The Srimad Bhagavatam describes how the trees in Vrindavana are bowing down due to their heavy fruits. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu explained this by describing how a person who has the fruits of good qualities is like a tree with good fruits. The weights of the fruits cause the tree to bow down to everyone. But a tree that doesn’t have good fruits stands up very straight, doesn’t bow to anyone.
A person who has character, amanina manadena, is eager to offer respect to the divinity, the spiritual essence within everyone, everywhere. And a person who doesn’t have that character very egoistically thinks I am higher, greater than others.
A little test of whether you have made genuine spiritual advancement – if you think you are better than anyone that means you are in a spiritual diseased condition.
We may consider ourselves fortunate and may want to share that fortune with people who are not so fortunate. But our fortune is not because of me, because I am better than you, but because of Radharani and Krsna’s grace. It doesn’t make me better than you. Because the potential of that grace is within you too. So I bow to that potential within you.
When we understand that it is this grace that is empowering us, it humbles us, it doesn’t make us egocentric. When we become proud of Krishna, we become humble. When we are proud of ourself, to that extent we can’t be proud of Krishna because we are taking credit.
Ahankara vimudhatma. This is the basic principle of material bondage – this ego – I am the doer, the controller, enjoyer and proprietor.
So Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu described how like a tree, with the good ripe fruits of spiritual qualities we should offer all respects and bow down to Krishna in every situation, and to bow down to Krishna in the heart of all living beings in an appropriate way.
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