Inquiries Into the Absolute: Digest 163, Keeping faith in great

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Digest 163, April 11th, 2006. Answers by His Holiness Romapada Swami Maharaja

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Keeping faith in great difficulty

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Is it OK to pray? Praying directly to Krishna?

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Question 1: When we are in great difficulty, why does our faith in the Supreme

Lord decrease? How can we keep great faith in the Lord in such time?

 

Answer: In the Bhagavad-gita (2.41p) Srila Prabhupada defines faith as

"unflinching trust in something sublime." Krishna is beyond the immediate

perception of our senses and intelligence. Therefore, faith means feelingly

completely dependent and confident that having taken shelter of Him, Krishna

will definitely protect me, although one may not understand exactly how the

Lord is going to protect; therefore it is called sublime. The actual strength

of our faith is tested only when there is some disturbance. In fact, there is

not much meaning to having faith when everything is going our way, isn't it!

Therefore such difficulties are a blessing in disguise, showing us where our

faith is lacking, and giving us an opportunity to strengthen it.

 

Faith wavers when we lose sight of Krishna, or when we are unable to see

Krishna's hand behind the course of events. By continuing to take shelter of

the Lord amidst difficulties, we can see how Krishna protects us at every step

of life - this magnifies and strengthens our faith in Him manifold. This is

what we see in the lives of devotees like Draupadi and Kunti, and therefore

Kunti prays, "Let these calamities come again and again." (SB 1.8.25)

 

Another reason that our faith weakens is because we look for material shelters.

Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura prays, taking the role of conditioned soul, "O Lord,

I have fallen into this deep ocean and instead of searching out for the

infallible boat of Your lotus feet, I am trying to grab hold of the sea-weeds

floating by, thinking they will give me protection." Because of lifetimes of

being in forgetfulness of the Lord and being accustomed to placing faith in our

own efforts and intelligence, we fail to recognize that Krishna alone can give

protection and we may try to look for some quick-fix solution.

 

We can strengthen faith by hearing in the association of faithful devotees.

Repeated hearing the topics and pastimes of the Lord, specifically those

pastimes in which He displays His protection and loving reciprocation with

devotees who know no other shelter than Him --- such as the pastimes of

deliverance of Gajendra, Prahlada, Dhruva Maharaja, the Pandavas and so on ---

this is both pleasing to the heart and acts as a potent medicine to endow us

with firm faith and devotion. (Please see SB 3.25.25) Srila Prabhupada

therefore repeatedly stressed the habit of hearing every morning and evening,

and this hearing process is repeatedly recommended throughout the Bhagavad-Gita

and Srimad Bhagavatam.

 

 

Question 2: Is it wrong to pray to the Lord to help us in the situation that we

are placed in? Is that considered totally material and why does it sometime

feel that the Lord does not reciprocate? Is it some shortage from our side? How

do we react to such situations?

 

Answer: It is certainly not wrong to pray to the Supreme Lord; it is the

natural inclination of a devotee. We see how when the residents of Vrndavana

were put in repeated difficulties, or when Draupadi was in a dire predicament

due to the untimely arrival of Durvasa muni and later at the vicious assembly

of Kurus, their immediate response was to call out to Krishna.

 

Gajendra also took shelter of Krishna in great difficulty, although he later

regretted having called to the Lord for merely a selfish purpose. Of course,

praying to the Supreme Lord for material arrangements is not the most

intelligent or elevated position. Devotees like Ambarish Maharaja or Haridas

Thakur were so surrendered and faithful of Krishna's protection that even under

great distress they never asked for personal protection. Yet while living in

this material world we are repeatedly placed in awkward and dangerous

situations and as aspiring devotees we are recommended to practice seeing

Krishna as our only Maintainer and Protector under all situations. Therefore,

it is very nice to take shelter of Krishna in even ordinary, day-to-day affairs

and difficulties. The qualifying factor is that we do so in a mood of

surrender, seeking the Lord's favor on His terms, not on ours. Srila Prabhupada

taught us how to petition the Lord, "My dear Lord Krishna, if you so desire,

then kindly fulfill this prayer if it

will enhance my attachment and service to You."

 

A heartfelt prayer to the Lord from any condition is never ignored by Him and

He does reciprocate, but His reciprocation may not take the same form as we

expected. Krishna is such a loving master that He does not grant our wishes

that may not really be beneficial for us, just like a mother strictly refuses

to give candy to a sick child despite repeated entreaties. Also, sometimes the

Lord may seem unreciprocative, simply to increase the intensity of our

dependence on Him; indeed the very purpose of difficulties and disturbances in

this material world is to make us realize our dependence on the Lord.

Unfortunately, because we do not understand this we sometimes become baffled

when nothing seems to happen or even the opposite of what we wanted happens.

Therefore it is essential to understand how Krishna protects and reciprocates

with His devotee by hearing from saintly persons and to cultivate the faith

that however the Lord chooses to reciprocate our prayers is in our best and

absolute interest.

 

 

Question 3: If we have a spiritual master, is it wrong to pray to the Lord

directly?

 

Answer: Once Srila Prabhupada was asked a similar question and his response was

?How can you think of Krishna without thinking of the spiritual master? And

how can you conceive of the spiritual master without Krishna? They are

inseparable!" In other words it is not wrong at all to pray to one's spiritual

master, however it is not quite possible to actually think of Krishna without

simultaneously remembering the spiritual master who is always situated at

Krishna's lotus feet. Conversely, it is by the spiritual master's mercy alone

that we know anything about Krishna in a proper fashion, or have access to Him!

 

The spiritual master, of course, is simply training the disciple to take

shelter of Krishna, training us how to pray and how to serve the Lord, and he

himself functions simply as a transparent via medium. Just as in Deity worship

or in chanting the Holy Names, we have the opportunity to serve Krishna and

directly access His presence but we do so with the understanding that our

service / prayer is in fact accepted and offered to the Lord through the

spiritual master.

 

It is actually more powerful and effective to approach the Lord through His

recognized devotee than approaching Him directly, and Krishna Himself

recommends this. The devotees of the Lord are more merciful than the Lord

Himself and specifically the spiritual master is the mercy representation of

Krishna in our lives. Prayers offered through the spiritual master, who is so

dear to Krishna, immediately attracts the Lord's attention and makes Him

favorably disposed towards our pleas.

 

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