Sudama is a childhood friend of Lord Krishna who studied in the same Gurukul along with Lord. But after Gurukul, Sudama could not meet the Lord for many years. He maintained himself and his wife with whatever came of its own accord, and thus they were poverty-stricken.
Few days ago one devotee shared with us nice pastime of Lord Krishna in Guruvayoor, Kerala. Many years ago there lived a poor lady who was an ardent devotee of Lord Guruvayoorappa (Krishna). She lived in a village far away from Guruvayoor and she was eagerly waiting for Lord's darshan.
Maharaj gives the example of Rantideva for offering water. Srimad Bhagavatam says that Rantideva never over-endeavored to earn anything extraneously. He would enjoy whatever he got by the arrangement of providence, but when guests came he would give them everything.
This bhajan nicely narrates the loving devotion with which Shabari waited for Lord Ram and offered Him fruits. In spite of being teased by other villagers, Shabari did not lose faith in the instructions of her spiritual master and remained fixed in her devotional service.
Shabari was disciple of Matanga Muni. Before returning to Godhead, Matanga Muni instructed her that Lord Ram would come to visit her one day in his ashram. So she was eagerly waiting for the Lord and every day she would clean the ashram, would collect fresh fruits and keep it ready to be offered to Lord.
The King of the elephants was so very eager to see the Supreme Personality of Godhead that when he saw the Lord coming in the sky, with great pain and in a feeble voice he offered respect to the Lord. A devotee does not consider a dangerous position to be dangerous
Our beloved spiritual master H H Mahavishnu Goswami Maharaj has taught us by his personal example as to how we should scrutinizingly study and relish Bhagavad Gita and Srimad Bhagavatam. We came across the below verse of Bhagavad Gita 9.26 in Maharaj's diary wherein Lord Krishna says
Seeing Sally Mataji not responding anything in favor of restaurant option in her response to him, His Divine Grace writes to her of another opportunity. It is amazing to see this dealing of His Divine Grace. In our life it many times happens that so many people help us in different stages of our life - be it material path or spiritual path.
n Bhagavatam also there is another example like Lord Jesus. He is Prahlada Maharaja a boy of five years old but because he was a great devotee of God and preaching the message of God among his little class mates, his atheist father tried to kill him.
At any time the whole thing may collapse and therefore we may not be self complacent depending so much on artificial life. The modern life of civilization depends wholly on electricity and petrol and both of them are artificial for man.
If one tries to spread Krishna consciousness all over the world, he should be understood to be performing the best welfare activity. The Lord is automatically very pleased with him. If the Lord is pleased with him, what is left for him to achieve?
When Srila Prabhupada was writing this letter, his house-owner was raising the rent. Whatever income he was getting from the distribution of his books was not sufficient then, to meet his needs for preaching and maintenance. There were not much helping hands.
The above lines of His Divine Grace show how personal he was in his interaction with everyone. He had a great mission to be accomplished by the order of his spiritual master.
There is a famous saying, "Many hands make light work." This holds true in all walks of life, be it household chores at home, or at projects at office, or community projects for a society, or services in temple. When we work as a team, the results are much more than what we can achieve single handedly.
In the material world, we find it very difficult to maintain good relationships and the main reason for it is our judgmental attitude. We start judging the people for all their words and actions, even though we are not in a position of authority to do that.
If we neglect his instructions how can we accept him? Where is the logic? If we accept the spiritual master, we have to accept in toto his instructions. We cannot say, "I accept some things I like whereas I don't accept some things I don't like." That is not acceptance.
How many times we have been in this position where we are in so much anxiety because the person we are serving, we don't know whether they are happy or not? When they are happy, we are very happy; when they are down, we are down.
The important thing we have, the only opulence we have is iccha, desire. It is desire that either kills Krishna consciousness or it is desire that will revive Krishna consciousness in our heart. And the decision is squarely on our shoulders
Some people say, "If I wake up in the morning for mangalarati, I fall sick." We say, if we fall sick and die during manglarati it is very auspicious. So what's the problem?
Fear arises from attachment. Attachment to material objects. That is how fear comes. When we get a million dollars instead of becoming happy we are fearful. At the point you get the million dollars you are very happy, but next moment you think, "now how am I going to keep this."
Devahuti mata had no qualification. But she had only one quality – she simply served her husband with sincerity. Simply served and sincerity – 3 s. She did all of this and she became situated in sharing all his devotional achievements.
Krishna consciousness means whatever we hear, we must repeat and when we repeat, we will remember. See the triangle. It is very straight forward science. It is very important. This is what we should do.
First "S" is to be a sincere disciple, second "S" is to be simple and third "S" is to situate. If we want to be simple in devotional service and if we really want to be sincere in devotional service then we must follow what Krishna says. Just situate.
Krishna always reciprocates to those who simply serve the spiritual master. Always. See the example of Kardama Muni and Devahuti. Devahuti actually came from such an amazing background. Her father was Svayambhuva Manu. Svayambhuva Manu was very opulent, very elevated personality.
Actually the real sincerity comes when we don't complicate our situations. The symptom of sincerity is when we are very pointedly, just following the instructions of the spiritual master, tasmad ekena manasaa (Srimad Bhagavatam 1.2.14). That is the key, with one pointed attention.
Success in spiritual life is not in doing what we want. The moment we decide what we want to do, then the spiritual master is just a bouncing board for what we want to do. Prabhupada said, don't make the spiritual master into a pet, don't make it a fashion
Prabhupad made it very clear that the relationship between a great advanced devotee and a devotee who is trying to advance in Krishna consciousness is situated on the platform of transcendental knowledge
All of us are looking forward to auspiciousness and good fortune throughout our lives. We seek it in so many ways. We are desirous that our presence should invoke auspiciousness for all.