Living with Baba

Many people claim to be spiritual aspirants and devotees. But who are the real devotees and spiritual aspirants?

Baba completed two important books entitled Namah Shivaya Shantaya  and Namami Krsna Sundaram  at our rented office in Jodhpur Park. The first book revealed the unique contributions of Lord Shiva to humanity. It also revealed the multiple roles that Shiva played during His lifetime - as a great spiritualist, a humanitarian, and the pioneer of the arts and science. The second book clarified Lord Krsna's divine role in restoring dharma in human society and His matchless philosophy of divine love and devotion.

One day, He told me to contact all the other religious and spiritual organizations and present them with a set of His books, and especially these two books. I went to different religious organizations daily, after which I reported back to Baba on the reception I received, and on their comments regarding His books.

I first contacted the spiritual organizations which were based on bhakti yoga. All of them worshipped Lord Krsna. I thought that the book on Krsna would appeal to them. However, the way in which they received me was not so encouraging. When I conveyed this response to Baba, He said, "Now you can understand who are really following the spiritual path."

Then, Baba talked about Krsna's role on this earth. He said that Krsna had two main roles: one as Vraja Krsna  and the other as Parthasarathi Krsna.  The role of Vraja Krsna was mainly to flood the hearts of the people with devotion. The role of Parthasarathi Krsna, however, was a combination of action, devotion and knowledge. Baba clarified that Krsna chose to give Arjuna the whole philosophy of life and devotion on the bloody battlefield at the beginning of the Mahabharata war, and not in a serene mountain cave or in the seclusion of the forest. Krsna gave humanity an example through His own life, both as Vraja Krsna and Parthasarathi Krsna. People generally have a romantic view of devotion and may think that they follow the path of devotion just by singing praises of the Lord or by hearing devotional speeches. They do not realize that real devotion is to render selfless service to people to lessen their misery and to give everything to establish dharma on this earth. Krsna gave this sublime philosophy of devotion to Arjuna to help him understand the reality of life - how the soft devotional sentiments are consistent with the harsh realities of life. Baba added that devotion comes from sadhana, action and knowledge.