Vrndavana Bhajana by His Divine Grace

[Govindaram]

 

Vrndavana Bhajana(8 of 27)

 

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Written by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami in 1958,

Published December of that Year in Gaudiya Patrika,

The Magazine of the Gaudiya Vedanta Samiti. </font color>

 

1.

I am sitting alone in Vrndavana-dhama

In this mood I am getting many realizations.

I have my wife, sons, daughters, grandsons, everything,

But I have no money so they are a fruitless glory.

Krishna has shown me the naked form of material nature,

By his strength it has all become tasteless to me today.

yasyaham anugrhnami harisye tad-dhanam sanaih

"I gradually take away all the wealth of those upon whom I am merciful."

How was I able to understand this mercy of the All-merciful?

 

2.

Everyone has abandoned me, seeing me as penniless,

Wife, relatives, friends, brothers, everyone.

This is misery, but it gives me a laugh. I sit alone and laugh.

In this maya-samsara, whom do I really love?

Where have all my loving father and mother gone to now?

And where are all my elders, who were my own folk?

Who will give me news of them, tell me who?

All that is left of this family life is a list of names.

 

3.

Like the froth on the sea water mixes again in the sea,

Maya's samsara's play is just like that.

No one is mother or father, or personal relative,

Just like the sea-foam they remain but a short time,

Just as the froth on sea water mixes again in the sea,

The body made of five elements meets with destruction.

How many bodies does the embodied soul take in this way;

His relatives are all simply related to this temporal body.

 

4.

But everyone is your relative, brother? on the spiritual platform.

This relationship is not tinged with the smell of maya.

The Supreme Lord is the soul of everyone,

In relation to Him, everyone in the universe is the same.

All your relatives, brother! All the billions of jivas.

When seen in relation to Krishna they are all in harmony.

Forgetting Krishna, the jiva desires for sense gratification,

And as a result he is firmly grasped by maya.

 

5.

As a result of past activities he takes on different types of body.

Absorbed in that dress he remains forgetful of Sri Hari.

Therefore maya gives him so many kinds of miseries

And although he bobs up and down in this ocean of misery,

he still thinks that he is happy.

Lying on a bed, suffering greatly, having been sick a long time

"I am very well today," he says laughing.

I get a laugh out of his "feeling very well"

This is the way the soul conditioned by maya feels "well"

 

6.

How many plans they have to remain "well"

But time and time again nature destroys them.

daivi hy esa gunamayi that is the Supreme Lord's maya.

Try to understand exactly the meaning of their "feeling well";

No one is well in the whole world, but still they are saying

In this way maya cheats the conditioned soul.

But, ignoring that he is being cheated, he remains absorbed in maya;

And although maya kicks him, he will not give up his mistaken conception.

 

7.

Again and again making plans, and again and again they are destroyed.

Sometimes he falls on the dry earth and sometimes in the mud.

In this way the universe is filled with wandering jiva souls

who finally by the grace of Guru and Krishna get bhakti --the eternal wealth.

Gaining that wealth if they can give up all other so-called wealth,

Then very easily he crosses over the ocean of samsara.

There on the other side is unparalled spiritual variegatedness.

There he enjoys in eternal happiness and peace.

 

8.

The mad say, "There everything is formless,

Without special feature like a kind of nothing."

He is actually the storehouse of spiritual tastes-- raso vai sah

The intelligent knowers of tastes serves him becoming his subordinate

Santa, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya are those tastes and

The best of all, madhurya, is the essence of them all.

But in the spiritual world all these tastes are relishable,

Whereas the material tastes are just shadow reflections and are all contemptible.