Shri Radhe: The Sole Refuge of Faith.
The most important thing is that you develop faith - firmly believe and trust completely.
binu paratīti hoi nahiṁ prītī - For love, first and foremost, faith is essential.
binu viśvāsa bhakti nahiṁ, tehi binu dravahiṁ na rāma।
Another name for this is shraddhā - guru vedānta vākyēṣu dṛḍho viśvāsaḥ śraddhā.
Shankaracharya defined shraddhā as 100% firm and unwavering faith in the words of the scriptures, the Vedas, and the Guru; that alone is shraddhā. śraddhāvān labhate jñānam
This means your faith should become 100%. That alone is called bhakti, worship, or sādhana.
There should be firm faith in these three things concerning God:
- The first faith should be that Shri Krishna is always present everywhere and sees everything. This is the declaration of the Vedas. Across infinite births, this corrupted intellect of yours has not been able to believe even this much - that Shri Krishna is present everywhere at all times. Just as you are certain that you exist, in exactly the same way, Shri Krishna exists always and everywhere. This realization must happen. For some, this realization is 10%; for others, 20%, but it should be 100%.
- The second faith should be that He alone is your Master, Friend, Son, Beloved - everything.
You also have this feeling, but 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 - He is also my everything. Even this feeling does not remain constant. - The third faith should be that "God is the purifier of the fallen and the friend of the destitute, while I am lowly, fallen, sinful, and destitute. Therefore, my account is already settled - no one can prevent His grace." You know this, too, but you do not always feel it.
You only have to believe. You know this, you even feel it sometimes, but that feeling does not remain constant. This is your weakness. Even when you go to the Dhaam, where there is no worldly concern - there is no office to go to, no worries of buying groceries for home - even there, this feeling does not always stay with you.
You must simply have faith.
You know it, you feel it, but this feeling does not remain constant - this is your weakness.
The feeling that "He alone is my everything" must remain with you always and everywhere.
This means faith:
- must be 100%.
- must be constant.
If someone speaks ill of you and you learn of it, you immediately believe it and dwell on the matter for a long time, thinking, "He betrayed me, he made false allegations about my character." Some people spend their entire lives in such contemplation and end their human life with this constant thought, while they also know that:
- The world cannot be erased.
- The world is not omniscient.
- Anyone whose self-interest is harmed can do anything. Hari māyā saba jagata bhramā hīṁ। tinhahi kahata kachu aghaṭita nāhīṁ - Nothing is impossible. Any person can say anything about anyone. Whom will you stop? If you keep feeling bad, your entire life will be wasted in that, and your human body will end this way. Why knowingly cause your own harm?
So, just as you give importance to these useless matters, similarly, you should give importance to your Guru's instructions by continuously contemplating them. When knowledge becomes firm, it remains with you always. If it is half-baked or only 10% firm, it is easily forgotten to that extent.
Even in the world, you establish firmly in your mind that certain people are your parents only through practice. Similarly, you must practice the above three forms of faith toward God. You must simply have faith.
To think that "God will not bestow His grace upon me" or "I will not attain God in this birth" - these are grave kusang (bad associations).
Dhanna Jat was illiterate and so dull-minded that he could not accomplish anything even in worldly life - he simply developed faith. That is all; within a week, God appeared before him.
God appeared before Dhruv so quickly that Dhruv said to Him, "O Lord, You came very quickly. I had heard that You do not appear even before great yogis, rishis, and munis after long 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 effort over many births."
Since you have practiced incorrectly for infinite births by considering yourself the body and the relatives of the body as your own, it will take time to practice the opposite - the correct understanding. The longer the disease has been present, the longer the treatment will take. The more the fire spreads, the more difficult it becomes for even large fire brigades to extinguish.
You have not attained your goal only due to a lack of faith.
Thus, when complete faith arises - sadguru vaid vachana vishvāsa - it means accepting the words of the Guru as absolutely true, a hundred percent, without applying your own intellect. You do not use your intellect before a worldly doctor. Then what will you gain, other than total destruction, by using your intellect in the realm of the Guru and God? That domain is subtle and transcendental - it belongs to the divine realm, where the laws are entirely different.
Therefore, earn and nurture the most precious treasure called faith. The more your faith increases, the more love will arise naturally; you will not need to make any effort to create it. Faith is the foundation of love, while doubt is the destroyer of love.
God said to Arjun, saṃśayātmā vinaśyati -
One who harbors doubt toward God and the Guru is certainly doomed to be destroyed.
Therefore, Shri Maharaj Ji says in his kirtan to strengthen the faith of the aspiring devotee -
Mohiṃ to bharoso hai tihāro rī Kishori Rādhe - "O Kishori Ji! I have complete faith in You."
Therefore, you must continuously practice cultivating complete faith.
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