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When you have
gotten a lot of Mercy you have more responsibility.
His Holiness Sacinandana Swami , disciple meeting, Premantura -Croatia August 2001.
Submitted by Krpa.
If you do not act upon the responsibility which you have than the mercy will go out of your life.
For instance in my own spiritual life I am so fortunate to be a disciple of Srila Prabhupada and I am very fortunate to have the Hare Krishna maha mantra , that I am allowed to perform a devotional service as a preacher , wherever I go there is engagement for me. There are many things, I do not want to sound arrogant and repeat what I consider to be mercy on me. It may sound as if I may impress my audience so I will not give so many examples. I really know that a lot of mercy has been given to me in this life.
You see it is very, very important for me to act on this mercy and qualify for this mercy. As a sannyasi I have to give an example for instance and one example I have to give is to get up very early in the morning. This was always difficult for me because by my biorhythm I can sleep best in the time when we get up. This is some how a biological course for me. Maybe you have a similar course. Us westerners are not used to rise up with a sun. It is not in our genetic code. In India it is much easier. The habit is you go to bed when the sun is down and then in the west our reading starts, our entertainment in the evening, I don't want to mention the sinful activities which are starting in the night. So we are a generation not accustomed to getting up early in the morning but Srila Prabhupada wishes his disciples to get up in the morning and it is additionally difficult because I have such a service that starts when people get awake and that's in the evening, "preaching programs", and so on but I have noticed in my life whenever it is possible I should do it and then all of sudden with a such a small thing that I do I know I am fullfiling an expectation of my spiritual master and I become very happy and very spiritually enlivened and of course other things, be compassionate friend to everyone which is very difficult for me because I am very critical person and I have a high demands on my self and persons to whom I am close but now as a sannyasi, as a preacher,Guru I have to extend myself and make myself as much available as I can possibly do and it is sometimes very, very difficult to do for the person that has this type of mentality.
I have noticed that if you wish to advance spiritually you have to see the challenges in your life, you have to identify them and you have to work on them otherwise if you don't do this that is a problem. The problem is that you lose the spiritual mercy and the gifts that you have been given.
The vow to chant 16 rounds and spiritual mercy:
I will give you a practical example which you all might have experienced in your life.
Those of you who have been given vows to chant 16 rounds a day, those of you who have taken sacred initiation vows, you have got a lot of mercy. You have got a connection to parampara. Now if you don't chant your 16 rounds what will happen is that the Holy Name will take his mercy away. When you chant you will not have any taste, RUCI. I think that you must have experienced when you become weak with your rounds over a long time, after some time you just lose a taste for the chanting of the Holy name.
Why???
Because the Holy name is no longer giving you that mercy. He does not give you that strength. Therefore I am always of the opinion that devotees should be careful in taking vows because once you have done it, you have higher responsibilities.
If devotees that are not mature for brahmana initiation, take this initiation but don't keep the higher responsibilities, they will lose the taste and fall down from spiritual life. This is a very important subject. When you have been given more mercy, you have to give something.
I want to give you an example so that you can understand the dynamic of this rule in spiritual life.
Krishna and the holy name are persons:
Let us say you are taking extra care of someone whom you consider very nice. You invest in him, you give your time to him, you give him gifts and presents and so on . It sometimes happens but then the person does not respond. What is your feeling at that time? If you are a little egocentric you feel hurt and think : " Stupid person " . If you were sincerely wanting to help, you feel something else. You feel sad. " This person does not want to have relationship", and sadly you move to the side. Isn't it ?
I ask those of you who wanted to have love for a young boy and the young boy was not responding or those who wanted to love a young girl the young girl was saying : " No , thanks ." You were egocentric and you felt very, very hurt. If you are just wanting to help the person you feel sad and maybe a little hurt.
So Krsna is like that also. The Holy Name is also like that. He is a person. He comes to us. When we take our sacred initiation vows to chant 16 rounds every day, he comes to us and if don't do it (one time, two times no problem then we can catch up the rounds in the next day. It is not good, when I say, no problem, I mean the problem that I am discussing now has not yet manifested. Or if it becomes the rule to catch up next morning, or even worse that it becomes rule that we don't finish our sixteen rounds and we never catch them up then after some time) the Holy Name sadly moves to the side. Sadly! Sadly! He wanted so much to get us and then at that moment a shade comes in our life. The sun goes away and the darkness comes. No taste!
This was an example of the Holy Name . It is a very relevant example because all of us made this experience I guess. I have made this experience that I did not put so much work on my japa and the japa became always a side issue which you had to do and after some time the taste was not so much there, that loving taste. It was not there. Therefore we say not only you have to chant but you have to serve the Holy Name. We don't just have to eat prasadam but serve prasadam. We chant prayer Sarira avidya jal , we praise the Lord to get mercy.
This point is sometimes a sad fact in our life, sometimes.
Let us understand this principle that if we have more mercy we have to work more. If we have initiation in our life we have to work more and if we have been given more attention by spiritual personalities, if we have been used in Lord Caitanya's Sankirtan movement. This may be an explanation why some devotees after some times go so much down and have not any more taste. They had mercy but then the ego came. They were not careful enough to remain a humble servant. It may be a reason. They didn't serve properly and then mercy went out from their life and they became influenced by material thoughts.
Please let us be careful about this.
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