A friend asked me the other day, "How do we give up our independence?" It is not possible to be without independence, because Krsna has purposely created us with independence. We jiva souls who belong to the tatastha shakti category have some minute independence. Our independence is limited to deciding whether to be guided by Krsna's internal energy, Yogamaya, or Krsna's external energy, Mahamaya. We are always under the control of the Lord, either through His internal energy or His external energy. It is our fundamental nature to be always under His control. But we still have a minute quantity of independence. Our independence provides us with two options: we have the ability to surrender to and be controlled by either the (1) internal energy of Krsna or the (2) external energy of Krsna. We are always under the control of Krsna through the agency of one of His energies, His shaktis; we choose whether we want to be controlled by the internal shakti, Srimati Radharani and Her expansions, or the external shakti, Mayadevi.
If Krsna had created us without independence, we would be eternally liberated souls. But we're obviously not eternally liberated souls. We are of a different category. We are the souls that Krsna created with the option to choose whether to serve Him in a way that produces happiness for ourselves (and Him) or in a way that produces misery for us. We were originally created to serve God under the direction of His internal energy, yogamaya, but we have fallen down from our position of service because of misuse of our independence, and now we are caught in the cycle of samsara here in the material world. Because we have minute independence, we can choose either to devote ourselves to the loving service of God which will get us out of this material world and return us to our eternal home in the spiritual world, or we can choose to ignore God and stay in this material world suffering the myriad miseries that this material realm has to offer.
Without independence, there is no possibility of loving God. If we were forced to love Him, how could we feel the positive emotion of love? There would be no meaning to the word "love" if we didn't have the independent choice to love Him or leave Him.
My friend could perhaps have re-phrased her question, "How can we give up our tendency to act independently of Krsna's desire?" Good question. There's nothing inherently wrong with the soul having independence. It's a good thing, if it's used in Krsna's service. On the other hand, if our independence is used to defy Krsna's will and promote our own material desires--to serve our own bodily senses or the senses of others--then our independence can become the source of misery.
Remembrance of and service to Krsna makes us happy. Forgetfulness of and service to maya makes us unhappy. But Krsna doesn't interfere with our decision to remember Him or forget Him. He doesn't interfere with our decision to serve Him or ignore Him. He leaves that up to us. But because we are always subservient--either to Krsna's internal energy or to His external energy--we get the concomitant reactions to our decisions, whatever they may be. ("Everyone follows my path in all respects." Bg 4.11) Our decision of how to use (or misuse) our independence can either clear our path back home, back to Godhead, or it can cause us to remain in the cycle of samsara, the cycle of repeated birth and death. Krsna is the supreme independent--svarat--and we are His eternal servants endowed with minute independence which we can use either in His service, or in the service of His external energy. The choice is ours.
We never lose our independence. It's built in. Krsna gave us our minute independence so that we can choose whether to love Him or not, whether to serve Him or not. We have the ability always to accept our eternal position as Krsna's servant and to act in that role, or to reject it and attempt to serve our own whims and senses. Even after we return to the spiritual world, we retain our independence, so we still have the ability to leave the spiritual realm, although Srila Prabhupada said that once we return, we will never again leave that blissful place. (That's because we will have finally gotten smart enough to stay there.)
Another question one may ask could be, "While we're still here in the material world, how do we dovetail our minute independence in Krsna's service? We are still conditioned and still attached to our senses. So how do we purify this tendency to act independently of Krsna's will?"
One answer is: by practice. We are practitioners and proponents of vaidhi-bhakti. Vaidhi-bhakti means devotional service in practice. When we catch our minds forgetting Krsna or thinking non-devotional thoughts, we must pull our minds back to the lotus feet of Krsna, back to the desire to satisfy Krsna's desire. It is important to practice pulling our mind back to Krsna's lotus feet at every moment, but it is especially important to practice controlling our mind during japa. Focusing our mind on the holy names, hearing the sound of the holy names with full attention and disciplining our puppy-like, run-away mind to remain at Krsna's lotus feet is not only spiritually helpful, but materially helpful as well. Our morning meditation of hearing and chanting Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare is one powerful, key practice in our process of bhakti-yoga, of linking with God through loving devotion, which recharges our batteries and gives us clarity how to carry out our duties throughout the day. It's the springboard from which the rest of our day is launched. Corraling our mind and engaging it in remembering the lotus feet of the Lord must also be done constantly throughout the day. But when we have done so with great care early in the morning during our japa time, we will find that the rest of the day goes more smoothly and that we are able to remember Krsna more easily throughout the day.
By Krsna's kind and expert arrangement, we married ladies have a great opportunity to purify our hearts of the tendency to act outside of Krsna's desire by aligning our will with the will of our devotee husbands who are representatives of Krsna in our lives. This takes practice, just like chanting our rounds of japa with full concentration and surrender takes practice. In fact, by hearing Krsna's holy names with full attention each day, we will see that our ability to please and serve our husbands becomes easier and more natural.
We can also pray to Krsna to help us understand how to use our independence properly so that He will be pleased. For example, we can pray, "My dear Lord Sri Krsna, if You so desire, please help me to desire to serve You at every moment of every day. Help me to use my senses in Your service, thinking always of Your pleasure." If we are a married lady, we can include something in our prayer like, "Please help me to align my desires with the desires of my husband for Your pleasure, dear Lord." By praying and thinking in this way, we will gradually become accustomed to thinking always of Krsna's pleasure instead of pursuing our own pleasure independent of His.
If Krsna had created us without independence, we would be eternally liberated souls. But we're obviously not eternally liberated souls. We are of a different category. We are the souls that Krsna created with the option to choose whether to serve Him in a way that produces happiness for ourselves (and Him) or in a way that produces misery for us. We were originally created to serve God under the direction of His internal energy, yogamaya, but we have fallen down from our position of service because of misuse of our independence, and now we are caught in the cycle of samsara here in the material world. Because we have minute independence, we can choose either to devote ourselves to the loving service of God which will get us out of this material world and return us to our eternal home in the spiritual world, or we can choose to ignore God and stay in this material world suffering the myriad miseries that this material realm has to offer.
Without independence, there is no possibility of loving God. If we were forced to love Him, how could we feel the positive emotion of love? There would be no meaning to the word "love" if we didn't have the independent choice to love Him or leave Him.
My friend could perhaps have re-phrased her question, "How can we give up our tendency to act independently of Krsna's desire?" Good question. There's nothing inherently wrong with the soul having independence. It's a good thing, if it's used in Krsna's service. On the other hand, if our independence is used to defy Krsna's will and promote our own material desires--to serve our own bodily senses or the senses of others--then our independence can become the source of misery.
Remembrance of and service to Krsna makes us happy. Forgetfulness of and service to maya makes us unhappy. But Krsna doesn't interfere with our decision to remember Him or forget Him. He doesn't interfere with our decision to serve Him or ignore Him. He leaves that up to us. But because we are always subservient--either to Krsna's internal energy or to His external energy--we get the concomitant reactions to our decisions, whatever they may be. ("Everyone follows my path in all respects." Bg 4.11) Our decision of how to use (or misuse) our independence can either clear our path back home, back to Godhead, or it can cause us to remain in the cycle of samsara, the cycle of repeated birth and death. Krsna is the supreme independent--svarat--and we are His eternal servants endowed with minute independence which we can use either in His service, or in the service of His external energy. The choice is ours.
We never lose our independence. It's built in. Krsna gave us our minute independence so that we can choose whether to love Him or not, whether to serve Him or not. We have the ability always to accept our eternal position as Krsna's servant and to act in that role, or to reject it and attempt to serve our own whims and senses. Even after we return to the spiritual world, we retain our independence, so we still have the ability to leave the spiritual realm, although Srila Prabhupada said that once we return, we will never again leave that blissful place. (That's because we will have finally gotten smart enough to stay there.)
Another question one may ask could be, "While we're still here in the material world, how do we dovetail our minute independence in Krsna's service? We are still conditioned and still attached to our senses. So how do we purify this tendency to act independently of Krsna's will?"
One answer is: by practice. We are practitioners and proponents of vaidhi-bhakti. Vaidhi-bhakti means devotional service in practice. When we catch our minds forgetting Krsna or thinking non-devotional thoughts, we must pull our minds back to the lotus feet of Krsna, back to the desire to satisfy Krsna's desire. It is important to practice pulling our mind back to Krsna's lotus feet at every moment, but it is especially important to practice controlling our mind during japa. Focusing our mind on the holy names, hearing the sound of the holy names with full attention and disciplining our puppy-like, run-away mind to remain at Krsna's lotus feet is not only spiritually helpful, but materially helpful as well. Our morning meditation of hearing and chanting Hare Krsna Hare Krsna Krsna Krsna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare is one powerful, key practice in our process of bhakti-yoga, of linking with God through loving devotion, which recharges our batteries and gives us clarity how to carry out our duties throughout the day. It's the springboard from which the rest of our day is launched. Corraling our mind and engaging it in remembering the lotus feet of the Lord must also be done constantly throughout the day. But when we have done so with great care early in the morning during our japa time, we will find that the rest of the day goes more smoothly and that we are able to remember Krsna more easily throughout the day.
By Krsna's kind and expert arrangement, we married ladies have a great opportunity to purify our hearts of the tendency to act outside of Krsna's desire by aligning our will with the will of our devotee husbands who are representatives of Krsna in our lives. This takes practice, just like chanting our rounds of japa with full concentration and surrender takes practice. In fact, by hearing Krsna's holy names with full attention each day, we will see that our ability to please and serve our husbands becomes easier and more natural.
We can also pray to Krsna to help us understand how to use our independence properly so that He will be pleased. For example, we can pray, "My dear Lord Sri Krsna, if You so desire, please help me to desire to serve You at every moment of every day. Help me to use my senses in Your service, thinking always of Your pleasure." If we are a married lady, we can include something in our prayer like, "Please help me to align my desires with the desires of my husband for Your pleasure, dear Lord." By praying and thinking in this way, we will gradually become accustomed to thinking always of Krsna's pleasure instead of pursuing our own pleasure independent of His.
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