Surrender - Mind - Chapahatti

September 1st

I read a definition for surrender today. It helps me understand surrender in smaller increments until I am able to follow in the footsteps of Draupadi or Kunti devi.

SURRENDER - Master the lessons of your present circumstances. We do not move forward by resisting what is undesirable in our life today. We move forward, we grow, we change by acceptance, Avoidance is not the key, surrender is.

Today I am sick, nausea, diarrhea, so I will fast, drink water, lots of water and hopefully flush out what is not wanted in my body. I am not sure what caused it as I haven’t done anything unusual except for honoring a small amount of very rich maha prasad. I have not been very regular with my meals, this may be the external cause, my purification hopefully being the true reason.

As I lie down giving my body a chance to heal itself, I listen to Srila Prabhupada (Srila Prabhupada, BG 2.13 – 1965-66) and drink water.

“Disturbance of mind is due to ignorance, unnatural condition”, opposite of dhira undisturbed. Mind in material condition is always disturbed. Being spirit by nature, it is no wonder we get disturbed in this foreign environment. Srila Prabhupada explains how this material world is unfamiliar to us, we belong to the spiritual world. Srila Prabhupada remembers being worried when having to figure out how to proceed to get a bus to Butler, when arriving in New York. Ignorance is a cause of disturbance of the mind.

Today my surrender is to rest. I will not resist my sick stomach, I feel weak. I will hear Prabhupada, chant japa, hear kirtan… these activities are natural to the soul they should relieve my disturbed mind/body. If I feel stronger later in the day, I will seek live association. I am thanking Krishna for this change of pace, it is His mercy, just for me.

Later, a neighbor came to visit. I had decorated my altar with chamkak flowers so we got talking about Jayadeva Goswami and golden champaks that Champakalata used to pick for Krishna in a grove near his place. Champak and golden champak are not the same but the mind can travel from one topic to the next without much notice. I remembered how Jayadeva Goswami in that very place, Champahatti, Champakalata’s champa grove, wrote Gita Govinda. One day a verse came to Jayadeva’s mind. In his writing, Radha had been very angry at Krishna, probably not without reason as Krishna likes to stimulate that love/anger mood. But now He was caught in His game as Radha would not get out of that mood, no matter how much Krishna pleaded. He had tried everything, so this verse came to Jayadeva’s mind indicating that Krishna bowed touching Radha’s lotus feet with His head, in apology. Jayadeva could not write that sloka, thinking he might be committing an offense by even thinking it, so since it was soon lunch time, he told his wife he would go bathe in the nearby Ganga and take his lunch upon his return.

Jayadeva’s wife, Padmavati, saw her husband return, saw him write, and gave him his lunch. Then he left again. Soon after, she saw him returning once again and he asked for lunch. “I just fed you lunch, you want to eat again? You ate, wrote a verse and left and now you want to eat again.” Jayadeva went to look at his manuscript and saw that the verse he had been thinking of had been written "dehi padapallava-mudaram" . He could understand that Krishna himself had come to visit his wife in his absence, and wrote the verse Himself. He fell in complete ecstasy, shared his discovery with Padmavati and both of them practically lost external consciousness being absorbed in full Krishna consciousness.

I get a lot of stories mixed up - hopefully I got this one right. It would be wonderful if I could somehow walk on Parikrama with the devotees this year. So many stories half remembered in my head. May be Mayapur TV will go on Parikrama with a magic backpack and allow all the internet devotees to come along, I would love to go on Parikrama, not sure my body can follow my mind . Sometimes all I can remember is a feeling about a place, how it made me feel to hear the stories.

More next time on more surrender and Janmastami.
Happily and slowly taking one step at a time towards Radha and Krishna's Love

Your ever servant of the servant.