13 Oct 2021
[Ms. Laxmi Thrylokya asked: Pādanamaskāram Swami, On Maha Satsanga held on 11th July 2021, You preached us the below lesson.
The devotion shall not be exaggerated to be greater than God because the value of devotion is only due to the value of God. One monkey told Rāma “You are unable to construct a bridge on the sea. But, when we write Your name on the stone and drop it in the sea, it floats. See, Your devotion is greater than Yourself”. Rama just smiled and kept silent. After telling this, the monkey dropped the stone on which he wrote the name of Rāma and the stone drowned immediately!
But, in recent reply to Smt. Priyanka's question, You said, "In Nivrutti a soul can succeed only if its love to God is greater than God Himself!" I feel that both these statements are contradicting each other. Please correlate them. At Your Divine Lotus Feet, Laxmi Thrylokya]
Swami Replied:- The goal in the example of Raama belongs to nivrutti mingled with pravrutti in which the punishment of injustice done by Raavana is involved. Protection of justice and destruction of injustice are preached by God in His divine constitution. In this issue there are two goals:- 1. God Raama and 2. Construction of bridge on sea for helping Raama since Raama also helped Sugriiva in getting justice. Due to Sugriiva only, the monkeys are involved in this activity and not by themselves based on love to God.
The latest example is pure nivrutti developed by the devotees only and not by the God. There is only one goal here, which is Krishna alone and there is no other issue involved in this case. The love on Krishna as expressed by Gopikas is purely one goal only without any other issue. Except love on Krishna and attainment of Krishna, there is no other related issue apart from Krishna like support of justice and destruction of injustice as in the above case. Gopikas were even prepared to violate justice and do injustice for which they were even prepared to go to hell and even were prepared to commit suicide, which is also the highest sin. In this atmosphere of pure nivrutti of Gopikas of climax of madness for Krishna, you cannot isolate Krishna from the love on Krishna. By catching the love on Krishna, which has no other issue related to anything or anybody, Krishna was not insulted by the love on Krishna in this case.
If you see the previous case, devotion on Raama is insulting the very Raama Himself. Raama and devotion on Raama are isolated issues in this case. Moreover, the concentration of the monkeys on the devotion of Raama is appearing as a separate third issue apart from the greatness of Raama and devotion on Raama. This means that the stones floating on water are due to the miraculous power appeared by the power of concentration of monkeys on Raama than the power of Raama Himself. This sounds ego of monkeys. In the case of Krishna and Gopikas, no other issue becomes significant at all except Krishna or love on Krishna. Both Krishna and love on Krishna merged homogeneously so that there is only one single issue. Krishna is neither personally interested on Himself nor interested on His personal love affair of Gopikas. Both these cases are different as pravrutti and nivrutti and the subtle difference can be realized through deep and sharp analytical thinking. The love of monkeys on Raama was due to the order of their king whereas, the love of Gopikas on Krishna was inherently developed during past several births through severe penance. There is lot of difference between both devotions.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★