LOVE Radha & Krishna

After a string of festivals this month are we still in the same spot or have we come out rejuvenated and ready to get to the next phase of our spiritual path? The main festivals that we celebrate as Gaudiya Vaishnavas in the line of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu are Nityananda Trayodasi (appearance of Lord Nityananda) in February and Gaura Purnima (appearance of Caitanya Mahaprabhu) in March. So the year starts with Nitai’s mercy and He gives us Gaura. Then we come to the monsoon season where Balarama Purnima comes first, then Krishna Janamashtami, and then Radhashtami (Krishna and Radha’s appearance day) festivals. Lord Balarama blesses us first, then Radha Krishna come. Seems like it’s all a preparation to enter the month of Kartik in October/November when we can really dive in and beg for Radharani’s mercy. The question is after all of this, each year, do we start over again and again at the same place in February begging Lord Nityananda and regretting our past year’s misdeeds? It’s almost like going to a confession box and confessing to a priest.

An instructive story in the scriptures goes something like, once a boatman was rowing a boat all night long in the Yamuna river. It was too dark to see, but as the sun rose he noticed that he was still in the same place, he hadn’t moved an inch as the boat was still anchored to the shore. We are on this boat ride without an expert boatman and we have anchored ourselves to so many material desires that we are not moving or progressing in our spiritual life. Along with that, whatever little we do to serve Radha and Krishna is tainted with aparadha, offenses that don’t allow us to release the rope from the anchor.

The little love that we have for the Lord is often conditional. It’s not unconditional as it should be. We sometimes make deals with the Lord ‘if you do this, then I will do this‘. One would think that bhakti, devotional yoga, is so easy as we only have to LOVE Radha and Krishna. We should be experts at that. We have a loving heart towards our family and friends. But when it comes to the Lord, we say ‘I love you, but I don’t have time right now, later in life when I’m free I will practice devotion and I will do things for you’. If we were to say that to our children, parents, siblings or spouse they would likely say ‘you don’t have time for me? How can you say you love me?’ So in our material life if we can make time for those close to us, then how come not for the Lord in our spiritual life? How can we not find the time to love the Lord who unconditionally provides for us? He saves us from all imminent danger and gives us air, water, sunshine, and food to eat.

Coming back to the boat analogy, this human body is the boat roaming here and there in the samsara (material ocean). Gurudev is the expert boatman who can take us to the proper location by releasing us from the clutches of material desires and removing our tendencies that make us commit offenses. He is the dearmost servant of Lord Nityananda and Sri Radha and has been sent by Them to save the misguided souls. He gives us the holy names so we can chant and serve Radha and Krishna. Radha likes to hear Krishna’s names and Krishna likes to hear Radha’s names. So it’s a service to Them. When we chant the holy names we do it with attachment to so many things, but Sri Gurudev says chant with detachment to those things and with complete attachment to the holy names. In the process they lovingly cleanse our heart of all misgivings and vices. Initially we all go through a process of conditional love which slowly will turn into unconditional loving devotional service.

These holy names eradicate the aparadha, which literally means, ‘against Radha’. When we commit offenses against the holy names or against any vaishnava, Radha is not pleased. If Radha is not pleased then Krishna is never pleased. Radharani is our guardian, shelter, our mentor and our benefactor. It pains her to see all the trapped souls in the material world and she very compassionately takes by the hand, those who are aspiring to serve Krishna. She is the greatest devotee of the Lord and from her own example shows us how to lovingly serve Krishna. She is the mercy and bliss potency of Sri Krishna. 

We have to live there in Vrindavan mentally or physically as Sri Radha lives there, and our service to Sri Radha’s lotus feet is our ultimate service…We must practice like a stream of honey which has no break in it. But we are practicing the like a stream of milk, which has breaks in it (Prabhu Prem Gopal Goswami)

We must start the process. Loving Radha Krishna is not hard. The stream of honey means that we are regular and consistent in our practice. The nine limbs of devotion should be practiced somehow, hearing, chanting, remembering, etc the glories of the Lord.

But instead we are going to the confession box every February with Lord Nityananda. We start over just like anything else in our lives. while precious life is being wasted. It’s very rare this human birth. It’s time to LOVE Radha Krishna with an unbreakable stream of honey.

Please chant !!

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama, Rama Rama Hare Hare