Total surrender at Sri Krishna's lotus feet

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Hare Krishna !

In the Bhagavad-Gita, Sri Krishna gives a very important instruction in the last chapter which is,

TEXT 66

sarva-dharman parityajyamam ekam saranam vrajaaham tvam sarva-papebhyomoksayisyami ma sucah

WORD FOR WORD

sarva-dharman -- all varieties of religion; parityajya -- abandoning; mam -- unto Me; ekam -- only; saranam -- for surrender; vraja -- go; aham -- I; tvam -- you; sarva -- all; papebhyah -- from sinful reactions; moksayisyami -- will deliver; ma -- do not; sucah -- worry.

TRANSLATION

Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reactions. Do not fear.

And in the purport, Srila Prabhupada quotes from the Hari-bhakti vilasa as follows,

"The process of surrender to Krishna is described in the Hari-bhakti vilasa (11.676) :

anukulyasya sankalpahpratikulyasya varjanamraksisyatiti visvasogoptrtve varanam tathaatma-niksepa-karpanyesad-vidha saranagatih

According to the devotional process, one should simply accept such religious principles that will lead ultimately to the devotional service of Lord Krishna. One may perform a particular occupational duty according to his position in the social order, but if by executing his duty one does not come to the point of Krishna consciousness, all his activities are in vain. Anything that does not lead to the perfection stage of Krishna realization should be avoided. One must be confident that in all circumstances Lord Krishna will protect him

from all difficulties. T here is no need of thinking how one should keep the body and soul together. Lord Krishna will see to that. One should always think himself helpless and should consider Krishna the only basis for his progress in life. As soon as one seriously engages himself in devotional service to the Lord in full Krishna consciousness, at once he becomes freed from all contamination of material nature. There are different processes of religion and purification processes by cultivation of knowledge,

meditation in the mystic yoga system, etc., but one who surrenders unto Lord Krishna does not have to execute so many methods. That simple surrender unto Krishna will save him from unnecessarily wasting time. One can thus make all progress at once and be freed from all sinful reactions."

This text is considered to be the ultimate instruction to us from the Supreme and it is the essence of the Gita. There are many scholars of Bhagavad Gita who are expert in various chapters of the Gita but they fail to accept this verse, the all-important inclusion. But, those who are sincere take this instruction very seriously and become successful.

There is also a nice description in the Srimad-Bhagavatam (11.29.34) where the Supreme Lord reaffirms His above instruction .

Some excerpts from the ' Nectar of Devotion ' :

Self-surrender is actually one of the nine processes of devotional service(bhakti-yoga) called atma-nivedana . Self is sometimes considered to refer to the soul, or the mind or the body. Full self-surrender, therefore, means not only surrendering one's self as soul but also one's mind and body to the service of Lord Krishna. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura has sung a nice hymn in this connection, "My mind, my household affairs, my body, whatever is in my possession, my dear Lord, I offer to you for Your service. Now You can do with them as you like. You

are Supreme possessor of everything, so if You like You can kill me, or if You like You can give me protection. All authority belongs to You. I have nothing to claim as my own."

Sri Yamunacharya, another great Vaishnava in his prayers to the Lord, has expressed a similar idea : "My dear Lord, I may be living within some body as a human being or as a demigod, but whatever mode of life, I do not mind, because these bodies are simply by-products of the three modes of material nature, I who am in possession of these bodies, am surrendering myself unto You."

So, as you can see from above texts and poems, surrender is considered to be an important part of bhakti-yoga by all the Vaishnavas. Without surrender it is very tough to attract Lord Krishna .

However, as we will agree, it is very hard for a common man to surrender completely because we are too conditioned by the modes and we have so many obligations in this material world that it even becomes difficult to think of Lord Krishna, what to speak of surrender. But there is still hope for us, because if we are not able to fully surrender we should at least try to keep Him at the center of all our activities and try to devote the fruits of our actions. Krishna does not believe in getting our love by force but he rewards according to whatever service we can render

to the best of our capacity. Unfortunately, most of us are surrendered to our senses and the mind and fail to understand the importance of this human form. So, as a society one of our goals is to disseminate this sublime knowledge to one and all and help make our lives successful.

Sri Krishnanya Namah!

Krishnadaya

 

Note - The above is excerpt of a discourse.

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