Prem Sudha Dhara: Sudeshji

(Page 210)

Ma Yashoda Cuddles Child Krishna

Shri Hari

Shri Vrindavan Dhaam

13th October 1971

Dear Sudesh,

With love, Jai Shri Hari.

Your arrival on the auspicious occasion of Bhagavat Saptah (ceremony of reading through the 'Shrimad Bhagavatam' in seven days) was very pleasing. Such an opportunity arises with great good fortune. If we can spend some moments in the company of saints, closely interact with like-minded devotees, and devoutly worship in the celestial environs of Vrindavana; God is undoubtedly blessing us with these outward expressions of his grace. Thus transforming our arid lives into the perennial quest of mankind for a divine and transcendental love. The more our mind shirks worldly attachments and concentrates on the Lord, the more its distinctly powerful impact is apparent.

The deeper ecstasies of devotion can only be attained if we have the thirst of a chatak (the pied cuckoo or papiha, supposed to live on rain-drops, especially those falling in the autumn asterism svati); a repeated chanting of pee-pee or calling out to Lord Krishna, steeped in his love. Though everything occurs spontaneously on the divine plane but by loving constantly, freely and without purpose we are able to treasure Krishna, the object of longing and of love, completely absorbed in his joy.

Divine compassion and the enraptured cry of the soul for union with God are synonymous with each other. Precisely like when an infant stretches out his tender hands and the mother instinctively picks him up in her lap. She naturally wants to cuddle the child but when he reaches out to her, with adorable longing, she breaks all barriers, casts aside work and lifts him with eager fondness.

Extending the hands is the means of attaining divine love and the mother's warmly hugging the infant is the kripa or grace of maternal love. The word kripa cannot express the Supreme Being's loving tenderness but sums up a mother's affection for her child as a sort of a long held tradition.

Audar Daani, Shiva With Jagjannani, Parvati

Today, all of us went along with revered Shri Bahinji for an outing around five o' clock. She took us to Shri Shri Swami Akhandanandji's 'Nav Vrindavan' Ashram close to the Moti Lake. Though I have visited the place a couple of times earlier but the darshan today was ecstatic. Audar-Daani (giving at one's will: a title of the god Shiva) Lord Shankar ( not as a lingam in which form Shiva is worshipped but in the vigrah or individual form) was resplendent along with Jagjanni Parvati, his beloved, on his left side. Absorbing everyone in her perceptible tenderness, goddess Parvati spread great joy. The winsome smile and delight on Bhole Baba's lovingly complacent face was truly rapturous. Later Bahinji took us to the garden of the same ashram. We saw the bhajansthali of highly revered Shri Kokil Sainji beneath the dense canopy of kadamba trees.

There is such fusion of delight and desire in Vraja's environs; the enchanting elements of nature, celestial shade of the dense foliage, the charming sites of rasiks (persons moved by passionate religious devotion especially for Krishna) that nobody can possibly measure its magnitude.

Okay then, Jai Shri Hari!

With love,

Yours Bobo.