By BB Govinda Swami
I think it is one thing to join the Krishna consciousness movement, it is one thing to just sort of float on whatever is happening within the Krishna consciousness movement and it’s another thing to actually take control of the situation and have the determination to advance in Krishna consciousness.
As we mentioned before it appears that some people come to Krishna consciousness and they just float in whatever is going on and then there is some type of awakening process and you realize you’re in the middle of something big, something which is sort of demanding, something which is quite powerful, something which you really have to give up everything else to participate in.
And then people may find themselves in a marginal position, they don’t know if they really want to surrender themselves fully to that energy or not, or whether they want to not surrender and reserve energy for independent identity. Sometimes it becomes a crisis for people.
What to do? Our acarya Srila Raghunatha Goswami, he is giving an instruction here. He is saying “Push everything to the side. Push everything else to the back and move ahead in the process of surrendering to Krsna.” The person may say “Well, I keep my body working in service and I follow this and that principle”. But Srila Raghunath Das Goswami is saying “Surrender your mind”.
That is a nice thing that your body is engaging in some service activity. But take your mind and surrender your mind. Body is one thing, the mind is something else. Surrender your mind to the service of the Lord. Keep always in your mind topics that are related to Krishna.
That’s a crisis that many people come to. And then often times depending on how clever is the person he can present different reasons why not to surrender the mind.
Arjuna was very clever. He was a very intelligent person, he was presenting many arguments to Krishna why not to surrender, see, but Krishna cut them all. And ultimately Krishna brought the argument to the point that the mind should always be fixed in Krishna, and then there is a science how to fix the mind on Krishna, which practically is based upon doing what Krishna says. And the way that Krishna has presented it, is that we do what Krishna says based on what our authorities say. You see, that’s basically the way Krishna consciousness works.
Some intelligent people may say “No, I will only do what Krishna directly tells me. And other people say, well He was here 5000 years ago, He spoke, but He is not here anymore. But Krishna says “You hear from me and hear from my devotees, follow their instructions”. But! Because we are so intelligent, we can create so many different ideas.
But despite whatever we create, the essential truth is still the essential truth. That If we wish to absorb our mind in thinking about Krishna we should do what Krishna or His devotee instructs us to do.
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