Can a spiritual person have desires of being close to the Human Incarnation of God?

[Ms. Thrylokya asked: Swāmi, You have said that expecting the fulfilment of desires from God is not good because God is already giving the best to me. Instead of expecting worldly things, can I have spiritual desires like living close to Swāmi, going for a morning walk with Swāmi, playing sports with Swāmi, etc?]

Swāmi replied: First you have to establish yourself in worldly life called pravṛtti. Only then can you think about nivṛtti, which is spiritual life. Your desires on the spiritual side show the climax of devotion. Your spiritual desires show the second last step in devotion, which is friendship with God. The next and final step is the climax of devotion, which is total surrender. After it, there is no further step except the divine fruit (sakhya-mātma-nivedanam). Even the Gopikās were first settled in pravṛtti, which they did by working hard to maintain the cow dairies. They offered the fruit of their hard work, which was butter, to God. The Gopikās were settled householders and the tests of Datta are only for householders and not for saints because the saints have nothing to sacrifice. Therefore, in order to pass the tests of Datta and get the final salvation, the soul has to be a settled householder. The saint can never say that he has got the real salvation because he was not subjected to the tests of God Datta. If he says that he is really in the state of salvation, it will be equal to the student saying that he never failed because he never wrote the examination!

Keywords:

| Shri Datta Swami | Can a spiritual person have desires of being close to the Human Incarnation of God? | sakhya matma nivedanam Gopikas pravritti pravrutti