Divine slavery

If we can accept the current of surrender — if we can die as we are and surrender our innermost self at His disposal — His will can easily carry us up to the spiritual platform. Our soul will become as a blade of grass in that current, and so be carried up into the centre of the infinite. It is not that we can enter there and walk proudly as we do here in this gross material world. Here we walk on our feet, but there we shall walk with our heads. Only by the Lord’s grace upon our heads can we attract that plane to take us up.

Everything there is qualitatively higher than our own existence. The substance of that divine realm, the atmosphere, the air, the ether — everything there — is higher than any value we might have. Only those with a sincere spirit of service may be allowed to enter there. And there they will be taken to the highest position of divine love by the residents of that plane, who are venerable, generous, affectionate, and filled with good wishes.

We have as our prospect the chance to go there, but always as a matter of grace, and never as a matter of right. We must accept this creed from the beginning. Still, the atmosphere there is so happy and loving that no one there feels any distinction between slave and master. A slave there has no sense of being a slave. Everyone is family. Having attained the state of divine slavery, one should consider: «I am a slave — the generosity of Krishna and His eternal associates is my wealth.» But by the power of yogamaya, those who are taken up into that plane forget that they are slaves. That is the greatness and magnanimity of that atmosphere where love is intensely flowing. It is really by their love and not by our own fortune that we may somehow gain entrance into that high and noble land.

But to realise this we must realise the spiritual position of Krishna’s Name, Form, and eternal associates. Krishna’s Name is not material. We cannot capture the Name of Krishna simply by vibrating the syllables of the Name with our tongue. Ravana wanted to capture Sita Devi and thought that he had done so. But the fact was that he could not even touch the holy body of Sita Devi.

What Ravana captured was only a mundane representation of Sita Devi, a material double, an imitation which was like a statue of Sita Devi. Sita Devi herself is another thing; she is not made of flesh and blood. For a person here in this world, Sita Devi and her divine plane is not at all approachable. A mundane person cannot see, feel, or enter that plane — what to speak of the possibility of snatching Sita Devi and taking her away. The scriptures have explained that Sita’s capture was all show. Ravana was cheated. Of course, the apparent kidnapping of Sita by Ravana was done to serve some purpose, to teach something to the people of this mundane world. But in the real sense, no Ravana can come in connection with any of the eternal associates of the Lord who are living in Vaikuntha. In the same way, no mundane person can touch the Vaikuntha Name simply by imitating its sound.

Recently, I was asked about a young boy who had been killed in an accident. I was told that he shouted the name of Krishna at the time of death. I was asked «What was his destination?» I explained that whether one is young or old in the plane of flesh and blood is no qualification for spiritual attainment. One’s mentality must be examined. According to the particular time and place and the conception of the person involved, that sound may be the genuine Name, or it may be Namabhas, the shadow of the real Name.