Path of surrender

Srila Prabhupada says that Narada is a great personality and he was so pleased by the devotional attitude of Dhruva, that he could have just given him everything. He could have given Dhruva exactly what he wanted. Why didn’t he do it? [a devotee replies that it was because he wanted Dhruva to surrender to Krishna]. Yes, essentially that’s correct. He wanted him to follow the correct path, he wanted him to engage in devotional service.

You see, and this helps us to develop our perspective about our practice and our application of devotional service. Sometimes things may not go according to our design, sometimes we may experience some problems on the path of devotional service, sometimes a situation may arise where we don’t receive the honor and respect that we so much hankering for. Sometimes it may feel like the whole universe is collapsing upon us. And the person may think: “Why doesn’t the spiritual master just snap his fingers and make everything correct?” Or you start praying. You start praying to Krishna, you start praying to great devotees: “Why don’t you change this situation?”But basically they want to see us follow the proper path of surrender to the Lord.

A path of surrender means attentive chanting of the Holy Names of the Lord. Path of surrender means attentive study of scriptures. Path of surrender means describing the glories of Krishna to other people. Path of surrender means to live in cooperation with the vaisnavas. Because all of these different activities will help to change the consciousness, change our attitude.

Attitude, or consciousness, is such an important thing. As long as I’m thinking that I am an independent controller, we will have some difficulties. When we are remembering that we are surrendered servants of the Lord, then Krishna will bless. And we will go on feeling relish in our service, until Krishna sees within your heart : “Oh, there’s another thing we have to work with!” And then boom, we find ourselves in another difficult situation. But then Krishna, He will just wait: “Are they going to realize the right thing to do or not?”

Here it says “Narada couldn’t have at once given Dhruva whatever he wanted”. But it’s not the duty of the spiritual master. His duty is to engage the disciple in the proper process of devotional service. Clean himself internally and externally, to think of the Lord and to pray to the Lord. And then to preach the glories of the Lord.

Prabhupada says, that Krishna was just standing before Arjuna on that chariot. Krishna could have just gone “psshhew” and everybody could have disappeared from the battlefield of the Kurukshetra. He didn’t do like that. He said “Fight. Undergo this trouble. Always think of Me and fight.” And Arjuna did it. And therefore he received Krishna’s mercy.

So it’s the same thing for us. Tasmad, what does it mean? “Therefore”. Sarveshu kaleshu, what does that mean? “All the time”. Sarva means “all, Kala is “time”. Tasmad sarveshu kaleshu, therefore all the time. Mam anu smara, means “remember me very deeply”. Yujya means “fight”. That’s Krishna’s supreme instruction for us. Because we all have different things to do, but regardless of what we do have to do, the principle is to remember Him. And then fight.

Therefore Narada asked Dhruva to undergo the disciple of devotional service in order to achieve the desired result. And thus we need to undergo the discipline of devotional service to achieve the desired success. Don’t think doing anything material will give you the desired success in Krishna’s devotional service. You won’t attain Krishna by material things. You attain Krishna by spiritual performance of devotional service.