The Divine souls!
Kathopanishad tells us the power of simply believing in God:
अस्तीत्येवोपलब्धव्यस्तत्त्वभावेन चोभयोः । अस्तीत्येवोपलब्धस्य तत्त्वभावः प्रसीदति ॥ १३॥astītyevopalabdha vyastattvabhāvena cobhayoḥ. astītyevopalabdhasya tattvabhāvaḥ prasīdati.
- Kathopanishad: 2.3.13
If somebody really believes, “Shri Krishna is here right now in front of me!” (It) really means 100%, then they actually will see Him. He will become visible or make Himself visible to us. He's already present because He's omnipresent. He pervades every particle, and that too not only as a formless emanation or formless Divine light, but in His personal form. “Yadyapisakāro yam tathaik deshi,” Shankaracharya Ji also says, “even during Your avatar, You come and You're seen at one place in Your Divine body, but You're still everywhere else in Your same Divine body.” So imagine, Shri Krishna is everywhere with His Divine body, and the one who fully accepts and believes that,
भिद्यते हृदयग्रन्थिश्छिद्यन्ते सर्वसंशया: । क्षीयन्ते चास्य कर्माणि
bhidyate hṛidaya-granthiśchidyante sarv-saṁśhayāḥ. kṣīyante chāsya karmāṇi.- Bhagwatam
The moment you believe that, you see Krishna face to face and then all the other bondages are finished.
The knot of mayic ignorance in the heart, hṛidaya-granthiśhchidyante. We forget we're a Divine being. We start thinking we're this temporary material body. All mayic things are temporary. They all degrade from the time they come into being. They begin eroding, aging, and eventually, they fade and finish altogether, whether it's our body or whether it's a physical building, even a mountain. Any shape or structure that is created or comes into being in this world has an expiration date. And from the time it's created, it's always deteriorating. Every sweet meeting ends in separation because everything is temporary in this world, and everything that is born must die. But the soul doesn't die. We forget that. We forget that we're a Divine soul. We have a knot of Mayic ignorance that leads to all other kinds of mistakes.
If we believe we're this temporary Mayic body, then we also believe that the temporary pleasures of the Mayic world can make us happy, which they never completely do. Then we only think about them. We get attached to them. We perform all kinds of actions to attain those pleasures, selfish, bad actions. Then we have to be punished for that in the future. So see how much suffering we create for ourselves, plus the stress and tension of trying to attain those things in the first place, all because we forgot we're a Divine soul.
So the moment you surrender to Sri Krishna, that knot of my ignorance in the heart is finished forever. chidyante sarva-saṁśayāḥ. All the doubts and confusions are finished forever. Now you'll never be separate from God. You'll always see Him directly in front of you, so how would you ever doubt Him?
And all your karma, Hṛdaya-granthiśchidyante cāsya karmāṇi, all your past karma is also deleted. Your infinite previous actions from uncountable past lives, what is called Sanchit Karam, that's deleted. Your bondage of karm, which is created by the attachment of the mind in the world, is also finished. So kriyaman karm is finished. You can never do new karm that will bind you because your mind is in God only. And your prarabha Karm, even though you're free from that, most God realized Saints decide to undergo it anyway, but they don't feel anything in their heart. It's just a physical thing they undergo.
So you're free from the bondage of karm. You're free from ignorance. You're free from doubts and confusions. And you meet God face to face.
So how do we get to this point? Simple. Just practice. The mind has the power to do anything. Our thinking is:
mana eva manushyanam karanam bandha-mokshayoh
Vedas say the mind is the cause of bondage and liberation. If we keep thinking we're this body and we only dwell upon the objects of the senses that we wish to enjoy, then our mind keeps us attached and bound in maya. And if we use the same mind to have faithful thoughts about Shri Krishna, that mind releases us from bondage. The power is in the mind. All you have to do is think, “Krishna is right here. He's with me. He's looking at me, smiling at me. He's my Divine companion. He's always with me. He always has been. He is now, and He always will be the perfect Divine friend.”
Think that over and over and over again. This ‘astītyevopalabdhasya’ Kathopanishad is saying. You have to become astik. You have to really believe in God that He's right here with you. We have to practice to become astik. You may think, oh, I am astik because I believe in God. Yes. We do believe in God in some percentage, but not 100%. If we had 100% faith in God, we would meet Shri Krishna right now. We would have met Him already.
So to become astik, a true believer in God, we have to practice. And the practice is simple. Just keep thinking over and over again, “Krishna is here with me. He's right here!” This practice is so important that Jagadguru Shri Kripalu ji Maharaj has given us two ways to practice this at all times every day.
One is to sit and give some dedicated practice time where you in this case, we call it roopdhyan. Because when you dedicate some practice time to this, you're also going to visualize the form of Shri Krishna in as much detail as you can. With closed eyes, you try to imagine Krishna's form. What does that do? It's you're practicing feeling that really He's right here. He's here right now. Yes. It's a fact He is, but how much of the mind is accepting that? Therefore, we have to engage the mind in this faithful practice, “Oh, yeah. This is real Shri Krishna. I'm imagining Him, but it's not just imagination. He's really in this. He's even in my mind!” So even the imagined form has Shri Krishna right there in it. This is called the roopdhyan practice, and we practice this normally with kirtan because in silence, it's too easy to get distracted or bored, so the kirtan keeps us engaged for longer.
The other way of practicing that Jagadguru Shree Kripalu ji Maharaj taught us is to do it with some intervals throughout the day. So when you're engaged in some activity, it's very easy to forget that Shri Krishna is with me. We could forget for hours. Eight hours, ten hours, twelve hours may go by before we remember, “Oh, yes! I was supposed to be thinking that Krishna is with me, and I didn't think about that once in the last twelve hours. Shame on me! How did I let the whole day go by?”
So, since this is our nature initially, it's very common. It's very natural for a person to forget God like this because our mind is more attached in the world initially. So we have to give the mind a technique that allows it to practice remembering Krishna throughout the day. That is very simple. Every hour, on the hour, stop what we are doing and have that faithful thought for just a few seconds, “Krishna is with me! He's right here! Yeah. He's looking at me!” See? We made that connection to Him. That also purifies the heart. Even a few seconds of that meditation purifies the heart, increases our connection to Shri Krishna, and strengthens our faith. Because the more you have those faithful thoughts, the stronger our faith becomes. We're working up towards 100%.
These are the two practices, mental practices, that have to be taken seriously and implemented on a daily basis. One, the roopdhyan where we sit for some dedicated time away from any other activity, and we just practice. And the other one at intervals, every hour we stop and just do a few seconds meditation, “Oh, Krishna's right here! I can see Him looking at me. Okay. Back to work.” That gives you the ability to break that cycle of forgetting. We're so engaged in our stressful day. You break that and you remember Krishna. Then again next hour, again next hour.
This is the power of the mind that simply by practicing these, you develop your surrender to Shri Krishna and your faith in Shri Krishna, and you can become God realized just by practicing with your mind in this way. God-realized means when we're 100% attached to Shri Krishna, then He appears in front of us. We see Him. We experience His Divine bliss, and then we're never away from Him again. So, let us spend a few minutes now practicing the roopdhyan.
Roopdhyan means that faithful remembrance. You visualize the form of Shri Krishna in some detail. Any part of His total self that you want to look at from head to toe, the whole thing, any part in between. But you have to put some effort to focus your mind on that, feeling that this is real, Krishna, and feeling a loving connection that He is yours. So, this practice can be done on your own as well. And right now, we're going to practice it together while doing some kirtan.
Please watch the video to fully grasp the essence of the discourse
