💫August 24, 2025: Highlights of a soulful evening sadhana🎼

🌷✨Jagadguru Shri Kripalu Ji Maharaj ki Jai!✨🌷

Kirtan:

- Radhey Radhey Govind Govind Radhey, Radhey Radhey Govind Govind Radhey

- Deena ki sun lo deenaanath (Prem Ras Madira, Dainya Madhuri, pad no. 48)

- Hamaro Piya pranan pyaro (Prem Ras Madira, Shri Krishna Madhuri, pad no. 48)

- Hamaro Gopala, Hamaro Nandalala (Braj Ras Madhuri, part 1, page no.294, kirtan no. 39)

Lecture notes:

There are many types of devotion, but primarily, there are two main kinds of devotion: 

1) Devotion with attachment of the mind, and

2) Devotion practiced merely with the senses

There are ten senses - five gyanendriya (senses of knowledge) and five karmendriya (senses of action). In the world, 99% of people practice devotion only through these senses - 

Devotion through the gyanendriya - People go to see the deities in temples and saints with their eyes. They listen to the Vedas, scriptures, Puranas, Ramayana, Bhagavat, etc., with their ears. They visit temples and take Tulsi water in their mouths. 

Devotion through karmendriya - They worship with their hands. They chant with their tongue. They go on pilgrimages with their feet.

But devotion practiced with attachment of the mind is like the life-force.

In your body, there are two things: one is you (the soul or life-force) and the other is your body. This body is very important. If the soul of a saint is seated within it, then God walks behind it. 

अनुव्रजाम्यहं नित्यं पूयेयेत्यङ्घ्रिरेणुभिः।

God says, "I walk behind My devotee so that the dust of his feet may fall upon Me." This means the body has such great importance, provided that the person within is a devotee.

Even a person with worldly wealth has great importance in the world. When a Prime Minister, President, a great singer, or a famous person in the world comes somewhere, there, too, the body has great importance - people run to see them. Why? Because the personality within him is important, the body also gained importance. 

And if the soul departs, then what can one speak of others, even his close relatives at home are not ready to keep him for even one day. People are afraid even to look at a dead body. And anyway, the body will decay within two to four days.

This means the importance of a being comes from the life-force. The body gets its importance because of the soul within.

Similarly, God takes note of the mind's attachment. God does not take note of the devotion practiced merely through the senses. If you chant with your fingers while your mind is in the world, even if you chant God's names millions of times, God does not take note of it. People write "Ram Ram" on paper - such great dramas of devotion practiced through the physical senses happen in the world, and they proudly think, "I have done so much chanting, so much recitation." Due to the advice of the ignorant, people perform various types of devotion with the physical senses and hope that they will attain Golok after death.

After death, you receive only what you had attained before death.

Just as in an examination, children get marks only for what they wrote in their answer sheets, similarly, whatever good or bad actions or devotion you have performed, the inner state of your mind that resulted from that remains with you till the time of death. Having been born as a human, did you purify your mind, or did you make it even more impure? The test for this is how much attachment you have to the world.

The test of having attachment to God is how much detachment you have developed from the world.

Today, you felt sad when you lost one hundred rupees. Tomorrow, when you progress in devotion, you will not feel sad even after losing five hundred rupees, thinking, "It is alright, it was not mine, so it got lost."

Similarly, as you progress, you will achieve such a high state that there will be no feeling even when the entire world is destroyed. Even after someone's death, there will be no feeling. This is the ultimate state. If you reach this stage, understand that there is now 100% detachment from the world - this is the test to measure yourself.

If someone abused you a crore times, and there is not even the slightest tremor within you. What is he saying? That you are lustful, angry, greedy, deluded, foolish, and sinful. Then he is saying the right thing. Smile and say,  "You are absolutely right." Why feel bad? Will feeling bad about the truth make you good? If you acknowledge the fact, then you will consider improving it. If you do not admit the fact, then the thought of improvement will never arise. 

Thus, devotion of the mind alone is true devotion. Therefore, always practice performing sankirtan along with Roopdhyan.

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The most important thing is that you firmly believe, and trust completely.

बिनु परतीति होइ नहिं प्रीती  - For love, first and foremost, faith is essential.

बिनु विश्वास भक्ति नहिं, तेहि बिनु द्रवहिं न राम।

The other name for this is shraddhā - guru vedānta vākyēṣu dṛḍho viśvāsaḥ śraddhā.

Shankaracharya defined shraddhā as having 100% firm and unwavering faith in the words of the scriptures, the Vedas, and the Guru; that alone is called shraddha. श्रद्धावान् लभते ज्ञानम्  

This means your faith should become 100% - this alone is called devotion, worship, or devotional practice.

There should be firm faith in these three things regarding God:

1) The first faith should be that Shri Krishna is present always, everywhere, and He sees everything. This is the statement of the Vedas. For infinite births, this corrupted intellect of yours has still not been able to believe even this much - that Shri Krishna is present everywhere at all times. Just as you realize that you exist, in exactly the same way, Shri Krishna exists always, everywhere. This realization should happen. This happens to the extent of 10% for some and 20% for others, but it should be 100%.

2) The second faith should be that  He is your master, friend, son, beloved - everything.

This also happens, but it is not 100%. That means you have not been able to add the word "only" to God. You feel 'also' - you think He is also my mother, father, everything. 

3) The third faith should be that God is the purifier of the fallen, friend of the destitute, and I am lowly, fallen, sinful, destitute. Therefore, your account is already settled - no one can stop it. You also know this, but you do not always realize it.

You must only believe. You know this, you feel it too, but this feeling is not always there. This is your weakness. Even when you go to the Dhaam, where there is no worldly worry of going to the office or bringing groceries, still this feeling does not always remain.

The feeling that He alone is your everything should happen always and everywhere.

This means faith:

1) Should be 100%.

2) Should be constant.

When you hear criticism about yourself from a friend, you may keep thinking about it all your life - that "he betrayed me, made false allegations about my character." Throughout your life, you knowingly harm yourself in this contemplation. You know that:

1) The world cannot be destroyed.

2) The world is not omniscient.

3) The one whose selfish interest is harmed can say anything.

हरि माया सब जगत भ्रमा हीं। तिन्हहि कहत कछु अघटित नाहीं   - nothing is impossible. Any person can say anything about anyone - whom all will you stop? And if you continue to feel bad, your entire life will be wasted in just feeling bad, and the human body will become exhausted. 

So just as you give importance to these useless matters, similarly, you should give importance to the Guru's instructions by continuously contemplating them. When knowledge becomes firm, it remains always. And if it is half-baked or only 10% firm, then it is forgotten to that extent.

Even in the world, you establish firmly in your mind that these are your parents only through practice. Similarly, you must practice the above three things toward God. You only have to believe.

To think that "God will not bestow His grace upon me" or "I will not attain God in this birth" - these are grave bad-associations. 

Dhanna Jat, who was illiterate and had such a dull mind that he could not accomplish anything even in the world - he only believed - and in just one week God stood before him.

God appeared so quickly before Dhruv that Dhruv said to Him, "O Lord, You came very quickly. I had heard that You do not appear to great yogis, rishis, munis even after great spiritual practices." Then God showed Dhruv his thousands of previous births and said, "This is not the result of six months of practice, but the fruit of your continuous practice of many births." 

Since you have practiced wrongly for infinite births by considering yourself to be the body and the relatives of the body as your own - therefore, it will take time to practice the opposite and correct thing. The older the disease, the longer the treatment will take. The more the fire spreads, the more even big fire brigades will fail to extinguish it.

So, you only have to practice believing.

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