Nistha for Surrendering to Lord's Lotus Feet - Katha From Radha Kund

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One of the main kinds of submissiveness, humility, expressed by the devotee to the Lord, is the service of his Lotus Feet. Nistha towards his lotus feet... because ultimately when a devotee feels humble, his first sight directly goes to the lotus feet of the Lord. We don't consider ourselves as equal to Krishna, when we are equal we look in his eyes.

So the next form of nistha is 'pada seva lalsa mayi nistha'.

Sometimes some devotees asked Prabhupada, how can you become free of lusty desires, then Prabhupada used to say, you meditate on the lotus feet of the Lord. Because meditating on the lotus feet of the Lord takes away all our lusty desires. The light coming from the toe nails of the Lord, illuminates our heart and removes the darkness of lust.

Yogis in the Himalayas who were meditating for 1000s of years, they are not even able to touch the light of the toenails of the Lord, but the Devotees, by the power of Naam, naama sankirtan, can have a great vision of the lotus feet of the Lord. They can meditate on the lotus feet and pray to the lotus feet of the Lord...My Dear Lord I am always so lusty, Bhaktivinode Thakur is praying, that day and night I am full of lust. Even if externally I am not lusty, internally the waves of lust are always flowing. So the lust has always captured me and overwhelmed me and all my activities are influenced by lust.

I am sinful and I am ungrateful and I am proud and I am always disrespecting others and thinking that I am very very knowledgable. I have a very very flickering mind, due to excessive engagement in sense gratification, I can not have one pointed determination, that is why my mind is always flickering. I can always be overwhelmed at anytime by your illusory energy. My desires for sense gratification have no limits, so this is my position, oh my dear Lord. I am very very envious of others so I am a 'durjana' and am stuck in this ocean of birth and death.

Because of my sinful nature I am drowning very quickly and in my pitiful condition six crocodiles are gulping me. I am already drowning, but to hasten my drowning the crocodiles are eating me. My lusty desires are like chains, they are binding me so I can not even swim and the thing is that I do not have a boat to cross this ocean, because I have not taken shelter of your lotus feet so who will help me in this ocean. I am wearing the heavy golden crown of my ego. Imagine my condition, heavier because of my ego, my falldown is faster because it is so heavy. The higher you rise, the harder you fall.

So similarly in Bhakti, the further you advance in bhakti, the tests become stronger.

Because of my false ego I am envious of you and your devotees, Vaishnavas and because of that I am sinking and noone is there even to pull me up. Because of my envious nature, nobody is ready to help me. Prabhodananda Saraswati also says the same thing, in this ocean the only boat is your lotus feet.

There is a beautiful verse in the Bhagavatam that says, when I take shelter of your lotus feet, this samsara cycle becomes like water in the hoof print of a calf that I can easily cross. Very easily I can cross it.

Devotee: "What are some of the symptoms"

In our journey to Goloka attaining prema, at first the Lord offers us Bhukti (sense gratification). If you say no then the Lord will offer siddhi (mystic powers). If you say no to mystic powers, then the Lord offers us Brahmaloka (perpetual life). If you say no to Brahmaloka then the Lord offers us Mukti, Brahmananda in the Brahmajyoti. If you say no to Mukti then the Lord offers us the Vaikuntha planets. If you say no to the Vaikuntha planets then the Lord offers us Ayodha, if you say no to Ayodha then the Lord offers us Dvarka, if you say no to Dvarka then he offers us Mathura. The Lord is always waiting for us for what we want.

So as we advance to the stage of nistha, our perception starts getting deeper and clearer. So even though we are staying in this material world, we will start having very very vivid visions of the Svargaloka, Mahaloka, Jnanaloka, Satyaloka,Brahmaloka. It is not hard and fast (rules), like in nistha we will be given the Brahmajyoti etc. It depends upon our journey when the Lord wants to offer us all that. We will be given glimpses of that and at that time we have to choose, but if a devotee on the platform of annartha vrtti, is given a glimpse of siddhis, obviously the devotee will fall victim to it, because there are still so many material desires, so that if the devotee is offered some siddhis the devotee will fall for it.

So the Lord will test a Bhakta only according to his capacity to overcome it. Like the stage of Brahmajyoti when we are offered Brahmananda Mukti I think that is a little higher than nistha, because at the stage of Brahmaananda we are free from the cycle of birth and death. Of course Bhakti starts on the Brahmabhuta platform according to Gita. That Bhakti , you can call it naishtika Bhakti or ruchi anapekshani Bhakti...unless one gets this ruchi, one will not be able to say no to the brahmaananda etc.

Devotee: "When we talk about symptoms of what a devotee is experiencing, does Brahman realisation mean that he has realised that everything is residing in the effulgence of the Lord."

yes he will see the Brahman pervading everywhere. Actually the Brahmajyoti, is coming from the bodily effulgence ofGauranga Krishnas body. That light is actually pervading the whole spiritual and material creation. All the universes and planets are floating on that light.

Devotee: "So this is the impersonal form of the Lord anyway."

Yes the bodily effulgence of the Lord..when he (the devotee) sees the sunlight, he sees the bodily effulgence of the Lord.

devotee- he realises everything in the Supreme lord, whatever he is surveying.

Yes, the sun and the moon and the oceans and the planets floating on the sky, remind him of the Lords energies. he sees the under current of the Lord's Brahmajyoti everywhere. For example there are special glasses available, and if you put on these glasses you can see all the radiations, such as 3G & GSM signals, coming from the towers, you will start seeing these radiations.

Devotee: "The internal structure"

Ya, the energy structure. Similarly a devotee on the Brahmabhuta platform will start seeing that everything is situated on the brahmajyoti and he will get a glimpse of the brahmajyoti also beyond the universes, where everything is full of light. He will get a glimpse of the brahmaananda also. What is the happiness enjoying in the brahmajyoti, it is like a spark. But at that time unless he is relishing a higher ananda in Bhakti, he will not be able to reject the offer of Brahmaananda. So the Lord will test him with this Brahmaananda only when he is experiencing some higher happiness in Bhakti.Otherwise he will say yes to Brahmaananda and he will give up Bhakti.

Devotee:  "I heard of some devotees experiencing Brahmaananda who were confused thinking that the pleasure that they were experiencing was Bhakti."

In the Taittiriya Upanishad it is said, (I had a big chart, I made a chart, but I have lost that now) it is said that the happiness that we get from eating one laddhu on the earth, is multiplied 10000 times when we eat the same laddhu in the svarga, it is multiplied by 1000000 times etc...in Brahmaloka it is billions of times more and in the Brahmajyoti even more than in the Brahmaloka, so imagine the happiness in Vaikuntha and other planets. It is inconceivable.

So the lord tests us as per our capacity to pass the test. As we advance. Especially this mayavadi concept of becoming one with God. This conception is so strong in us, that in the Madhurya Kadambini it is said that when we see the Lord face to face, only then will this seed of enjoying separately from God go away fully. Of course it will almost fully be removed at the stage of asati bhava, but only with prema and only when we see the Lord face to face, then this seedlike very very subtle desire of becoming the enjoyer will go away completely. Only when we see the Lord.

So we have to go through this process