H.H.Radhanath Swami on True Love

Some people think love is some pleasure sexual pleasure or some family security or an emotion or sentiment that comes and goes but real love is a feeling of complete sacrifice and surrender to the beloved and factually there is only one personality that can completely reciprocate and fulfill all our desires in total sacrifice and surrender and that is Bhagavan that is Krishna.

H.H.Radhanath Swami

Radhanath Swami on Real Faith leads to Discipline

There are two thumb-rules for rapid advancement in any direction, including the spiritual – to embrace the favorable, and to reject the unfavorable. The different major religions of the world follow different spiritual practices. The followers are expected to do certain things, and to abstain from certain others. Not whimsically, but according to the instructions of their preceptors and the holy books. This is discipline - in fact, the basic principle of every original religion in this world
is discipline.

Many are convinced about the need for discipline – sportsmen, singers, students, business tycoons, and so on. But most don’t recognize the importance of discipline in spiritual life. One who does not control the mind and senses to follow the instructions of God can never make any spiritual advancement. For example, the Old Testament, which is the basis for all Christians, teaches the ten commandments to discipline life accordingly. And who is a Christian? Not one who merely visits the church, but one who follows the teachings of Jesus. Discipline.

Unfortunately, today’s mantra is “just do it”, whatever you like. Spirituality today just means to go to temples of worship, give some donations, pray, and “just have faith”. Follow no spiritual discipline, but still expect to “be saved”. But, to have faith in God means to faithfully do what God wants us to do. Real faith necessitates a disciplined life in accordance with the instructions of God. The Lord says, “I accept not those who merely cry out ‘Lord! Lord!’, but those who do My will”. This is discipline.

Radhanath Swami on the Attitude of a Devotee

A person who loves the Lord does not see anyone as his enemy. One who surrenders to the Lord is a friend of all the living entities. It is possible to see every living being with equal vision only when we understand who we are, and that we are part of the Lord and every living being is a part of the Lord. Every living being is His child, His part and is very dear to Him. We cannot love God without loving every living being.

We are suffering due to the consequences of our own karmas. The Lord descends in this world again and again in so many ways because He loves us and cares about us. He is inviting us to comeback. If we offer our heart with affection to the Lord, all our karma will be gone. This world becomes the spiritual world. We see every leaf, every tree, every human being, every animal, every insect, every star in the sky and every breath as God’s energy. We see every situation and everything as an opportunity to reciprocate with His love.

Radhanath Swami on Realizing Spiritual Knowledge

Spiritual literatures, if heard attentively, reveal the ultimate knowledge. If we understand them, we will know God. If we are comfortable with our material situation or distracted by our material complications, how much attention can we really give to these scriptures? We should not hear it as a form of spiritual entertainment – just because it feels good to hear some discourses. Unless we have hunger, we cannot digest properly, no matter how palatable the food is. It will not really benefit us. Similarly, there should be a great desperation that I need God, I need His mercy, and then we can digest this topmost knowledge properly.

To hear this wisdom means to follow its teachings, and through this comes realization – understanding what the spirit is and imbibing that. To hear with rapt attention, we must be pure in mind and action. We must live our lives around the teachings of the spiritual literatures; otherwise there will be no realization. With this serious mood of need, we must study these instructions on how to live our lives and perfect them.

Radhanath Swami on Yearning for God

We must understand that there is danger at every step. Terrorism is growing. It is said that two out of five people will die of cancer. Ecology is breaking down. There are floods, droughts, cities being washed away by the ocean. It is a very harsh society we live in today, a society with no tolerance or mercy.

People are competing so much for sense gratification, wealth, power, adoration, but a sincere seeker has nothing to do with this competition anymore. The most serious thing is to have a sincere yearning for God. This is our responsibility as human beings – to get to know Him and love Him. But we are always getting distracted by something – our needs, our health, or how we have been mistreated. Even if our excuses are accurate, the reality is that our soul is longing for God. He will reveal Himself in our hearts according to how we surrender to Him, how we make Him a priority in our life.

Radhanath Swami on Arrogance vs. Respect

We should see every living being with veneration. But when selfishness becomes prominent, we start thinking only in terms of ‘I’ and ‘mine’. There is no service attitude left in us. We always want to be the master and enjoyer of all we see. When the desire for our own prestige and enjoyment becomes foremost in our minds, our fellow beings appear insignificant. Due to egoism, we think, “I can judge others. I never make mistakes. If you stand between me and my aspiration of success and appreciation, you are my enemy.”

This arrogance destroys everything sacred within us. We need to show our love for the Lord by how we cooperate with each other. But we cannot do that unless we follow the Lord’s teachings of being tolerant, patient and respecting everyone. We must be on guard at all times, to not be judgmental or offend anyone, to be eager to serve, uplift, encourage, and sacrifice for the benefit of all.

Radhanath Swami on Protecting our Dependents

Every one of us is a leader in some capacity. We could be parents, teachers, managers, community leaders or big influential people with lots of followers. What is our duty to our dependents? Not just dynamic speeches, but giving them something that will really affect them. What pleases the Lord is the sacrifices you make in your life for the welfare of others.

Emotional care is especially important for everyone - make them feel valuable and appreciated for whatever little they may be doing. It could be just by a glance, a smile or a few kind words. Even when chastised, they should feel, "He is correcting me because he cares for me, he is helping me, he is protecting me." If this is achieved, they are inspired and will strive to accomplish whatever goals we set for them. If we chastise someone and it breaks their hearts, we are not doing it right. If they do not feel protected, whatever else we do is like building a house without a foundation. Everything will fall apart. If we are sincere, the Lord will empower us.

Radhanath Swami on Mastering Time Utilization

Time is a powerful and inconceivable energy of the Lord. It is so subtle and invisible, but it has the potency to consume everything that is animate or inanimate. It will turn to dust the highest mountains, evaporate the mighty oceans and burn out the sun. It will devastate all physical lives down to the little insect. Every rising and setting of the sun brings us closer to our impending death.

Time can be effectively utilized only if we use it for the purpose that the Lord has intended for us. We are unaware of what the future holds for us, but we have to prepare ourselves by engaging every passing moment in remembering the Lord, worshiping and serving Him. For the one who does this, with every rising and setting of the sun, he is one day closer to eternal life. Each moment is priceless because we can use it to absorb ourselves in the Lord. How are we going to utilize our moments? We have to make a choice to either be devoured by time or to move towards eternal blissful life in the spiritual world. This is the most serious choice a human being could make in this creation.

Radhanath Swami on God's Eternal Gratitude

God's love for us, His children, is unconditional. He never forgets anything we have ever done. Even if we fall down to our lowest nature, God gives us whatever reactions He sees fit to rectify us, but He never forgets what good we have done. He is always waiting for us to turn to Him to uplift us again to our original position. This principle of how we are never lost to God, no matter how little we have served Him, is a manifestation of His opulence of gratitude.

Fallen living entities like us can easily forget anything good that someone may have done for us, and take it for granted, but God never forgets. He's always making some arrangement to bring those who sincerely seek Him back to His abode. God does not simply see what we offer. He sees the sincerity and purpose of the offering. Yes, God sees our faults, and He corrects them in one way or another, but He also sees the service that we have rendered. And if that service is sincere in purpose, He is eternally grateful.

Radhanath Swami on Habits

The direction in which our life is headed depends on the choices we make at each and every step. These choices accumulate to form habits and it is our responsibility to ensure that we acquire only those habits which are progressive and beneficial to us individually and to the society as a whole.

A thought like following good etiquette originates in our mind and culminates in the physical expression of good etiquette. Such thoughts and actions that we experience collectively become our habits and eventually define the individuals that we become. Only when our habits are beneficial for the process of purifying our heart, we can begin to understand spiritual truths.

Radhanath Swami on the Lord's Inconceivable Potency

We witness miracles of the Lord everywhere within creation. We don't even realize that everything we see is inconceivable. The miracle of how we are conceived itself is inconceivable. Great scientists cannot do it. The most progress they have achieved are test tube babies, where they take a seed that God created and plant it in a womb that He created. All the materials that are absolutely necessary for creation are already created by God. They just use some scientific technology to put it all together.

What is it that God cannot do? The sun which is millions of times bigger than our earth, is a ball of blazing fire that always stays in the same place. Just to reach the planets we know about will take light years, which are millions of human life times, in our modern spacecrafts. The seasons come and go in order. How can we even propose to understand these inconceivable creations with our limited brains and our limited technologies? Can we even count the number of hairs, or the number of atoms and molecules in our body? Does an ant have the capacity to understand Mount Everest? We are at best like little ants trying to measure our little anthills, when everything else outside our horizon is inconceivable. The conditioned soul is just trying to challenge the Lord that "I will figure out what You have done." But that is not possible.

If we have to understand God, we should crush our empirical attachment to our mind and senses. Without that, there is no possibility of understanding Him, as we will then try to impose our own limitations of mind and body on God, considering His miraculous feats as mythology.