This past week in Vrindaban, one of my godbrothers reminded me of this verse from Srimad-Bhagavatam (11.5.42):
sva-pada-mulam bhajatah priyasya
tyaktanya-bhavasya harih paresah
vikarma yac cotpatitam kathancid
dhunoti sarvam hrdi sannivistah
“One who has given up everything and taken full shelter at the lotus feet of Hari, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is very dear to the Lord. Therefore, if such a surrendered soul accidentally commits some sinful acts, the Lord, who is seated within everyone’s heart, at once takes away the reaction to such sins.”
The leaders of any Vaishnava spiritual society need to be aware of this instruction.
I have a question related to sinful behaviors and their effect on community, but not about spiritual forgiveness.
If a person commits and continues to commit damaging acts, can that person not be excluded from the community they damage? Surely, one can expect Krishna will accept them as saintly and still one could bar them from further damaging a community. It seems to me that the two questions of spiritual salvation/forgiveness and practical human action are quite different and that if we act as if we are Krishna, forgiving as we think we should, when in fact we are mere humans with responsibilities in our communities, we commit an error of neglect.
Thank you.
Fair enough. I agree.
We just need to make sure the acts we’re concerned about are in fact ongoing (or likely to reoccur) and damaging enough to justify what we propose to do about them. Otherwise we risk causing our community damage greater than that from which we’re trying to save it.
Hare Krishna. Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Is it valid to apply the verse as a test to evaluate the one’s attempt at surrender? Can a person say, for example, “I seem to be getting sinful reactions, therefore my surrender must be incomplete.” Or to apply this view to others to consider to whom one should offer service and look for instruction?
Thank you. Hare Krishna.
Sincerely,
Pandu das
Dear Pandu,
Please accept my respects.
A true devotee will always think, “My surrender is incomplete.” And he will think, “I have committed so many sins that the reactions I am getting are only a fraction of what I deserve.”
But he will not apply such a view to other devotees. He will not think, “That devotee is suffering. It must be a result of his sins, and this shows his lack of surrender to Krishna.”
Srila Rupa Gosvami, in his Upadesamrita, admonishes us not to think that way. He says:
drstaih svabhava-janitair vapusas ca dosair
na prakrtatvam iha bhakta janasya pasyet
gangambhasam na khalu budbuda-phena-pankair
brahma-dravatvam apagacchati nira-dharmaih
“From a materialistic point of view, one one may see faults in the body of a devotee and view the devotee in terms of conditioned material existence. But one should not see that way. As the Ganges is transcendental and pure, even when seemingly polluted by bubbles, foam, and mud, a pure devotee is always beyond the conditions of the material world.”
In the Srimad-Bhagavatam (10.14.8) we find:
tat te ’nukampam susamiksamano
bhunjana evatma-krtam vipakam
hrd-vag-vapurbhir vidadhan namas te
jiveta yo mukti-pade sa daya-bhak
“My dear Lord, one who earnestly waits for You to bestow Your causeless mercy upon him, all the while patiently suffering the reactions of his past misdeeds and offering You respectful obeisances with his heart, words and body, is surely eligible for liberation, for it has become his rightful claim.”
This indicates that even if a devotee is apparently undergoing the reactions to past misdeeds, when he wholeheartedly dedicates his life to the service of Krishna he is a pure devotee fully qualified for going back to Godhead. To think of such a devotee the way one thinks of an ordinary conditioned soul is a vaishnava-aparadha, an offense to a devotee of the Lord.
In the Bhagavad-gita (12.18–19) Lord Krishna says:
samah satrau ca mitre ca
tatha manapamanayoh
sitosna-sukha-duhkhesu
samah sanga-vivarjitah
tulya-ninda-stutir mauni
santusto yena kenacit
aniketah sthira-matir
bhaktiman me priyo narah
“One who is equal to friends and enemies, who is equipoised in honor and dishonor, heat and cold, happiness and distress, fame and infamy, who is always free from contaminating association, always silent and satisfied with anything, who doesn’t care for any residence, who is fixed in knowledge and who is engaged in devotional service–such a person is very dear to Me.”
To be afflicted by enemies, dishonor, distress, infamy, or excessive heat or cold is usually considered a result of past sinful acts. But here the Lord Himself says that one who tolerantly accepts such travails while steadily engaging in devotional service is very dear to Him. One who is dear to the Lord has attained the perfection of life. Therefore we should not hesitate to offer service to such a person and look to him for spiritual instructions.
Hare Krishna.
Sincerely,
Jayadvaita Swami