prem vibhor.
Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji asks in the words of devotee,“When will I lose consciousness of all else and drown in the bliss of Your divine love?”

(Pad kirtan excerpted from “Dainya Madhuri” of Prem Ras Madira, written and composed by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj)

© Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat and Bhakti Bliss, 2009

(Part 4 – Synopsis of a lecture given by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj on November 17, 2009, in Bhatinda, India)

It matters not what name and form of God you use. Call out to Him with whatever name you prefer, whether that is in Hindi, Urdu, English, Punjabi or any other language. But this should be done with love. It should be done with as much feeling as a drowning man calls out to his beloved or a dying father says, “Bring my daughter here so I may see her for the last time!”

Many people offer food to God before eating. Some sprinkle water over their food, some don’t. Their eyes are closed. Some fold their hands. This becomes an even bigger ritual when done in temples. But has there ever been a temple priest, holy man or anyone else, who opened his eyes and looked at the food after it was offered to God and asked, “What did God eat? Oh, He didn’t eat anything?” Has anyone ever felt bad as a result and cried because nothing was eaten? “He didn’t eat a single thing! How great a sinner I am!”

If anyone in your family were not to eat your food, you would feel bad. You would say,”Alright, he left without eating so I’m not eating either.” But if God doesn’t eat anything you offer Him, you don’t give it a second thought. Why is this? Because it is our faith that God won’t eat what is offered to Him. Then why do we put on this act of offering Him food? “My father did it, and they also do it in the temple, so I do it, too.”

So there is only reason for this – we never understood that we have to practice devotion with the mind. We practice devotion with the senses instead. We waste so much time doing this. You do devotion for two or four hours. Ask yourself how many tears you shed during that time to attain God. We don’t shed tears at this time, but we always do for the world.

You ask someone, “Why are you crying?” “My daughter left to go to her mother-in-laws place.” “Yes, but you yourself looked for the husband and gave her away in marriage and you’re crying about this? You yourself made her leave the house!” “Yes, that’s true, but I don’t like it.” This is due to your mental attachment. It is this kind of attachment that you must have for God.

Kamihin nari piyari jimi lobhihin priya jimi dama.
“Your love for God should as intense as the desire of a lustful man for a woman or a greedy man for money.”

You should have such love for God that you can’t live without Him. Then He will listen to you. In this love, we do not ask him for the world. The more worldly wealth, prosperity, status, and so on that you receive, the less close you feel to God. He remains far away. Due to pride, it is impossible for those who have wealth, physical beauty and strength or great fame to bow their heads before God. It is said in the Bible that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy person to enter the kingdom of God.

So do not ask God for the world. Whatever was due to come to you as a result of your previous life’s actions will come to you without your asking. It is seen in the world that an illiterate villager becomes a billionaire and a businessman who works his whole life dies bankrupt. If you gave charity in your previous birth, you will receive wealth in this birth. If you didn’t do this, no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to collect money. You will feel tremendous tension. As soon as money comes, it will go. Everyone must undergo the consequences of their actions.

This is why it won’t work to call the temple priest to say a special prayer so your sick child won’t die. Abhimanyu was the son of Arjuna and the nephew of Shri Krishna. Ved Vyas ji himself conducted his marriage ceremony. He had the association of these three supreme powers, but he was killed on the battlefield of Kurukshetra and his wife Uttara became a widow. The one whose time has come must leave this world. Even great Saints must leave this world.

Jagadguru Shankaracharya left at the age of thirty-two. If someone were to say to him,”You must have defeated death by now. Stay and benefit this world by your presence.” No, he will stay for the number days that were ordained for him to be on this earth by the spiritual government. Not even a God realised Saint opposes these orders. Then how could an ordinary sinful soul expect that by calling a priest to utter a few prayers that his child won’t die? But this is what we do. When we encounter difficulties we pray, “Oh, God, help me!” When the difficulties are over, we forget about God.

So the mind alone is the cause of the problems we see in the world. If the mind is purified, then everyone will become virtuous. There would even be no need for governments. If devotion were practiced correctly, then society would reach that stage that you have read about in the age of Satyuga where people never put a lock on their doors. But if we don’t bring God into the mind, if instead our minds are full of the world and worldly thoughts, if we have made the decision that happiness is in the world, then the result will be that the corruption we see now will be multiplied thousands of times in the future. Therefore, attach your mind to God.

© Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat and Bhakti Bliss, 2009

Break Free Of Rituals And Abstractions
Shammi Paranjape
23 November 2009, 12:00am IST

The Srimad Bhagavatam lit a new path to the Divine, free from binding ritual and esoteric abstractions. On the one hand, it portrayed the majesty and might, the mahatmya of the Supreme Being. On the other, it revealed the tantalising possibility of blissful communion with Him in a loving relationship. In doing so, the Bhagavatam introduced the liberating and transcendental gospel of bhakti yoga.

Nothing pleases God as much as devotion. How dear bhaktas or devotees and their bhakti or devotion are to the Lord can be gleaned from the declaration in the Srimad Bhagavatam, that it is for the love of devotees that God takes form from time to time. Sathya Sai Baba says:

“The Avatar or Form Incarnate on earth is only the concretisation of the yearning of seekers. They are the prime cause. The cow secretes milk for the sustenance of the calf. It is the chief beneficiary. But others too benefit from that milk. So along with the sustenance of the bhaktas, other incidental benefits also accrue, such as fostering of dharma.” ~Sathya Sai Baba

Srimad Bhagavatam belongs to the class of Hindu scriptures known as the Puranas, and enlightens humanity on the sacred mystery of incarnations. The mystical life of the divine enchanter Krishna is finely detailed in the Bhagavatam, inspiring devotion in human hearts. Though the concept of devotion is as old as the Vedas, the Bhagavatam introduced the concept of a personal god with countless attributes who could be adored and worshipped as ‘one’s own’, in the form of child, parent, master, friend, or beloved.

The word ‘bhakti’ is derived from the root ‘bhaj’, which has several meanings to serve, to honour, to love, to adore. According to Narada, the great theoretician of bhakti, it is the wholehearted and supreme love of God, obtaining which the devotee feels he has gained the highest attainment in life, as also unalloyed bliss. Sandilya has expressed bhakti as ‘unabated and unslackening attachment to God.’

The Bhagavatam expands the frontiers of bhakti and states, ”When all energies of mind, organs of knowledge and of action become concentrated as a unified mental mode, directed to the Supreme Being, spontaneous like an instinct and devoid of any extraneous motives, the resulting state of mind is bhakti. It is superior even to mukti. Like fire it burns away the soul’s sheath of ignorance.”

Bhakti is divine engagement with the Supreme; it draws upon the highest energies of the soul. It calls for incessant yearning from a purified heart, soaked in devotion. Krishna said of the gopis, blessed souls who attained to this state and whose total devotion for Krishna is at the centre of the Bhagavatam: “They never learnt the Vedas, they never served any teacher, they practised no austerity, but by association with holiness and love alone they attained to Me.”

Sathya Sai Baba says:

“Devotion is the supreme state that man can attain. It is bhakti that proves the eternal truth, Tat Twam Asi Thou Art That that the devotee and God are one.” ~ Sathya Sai Baba

The Bhagavatam too declares bhakti to be the highest gift of God, bestowed on aspirants more rarely than mukti itself. No wonder then that the bhakta is ready to forego even the pleasures of Vaikuntha and the goal of mukti itself, for the ineffable delight of loving his Lord.

Today is Sathya Sai Baba’s birthday.

Times Of India Reference

We are all looking to end our emotional suffering and solve our life’s problems. We long to answer: How can I find love, stop being so anxious, lose weight, make money, have more energy, have a better marriage, be a better parent?

In this post I’m going to give you the answer to your difficulties and tell you how to achieve true fulfillment and happiness.

In order to do that, I will start with a short review of my basic philosophy of the heart.

As those of you who have followed my blog know, I am inspired by the great Chinese Sage of 2300 years ago, Mencius, who said,

“Pity the man who has lost his path and does not follow it, and lost his heart and does not go out and recover it.”

I believe that we have problems in our lives because we have lost our hearts. Since “essence,” — that which makes a thing what it is and no other — is known as “the heart of the matter,” our essential nature is what Mencius means by the term, “heart.” What this means then, is that we experience unnecessary suffering because we are, as theologian Paul Tillich stated it, estranged from our essential nature. This essential nature is what the Greek philosopher Aristotle called our entelechy, which is that which we are meant to be.

What is our essence? What are we meant to be? I believe that we are all meant to think, feel, act, imagine and connect in the best possible way. When those natural attributes are optimally developed we become wise, passionate, strong, creative and loving. This results in inner harmony, loving relationships, a productive social order and peaceful politics. This is an embodiment, and fulfillment, of the laws of human nature and universal nature. This is our evolutionary purpose and what is best both for the species and the universe as a whole.

A central way that we become distanced from that which we are meant to become is as a result of our relationships. When things go right in our earliest and most important relationships, we develop our potentials in the best possible way. As Mencius knew from observing nature, anything properly cultivated will grow. As we all live in a lost hearted world and each one of us is raised by flawed parents, we are all, more or less, and in different ways, emotionally wounded. When we do not receive the proper emotional sunlight, soil and water, we do not grow in the best possible way.

We become distanced from that which we are meant to be due to relationship failures in our upbringing. As a result of this, we are living in some way out of alignment with our own nature. When we are distanced from our nature, we live out of alignment with nature in general. We have, what Mencius would call, a lost heart. This results in our suffering and problems.

Science has now proved this to be true. When we get the proper love in early childhood our brain grows the way it is supposed to. When we do not get love in our early life, our brain does not develop to its full potential.

Though these early interactions leave very deep traces, we continue to grow and develop through life. Mencius said, “The principle of self-cultivation consists in nothing but trying to find the lost heart.” This means that we can live out our entelechy, we can be what we are meant to be, we can realize our optimal potentials, we can end our unnecessary suffering and solve our problems, through working on ourselves.

The Answer to Our Problems is Finding the Lost Heart

The answer is that in order to solve our problems and get what we want in life, we need to find our lost hearts. And the way to do this is to live a life of self-cultivation. What does this mean, and how do we do it?

Throughout history, everyone has wanted an instant cure, a quick fix, a magic pill. Cardinal Richelieu, who lived in the 17th century, was prescribed a mixture of horse dung and white wine to cure his ills. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. He died. The instant cure doesn’t work. Whenever we try to take a shortcut, we never reach our destination. And even though I am a psychotherapist, psychotherapy alone is not enough to give us what we need.

The  wisdom of the ages tells us that to find the answer requires a quest. The method I propose may take more work then you’d like, but, unlike the Cardinal’s cure, it will work. It includes wisdom that has been proven by thousands of years of historical experience, and modern insights proven by cutting edge science.

The essence of finding one’s heart can be distilled into five basic steps.

1.    The Path of Devotion
2.    The Path of Wisdom
3.    The Path of Healing
4.    The Path of Vision
5.    The Path of Action

The Path of Devotion

Finding true fulfillment begins and ends with living a life of devotion to finding our lost heart. The devotion to a life of self-discovery and realization is a personal bhakti marga, which is a Sanskrit word for the path of devotion. This total intellectual, moral, and emotional commitment to daily practice is more important than the particular method itself. As Sri Ramakrishna said, “One can reach god if one follows any of the paths with whole hearted devotion.”

The most important aspect of this path is daily study. In the collected sayings of Confucius, called the Analects, the very first statement is, “Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?” But the purpose of this learning is not an accumulation of facts or information. Its point is the personal development of the individual.

The Path of Wisdom

One way to do this is to study the ancient wisdom texts from every culture, whether it is the Upanishads from India, the Four Books of the Chinese, the poems of Rumi, the Confessions of St. Augustine, or the Old Testament of the Hebrews. Confucius devoted his life to the study of ancient wisdom texts because he believed that the past is an inexhaustible source of content for self-discovery. He believed that in the sincere search of ancient texts one finds true knowledge. The classic texts are the best guide to understanding ourselves. This is the Hindu knowledge path of jnana-marga.

The study of the great wisdom of humankind is one important path to finding the lost heart because these texts are the evidence left behind by the great heroes of self-discovery who have travelled this road before us. These writers went into themselves, and the words they write tell us what they found there. Because we can never truly put what is deepest about being human into words, their utterances require contemplation to grasp. Their meanings are endless. The more we immerse ourselves in them, the more we find. These writings are symbolic in a particular way. I call them yantras, where a yantra is a complex symbol that is used as a revelatory conduit for cosmic truths.

Yantras are not only to be found in the writings of the wise but can come in many forms. They are in all the products of culture. They are in myths, rituals, fairy tales, mandalas, the results of scientific research, and art and literature. This path of devotion through contemplating the yantras of culture is known in German as bildung. Bildung is another essential way to develop our innate potentials. Bildung involves not simply an intellectual exercise but the participation of the complete person in the process of self development that leads to a realization of ultimate character. Whether you read The Frog Prince, Victor Hugo, or David Foster Wallace; listen to the music of Mozart, Ray Davies, or Taylor Swift; watch the movies, Citizen Kane, Groundhog Day or Ratatouille; you will find the answer wherever you look  if you immerse yourself in the work.

These practices give us a means of making a deep exploration of our selves. As inscribed at the temple to Apollo in Delphi, Greece, the answer to life is it “know thyself.” In order to find the lost heart we must embark on a journey of self-knowledge. The journey down the yellow brick road is a journey into the self. We must learn how to go within, as all the great heroes have before us, and discover the “jewel in the lotus.” In our deepest depths, we find what the Indians in the Upanishads would call Atman, the ultimate within the heart. Gestalt therapy is a good way to learn how to do this. This is a phenomenological method, which means that you learn how to go within and listen to the silent voice of the heart, your authentic self.

The Path of Healing

In the fairy tale, Cat Skin, as a result of the childhood emotional wound of incest, the princess hides her dress of diamonds in a walnut shell, covers herself in ash, lives under a staircase and does the work of the scullery maid. She has a lost heart. Because of her childhood wounds, she has hidden the best of herself, and lives a life of shame. The disguise becomes so convincing, she forgets that she is really a princess. This yantric fairy tale shows us in symbolic form the story that we all live. As a result of our childhood wounds, we hide our beauty. The low identity we create becomes so convincing we lose touch with the glorious beings we actually are. The next step in finding our hearts is to heal these wounds of the past so that we can bring our dress out of the walnut shell and reclaim our throne.

As a result of our wounds, we might live our lives believing that we are the problem, that we are broken or bad. We must uncover the true stories of our lives, and discover how we were taught these falsehoods about ourselves, how we learned that we are scullery maid instead of princess. New therapeutic techniques have been developed to help us  process those early stories so we can transcend them. In so doing, we can end the emotional suffering these wounds caused, and learn how to transform our shame into self-love, which is central to getting what we want in life. My favorite method for this is based on a method called EMDR.

Methods like the 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous also teach us the importance of taking responsibility for our own past and present behaviors. Part of the devotion to the recovery of our hearts is to  look closely at the hurts we have caused to ourselves and others and to do all we can to rectify those wounds.

The Path of Action

The next step in finding the heart is to take actions in the present. This corresponds to the path of karma-marga. The most important thing we can do in our lives right now to help us find the heart is to learn how to truly connect with others. If we were wounded by relationships in our lives, learning how to have relationships in the present provides us with a core means of self-realization. We need to learn the methods of authentic connection in order to become all we are meant to be. Harville Hendrix’s IMAGO technique provides one wonderful way of doing this. In this technique we learn how to speak from our hearts, and truly listen to another. We learn how to express our needs in healthy ways and meet the needs of others.

In order to find our hearts we also must care for the heart’s temple, our bodies. Good nutrition, exercise, rest and sex with an intimate partner are some of the primary ways of caring for our bodies. Health counselors trained at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition can provide terrific information on the best way to care for your body in order to optimize energy, mood, health and well-being.

Nature is the best yantra. It provides all the wisdom we need to embody and live from our hearts. Spending time in nature is essential to finding and living out our true nature.

Our own creativity is a central way of finding our hearts. When we go within in a process of self-exploration, we want to express and manifest what we find there. This is the source of creativity. It is the gift we bring back for others to share, to help them on their own paths of finding their hearts. By creating, we find out who we are. As William Faulkner said, “I never know what I think of something until I read what I’ve written on it.” Part of our essential purpose is to express ourselves. The quality of what we create is not our concern. Our job is, as the inventor of modern dance, Martha Graham, said to her student, Agnes De Mille, “to keep the channel open.”

Finally, we must learn to live from our integrity and do the right thing. When what we want to do and what we should do are in harmony, then we have inner peace. This right thing is not something imposed by external doctrine or held in the dogma of religion, though we might be able to learn a great deal about the good and true from such sources.

Ultimately, what we discover is that our source of compassion and empathy, the core of our ability for moral action, is the heart itself. Just like the tongue knows the delicious and the eye the beautiful, the heart is the part of us that has a taste for goodness. When we have access to our hearts, we know the good from the inside. Cultivating the self and finding the heart, are in the end, about developing our source of goodness, which we all share, and is within us. In this way we develop what Mencius called imperturbability. Tillich called this the ‘courage to be,’ the ability to act from our hearts in the face of any external threat or danger. Once we grow this ability, we have what Mencius called ‘flood-like ch’I,’ which is access to the endless stream of universal energy. No fear of rejection or failure can stop us. We can do anything.

The Path of Vision

Next on our path of finding the heart, we must envision that which we want to become. A unique capacity of the human heart is the ability to imagine. As the ancient Greek myth put it, Prometheus created us upright so that we could contemplate the stars. We are aspirational beings. If we can imagine, we can imagine a supreme, an ultimate. As a means of finding the lost heart, the Chinese philosophers spent much of their time visualizing the ultimate person, which they called, jen. The clearer the vision we have of what it is that we want to become, the more likely we are of becoming that thing. The quarterback needs to see the ball being caught in the endzone in order to make the touchdown. In order to develop this image we need to find symbolic heroes who hold the qualities we long to realize. By contemplating and communing with these ideal figures, we free these attributes within ourselves. Napoleon Hill, in his book, Think and Grow Rich has a wonderful exercise where he communes nightly with his board of ideal advisers in order to accomplish his goals.

Finding the Lost Heart

What does life become when we follow these paths and find our hearts? By following the path of finding the lost heart we live in accordance with what the ancients called “the Tao,” or The Way. We are in harmony with our own and cosmic nature. Our problems are symptoms that indicate we are living out of harmony with the Tao. When we find this central harmony, our problems dissolve. We receive the rewards for our efforts. We have great relationships and realize profound intimacy. We discover and live out our heart’s vocation and do work we love. We become prosperous. We feel great, and are healthy in mind, body and spirit. We look great and have our best body. We live a long and energetic life. We are great parents and raise happy children. We find true success, living out our meaning and purpose. We live lives of giving. We give and receive infinitely increasing love. We contribute to the healing of the planet. We find deep spirituality and a live a life of connectedness to the all.

As the fairy tales tell us, the path is long and filled with impossible tasks, but if we take the advice of magical helpers on the way, and follow their instructions, we end up with the kingdom.

(Part 3 – Synopsis of a lecture given by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj on November 17, 2009, in Bhatinda, India)

So the conclusion is that it is the mind alone that has to be purified. Whether you practice devotion to the world or to God, wherever the mind is attached is where you will have raga or love. Vairagya or without raga means to detach the mind from the world. But what do we think detachment means? “Look! That renunciate is living in the jungle! He doesn’t wear any clothing and he only eats fruits! He never speaks to anyone!” But we don’t see that he is still thinking of the world. Instead we fall at his feet thinking he is as great as God’s own father.

This is due to our ignorance. Renunciation means to have no mental attachment in the world. There were uncountable Saints in the age of Sat Yuga, some who ruled over this entire earth like Prahlad, Dhruva and Ambarish. There were Saints like Vasishtha and Bharadwaj, and Lord Ram, Bharat, Lakshman, and Shatrughan – they were all living in family life. The Gopis, whose foot dust was desired even by Brahma and Shankar, were all in family life. But if we had seen them, we would have thought, “Poor things, they are attached to the world.” And when we see a so-called holy man in the jungle sitting under a tree, we think, “This is a God realised Saint.”

We don’t recognize who has love for the world and who has love for God. Everything depends on the mind. For the amount of time your mind remains lovingly attached to God, your devotion is correct. Everything apart from this is just acting, and there is no devotional benefit from this. If someone in the world discovers that you are merely acting with them, they will consider you an enemy. The fact is we act with others all the time.

If a dangerous criminal came to your home, you would say to your wife, “Quick! Serve him tea and make sure he has some snacks.” If you don’t pretend to be hospitable he could turn against you. You do this out of fear. A person may say to his business partner about a rich businessman, doctor or lawyer, “Show him a lot of respect and spend a hundred rupees on him, and then later we’ll make two thousand rupees off of him!” We act like this all the time.

All souls are suffering. Even in one’s own home there is so much tension, fighting, and arguing between family members. But if you ask someone, “Hello, Mr. Srivastava, how are you?” He will say, “I’m alright!” There is not a single right thing happening in his life. It is all wrong, yet he lies and says the opposite, “I’m fine!” Apart from the sufferings we undergo from our family, we also have physical suffering, and even more frightening than this is our mental suffering – lust, anger, greed, jealousy and so on. The emotional pain caused by family emergencies – a mother or wife becomes sick, a son has an accident – is in addition to these other sufferings. Yet we tell others, “I’m all right.” This means we keep on acting with others. The problem is we also want to do this same kind of acting with God.

We get what we want in the world by acting and fooling others. But God is residing in our heart, noting all our actions. When you had a thought, He noted it. He noted what you thought. And you claim to want God’s grace! “You are extremely compassionate! Oh, God, grace me!” Should He grace you when you are deceiving Him? The only way He will listen to You and give you His grace is if you sincerely call out to Him and shed tears. This won’t happen through cleverness and cunning. Learning and scholarliness won’t work here, and neither will the wealth of being a billionaire. You have to shed tears and beg God for His love. Please pay attention to this particular point.

Tirupati Temple

Vaishno Devi Temple

Prabhu vyapak sarvatra samana.
“God is equally omnipresent everywhere .”

Just as ghee (clarified butter) is subtly present in milk and fire is subtly present in wood, so God is subtly present everywhere in the world. Whether you go to one temple or another or even to God’s actual divine abode, there is no difference. But our intellect doesn’t understand this. We think, “In Vaishno Devi, God is 100%, and in the temple next door to my house, He is only 10%.”

In fact, the very same God who resides in His own divine abode is also seated in your heart. God is only one, whether one is a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian or anything else. There is only one God. Give Him any name you wish; He has uncountable names according to our scriptures. You could even leave the names that have been written in our scriptures for God and make your own name for Him. The Ved says that even the individual letters of the alphabet are God’s names.

Shri Krishna’s mother, Yashoda, never called her son “Shri Krishna”. Instead she said, “Oh! Kanua! Come here!” Where is the word ‘Kanua’ written in the scriptures? The Gopis used to make Shri Krishna dance in exchange for chhach, what is left of milk when the butter is taken out. He happily danced for them, in spite of how many bad names they called Him. Krishna is walking behind a Gopi. She would angrily say, “Where are you going? Lafanga! Shameless womaniser!” Even in the scriptures He was referred to as chaur jar shikhamani, the foremost leader of thieves and adulterers. Hearing these names, Shri Krishna would become overwhelmed with love.

It matters not what name or form of God you adopt. Call out to Him with whatever name you prefer, whether that is in Hindi, Urdu, English, Punjabi or any other language. But however you remember Him, do it with love.

Continued in Part 4

© Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat and Bhakti Bliss, 2009

भक्तः सूरदासः (१४७८-१५८१ CE)

भक्तः कः इत्यस्य नूतनमेकं व्याख्यानं मया अधुना श्रुतम् – “यो न विभक्तः स भक्तः”। अर्थात् यो भगवतः कदापि न “विभक्तः” स एव वास्तविकः भक्तः इति।

तत्वमेतत् प्रतिपादयितुं महात्मनः सूरदासस्य (१४७८-१५८१ CE) जीवनतः उद्धृतः एषः प्रसङ्गः अत्यन्तं समीचीन इति मन्ये। सूरदासस्य भक्त्या परितुष्टः भगवान् बालकृष्णः तेन सह क्रीडितुं सल्लपितुं च अनुदिनं तस्य सकाशं आगच्छति स्म। एकदा बालकृष्णः सूरदासस्य अङ्के उपविश्य तेन सह सप्रेमं सल्लपन्, पायसान्नं खादन् च आसीत्। अकस्मात् कृष्णः लीलया सूरदासस्य अङ्कात् उत्थाय दूरं गतवान्। बालकृष्णं अवरोद्धुं अन्धेन वृद्धेन च सूरदासेन कृतम् प्रयत्नं विफलमभवत्। तदा सूरदासः कृष्णमुद्दिश्य एवमवदत् -

हस्तमुत्क्षिप्य यातोसि बलात्कृष्ण किमद्भुतम् ।
हृदयाद्यदि निर्यासि पौरुषं गणयामि ते ॥

विरलः कश्चित् भक्तः यः स्वहृदये ईश्चरस्य समुपस्थितिं सततं अनुभवति सः एव भगवन्तं अपि एवं आह्वयितुं शक्यते। एतादृशानां विषये एव नारदेनापि एवमुक्तं “तीर्थीकुर्वन्ति तीर्थानि.. मोदन्ते पितरो, नृत्यन्ति देवताः, सनाथा चेयं भूर्भवति” इति (नारदभक्तिसूत्राणि ६९, ७१).

श्रीकृष्णलीलाः अधिकृत्य सूरदासेन विरचितं अष्टसहस्रपद्यमितं “सूरसागरम्” अद्यापि सहस्रावधि अनुवाचकान् भक्तिरससागरे आमज्जयन्नस्ति। यावत् लोके कृष्णभक्तिः वर्तिष्यति तावत् सूरदासः अपि जनहृदयेषु विराजयिष्यति।

(Part 2 – Synopsis of a lecture given by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj on November 17, 2009, in Bhatinda, India)

Action refers to your mental motivation, your intention. Because of this, it is the mind that is the cause of your liberation from Maya or your bondage in Maya.

Those who do perform religious rituals and scriptural recitations don’t do this while engaging the mind. They read the Gita, Bhagawat or Ramayan, or any other scripture with their tongue. They are merely reciting the words. Some people use prayer beads, but this is just the physical activity of the hands.

Some take a ritual bath in the Ganges River. During the time they are bathing, where is their mind? “Oh, look, there’s a boat. Hey, that person is also here bathing. Oh no, my purse might get stolen!” But you are bathing in the Ganges! Do you know who Ganga Ji is? You reply, “This water.” This is the extent of your knowledge. Before bathing, ask your Guru about Ganga Ji’s personality. Invoke Ganga ji with your mind, and then take a holy dip in the river.

If a glass bottle was filled with urine or some other impure substance and thrown in the Ganges for twenty-four hours, after it was taken out and opened, would you drink it like the river water you ceremoniously drink when you are bathing? You would say “How could I do that! It’s dirty!” Similarly, you have immersed your body in the Ganga, but not your mind. The impurity you have to clean is in your mind, because ideas originate from the mind, not from the senses. Whatever physical actions your perform, they first begin with a thought. The mind alone is the performer of action.

So what is done in the name of devotion is all physical. A person goes on pilgrimage. He sits a plane and quickly arrives at Badrinarayan, then he immediately departs for Rameshwaram – in ten short days he covers the four principal pilgrimage places and thinks, “Now I’ll keep on doing mischief because this pilgrimage guarantees I’ll go to God’s abode.”

God does not make a note of these physical activities. If you multiplied zero by 100,000, the result will be zero. “But I multiplied it by 100,000 – such a big number!” Multiply it by a million. The result will be the same, because of the multiplier. Similarly, the consequence of mere physical activity amounts to zero – how was your mind involved in that?

Once in Mathura, there was a group of ten or twelve sadhus who regularly consumed hemp as part of their practice. On Shivaratri, they all became intoxicated by drinking bhang. One of them said, “Come on – let’s go bathe in the Ganga at Prayag.” They all enthusiastically agreed. Someone said, “How will we get there?” Someone else said, “Hey, the boats are right here. We’ll go by boat from Mathura because the same Ganga flows through Prayag. We don’t even have to ask anyone for directions!” They all sat in a boat. They were all big and strong so the whole night they were rowing. By morning their intoxication had worn off. They started to say to each other, “What happened? The bathing ghats here in Prayag look just like the ones in Mathura!” Some people were bathing nearby. The sadhus asked them, “Brother, is this bathing ghat in Prayag?” That man replied, “Oh come on, this isn’t Prayag. This is Mathura!” They all exclaimed, “Mathura? How could that be!? We rowed the whole night!” The man said, “Can’t you see? Your boat is still tied up over there!”

Like this the mind is attached in the world to our mother, father, children, husband, wife and grandchildren. But we verbally recite a prayer, “My Lord, You alone are my mother and father.” Are you trying to fool God? He knows everything because He is seated in your heart. Even the simplest person in India knows this philosophy.

When someone dies, everyone in the funeral procession recites, Ram naam satya hai (God’s name is the only truth). But if the corpse that was being carried to the cremation ground were to suddenly sit up, what would the father say? “Everyone be quiet! Stop saying this!” But why are you making everyone stop repeating this? “My son is alive – he just sat up.” But you should be even more excited to repeat this because this was due to the grace of Ram’s name! “No way, my son might die again! This should not be chanted all the time. We only say this after someone dies, and then, too, we do it reluctantly.” This is the quality of knowledge that we about God.

So the corruption that we see happening in the world is because there is no spiritual practice being done nowadays that matches the mind’s impurity. Absolutely no one is meditating correctly on God.

Before a ritual or scriptural reading takes place in a Hindu family’s home, first a mantra is recited. The priest says, “Alright, take some water in your hand.” You take it. “Sprinkle it overhead.” You do it. The priest recites a verse from the Padma Purana, “Whether you are pure or impure, whether you have just bathed in the Ganga or you haven’t bathed for a thousand days, no matter what state or condition, you are in, if you lovingly remember Shri Krishna, you are purified both internally and externally.”

But it’s highly likely that the priest himself doesn’t understand the meaning of this verse, or even if he does know it, he may feel it would be wasting time to explain it to the person who requested and is paying for the ritual, unnecessarily delaying when the priest will get his fee. And the person who has requested the ritual doesn’t know the meaning of verse and who has to meditate on God (the mind).

Continued in Part 3

© Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat and Bhakti Bliss, 2009

Shri YogaVashihtha Maharamayan-1

Shri YogaVashihtha Maharamayan-2

(Synopsis of a lecture given by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj on November 17, 2009, in Bhatinda, India)

In India and in the world, a lot of religious activity and fervor are seen nowadays. There are so many temples, mosques, gurudwaras, and every other kind of place of worship, and although people go to these every day, and practice devotion according to their religion, still we find that sinful tendencies are increasing everywhere.

So much has changed in the last 100 years – what will happen in the future? So much spiritual practice wasn’t seen in the past as is seen nowadays. When so many things are being done in the name of religion, why are there so many wrong things happening in the world?

This question is asked by those who don’t believe in any religion and their question is correct. Why do people follow a religion when so many contrary results are seen everywhere? You may say that you are doing this to receive a benefit after your death. But you will receive after death only what you received when you were still alive. Nothing is added or subtracted from this.

For example, whatever a student writes in an exam book during a test is what he will be graded on. No test scorer will pull a good grade out of his pocket for a student just like that. If in the present our ideas and character are not good, then what miracle will occur after our death? God will only give us the consequence that corresponds to our present actions.

The answer to this question is straightforward. The ones who are our religious guides or spiritual teachers nowadays are wrong. What today’s gurus have taught us about dharma and action is wrong. What is the very first teaching of dharma? Pay special attention to this point. There is something wrong in this very first teaching. What is it? We have been wrongly taught who is the performer of action.

Our gurus made a mistake by not telling us at the very beginning who is the performer of action. There are only two kinds of devotion – devotion to God or devotion to the world. Apart from the individual souls, there are only two entities, God and Maya (the world). There is no third entity whose devotion we could do. The one who practices devotion to God is called a believer (dharmatma). The one who worships the world is called an atheist (nastik).

So the practioner of dharma and the performer of action is the mind. Remember this always. This is where we are making a mistake. Action doesn’t refer to your senses. God does not regard the activity of our senses as ‘action’.

In the battle of the Mahabharat, Arjuna killed millions, but these actions were not noted by Lord Krishna. Hanuman Ji killed millions in Lanka, but none of these action were noted by Lord Ram. Even our worldly government won’t charge a person with a crime if he is not at fault for what happened. If a driver accidentally hit and killed a person who unexpectedly threw himself in front of his car, the court wouldn’t give the driver a fine of even ten rupees. It wasn’t the driver’s fault. He wasn’t judged according to his physical actions, rather on his mental intention. It was just an accident.

A riot is happening in a city. The magistrate orders the police to open fire. They open fire and one hundred people die. The court asks, “Who fired the bullets?” The police answer, “We did.” The court says, “You will get the death sentence.” The police respond, “No, we won’t. Go to the magistrate and ask him why he gave us this order.” The court goes to the magistrate and asks him. He says, “Your honor, if I had not given this order, then instead of one hundred dying, thousands would have died.” He is not convicted of any crime.

You all play jokes on each other on April Fools Day. If someone decided to take you to court for some foolishness you did, if you say, “But your honor, it was April Fools Day,” the judge will say, “Oh, I see. Case dismissed!” No charge would be filed because there was no mental motivation to commit a crime.

Action refers to your mental motivation, your intention. Because of this, it is the mind that is the cause of your liberation from Maya or your bondage in Maya.

(Continued in Part 2)

© Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat and Bhakti Bliss, 2009

Are man! Avsar beetyo jaat.
A devotee is addressing his mind, “Oh my mind! The golden opportunity of this human birth is slipping away!” (It is only in a human birth that a soul can attain his ultimate aim of supreme divine bliss.)

Kal-kaval vash Vidhi Hari Har sab,
tori kaha bisaat.
Even the governors of this world, Brahmā, Vishnu and Shankara are under the control of time; what then to speak of you?

Lahi paras nar-tanu sur-durlabh,
gunjan-hit bhatkaat.
You have been blessed with a human body, which is like a parasa (the mythological touchstone which turns iron into gold). It is so rare that it is unavailable even to the celestial gods, yet due to ignorance, you are wasting this precious birth being enamoured by worthless material sense objects.

Badhira andha jimi sunat na dekhat, rahat vishaya madmaat.
Like one who is both deaf and blind, you neither listen to the teachings of the Saints, nor see the illusory nature of this world, and you are constantly intoxicated by worldly pleasures.

Ab karihuan, ab karihaun imi kahi, rahi jaihau pachhitaat.
You keep on saying ‘I will start my spiritual practice… later!’ but you will regret your procrastination when one day death overtakes you and it will be too late to do anything.

Hot ‘Kripalu’ pralaya pal mahan tu, kehi bal par itaraat.
Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji says, “In the twinkling of an eye, a person’s life could come to an end. Why then are you postponing for the future? What is the power that you possess to stop death which you are so proud of?”

(Pad kirtan excerpted from “Siddhant Madhuri” of Prem Ras Madira, written and composed by Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj)

© Jagadguru Kripalu Parishat and Bhakti Bliss, 2009