Tag: choice muscles

How to Surrender Completely?

Surrender is terrible in the material world. It implies humiliation. But surrender is no bad word in the spiritual realm. Spiritual Surrender is victory! Surrender must be done intelligently though. And Surrender means Loving Devotional Service. How to do it though?

Choppy Ocean
No one can swim out of the middle of the ocean

Yamini, 20 December 2014

Hare Krishna devotees,
Please accept my humble obeisances!
All glories to Srila Gurudeva and Srimati Guru Mataji..
All glories to Srila Prabhupada….

How can we completely surrender ourselves unto the lotus feet of our spiritual master and the Supreme Personality of Godhead?

Please allow me to become eternal servant and serve all of you and serve Srila Gurudeva…

your servant,
Yamini

Lalit, 22 December 2014
Hare Krishna!
Surrendering to Krishna doesn’t require any special effort if it is the real yearning from within.

Surrender not out of fear, desire, expectation or momentary disinterest in the world but surrender only by choice.

Surrender in absolute is becoming a non judgemental observer.

Let him steer.

Lalit

Mahabhagavat Das SDA, 23 December 2014
Dear Mother Yamini,

Hare Krishna!

If surrendering to Krishna did not require any special effort, every single person on the planet would be Krishna conscious. But it does require a conscious effort.

The thing is, most of us are conditioned souls – conditioning removes all element of choice, we simply act like robots, according to our conditioning… here comes sense gratification, and there goes the sense gratifier running after the sense gratification. Just like a dog runs after the bone… did the dog “choose” to go after the bone? No, it is a reflex due to the dog acting out of conditioned consciousness.

Similarly, practicing devotional service in spite of all material distractions means to develop, as Devamrita Swami Maharaja says “choice muscles”. Our conditioning is forcing us to go towards sense gratification, but we are still choosing to go towards Krishna.

What Bhakta Lalit said re “Let Krishna steer” is correct. How? Krishna has left clear unambiguous instructions in the Bhagavad Gita, and we are fortunate to have those instructions clearly explained in Bhagavad Gita As It Is by Srila Prabhupada. For example He says to work in Krishna consciousness without any expectations of results, to surrender results to Krishna. So it is not simply an empty “sit around and observe everything without judging” as the Mayavadis sometimes say, which is often just an excuse not to do any practical service to Krishna. It is an active engagement in the practice of Krishna consciousness, as you are doing.

Simply by following the instructions of the spiritual master sincerely, without doing so as a blind follower – in other words, strive to understand the spirit behind the spiritual master’s instructions while sincerely trying to follow, is key.

Srila Gurudeva mentions that we use the 3 main “GPS triangulation points” of Guru, Sadhu, Shastra and act accordingly.

Sincerely,
Mahabhagavat Das

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Slavery by Subscription

Do you know that most of us subscribe to slavery? We actively seek it and choose to remain enslaved. How can you be free?

Do you think slavery is history? Yes, it may be so in some cases, but do you know most of us in the modern world are really slaves?

To understand this better, consider what slavery is – the enslaved person has absolutely no freedom to make major decisions, or maybe they have some minor choices.

Consider this now, there was a time when people used to own something… they used to own their land, they used to own their own homes, they owned their vehicles and conveyances… however grand or however humble.

But in a subscription-based world we have begun to rent everything. We rent our homes, we rent our vehicles, we rent absolutely everything. We pay every month. When someone wants to get something, they say “Can I afford the payment?”

This slavery… Every month, $1900 here, $450 there, $29.99 somewhere, $9.95 somewhere… $2.99 to store pictures of your child safely? Not to forget you paid a hefty tax on your paycheque to start with.

In effect, you are working for someone else, the only freedom you have is to decide what you can rent with your $125 left over this month.

In other words, you are a slave.

In fact, through subscriptions to this, that, and the other, you have lost even that which was yours outside of your financial situation, your attention, that most precious possession is gone too – think TV, Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, WeChat, WhatsApp, Mundane Newspapers, Mundane Magazines, Materialistic Clubs, and much worse.

You spend all your time working to pay others. You spend all your energy falling into the funnels and plans of others. You don’t even own your own attention anymore!

Instead of accepting status quo – ask yourself, do I really need this? Cut the cord, Then pay off some of that debt, earn a bit more choice, pay off more debt, and don’t ever make choices where someone is renting something to you. Even if a subscription to something materialistic sneaks in, as soon as you realize it, unsubsribe!

Ultimately though, while it may be easy enough to rant against those who enslave others, please pause to reflect that even though no one wants to be a slave, everyone is actually a slave.

To what or to who, one may ask.

Everyone is a slave to the desire to be a master – this is the key reason for our enslavement here in the material realm.

ममैवांशो जीवलोके जीवभूत: सनातन: ।
मन:षष्ठानीन्द्रियाणि प्रकृतिस्थानि कर्षति ॥ ७ ॥

mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke
jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ
manaḥ-ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi
prakṛti-sthāni karṣati

The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.

…As fragmental parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord, the living entities also have fragmental portions of His qualities, of which independence is one. Every living entity, as an individual soul, has his personal individuality and a minute form of independence. By misuse of that independence one becomes a conditioned soul, and by proper use of independence he is always liberated….

https://vedabase.io/en/library/bg/15/7/

Where attention goes, energy flows, dear spirit soul.

What are you paying attention to?

Flex those choice muscles, go on, and be free of slavery. If I may assist you in your emancipation, please let me know. Subscribe to yourself, dear soul and to the Eternal Source of you.