{"id":2224,"date":"2006-11-18T22:38:45","date_gmt":"2006-11-18T21:38:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=2224"},"modified":"2006-11-18T22:39:13","modified_gmt":"2006-11-18T21:39:13","slug":"locked-out-japa-is-the-only-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=2224","title":{"rendered":"Locked out, Japa is the only Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"By Bhakta Carl<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Mind,
\nThis morning during japa you were again complaining about the apparent futility of this routine, about the seeming lack of reciprocation from Krsna. I understand and sympathize with your frustration (although I\u2019m not sure what exactly your expectations are). But please recall this anecdote that you once heard:<\/p>\n

Several students were living and practicing spiritual discipline under their Guru in an ashram. A time came one day when several of those students reached a stage of mystic attainment (yoga-siddhi) where they could read the \u2018Book of Eternal Life\u2019 embedded in the AkAsha. There were two columns – those souls who were to be liberated, and those who were to be damned once again. The contents shocked them: Their own Guru\u2019s name was listed in the category of the unredeemed. Seeing this, many of these students left the ashram without a word, in dismay. Even some students who didn\u2019t have that vision left when their more advanced godbrothers told them about this common vision that many of them had.<\/p>\n

After a couple of days, this old Guru noticed that the attendance to his classes had dropped and wondered aloud where all the students had gone. Very few had stayed back: A tiny section of those who had that vision stayed back because they felt sympathy and love for their Teacher, and a sense of indebtedness to him. After all, it was only under his instruction that they had even managed to reach this stage of mystic perception. There were also a couple of other students who hadn\u2019t had that vision, but decided to stay back merely because of some human affection for this elderly man they called Guru.<\/p>\n

One of the mystically endowed students spoke up, and told the Guru what had happened, and how most of his brightest and most advanced students had decided to quietly leave. On hearing this, tears welled up in their teacher\u2019s eyes, and in a humble voice choked with repentance he confided: \u201cFor 40 years I have been staring at that page of the Book of Life, in despair. But what else can I do except repeatedly knock at the Door of God? Is there anywhere else in the universe I can go? So everyday I continue to knock at my Master\u2019s door, repeatedly, with hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

At that very moment, those students saw in their mind\u2019s eye that their Guru\u2019s name was lifted from the column of the Damned and moved to the column of the Chosen. It was the greatest lesson they had learned in all their student years in the ashram.<\/p>\n

yam evaisa vrnute tena labhyas tasyaisa atma vivrnute tanum svam: \u201cHe (God) is obtained only by one to whom He chooses to reveal Himself. To such a person He manifests His own form (tanum svam).\u201d (Mundaka Upanisad 3.2.3)<\/p>\n

Krsna is the Transcendental Autocrat and the Reservoir of real Pleasure. So dear Mind, even if japa seems repetitive and fruitless, what other options do you have? Do you have anything better to offer? Honestly, I don\u2019t think so. Even the hope of attracting the attention of Krsna is worth more than the temporary gratifications that anything else has to offer. This world is made of empty shells of name and form (nAma-rUpa). Their sole purpose in creation was to resonate with the hope of rejoining Krsna in Vrindavan.<\/p>\n

Again, Krsna is the Transcendental Autocrat and the reservoir of real Pleasure. On your own, you are a nobody, a void. Stopping japa is not an option; japa is hope itself. Everything else is futile monkey-tricks.<\/p>\n

source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"HareBy Bhakta Carl<\/strong><\/p>\n

Again, Krsna is the Transcendental Autocrat and the reservoir of real Pleasure. On your own, you are a nobody, a void. Stopping japa is not an option; japa is hope itself. Everything else is futile monkey-tricks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}