O mind! Life is a matter of a few days only.

अरे मन! चार दिना की बात......

This human form is like a full moon night which will soon be over, and again the dark night will come. You are sleeping in ignorance, unaware of the fact that the passage of time is continuously shortening your life.

You are not willing to leave your sleep, even though you are perpetually being beaten by the objects of your desires. Once the opportunity to redeem yourself in this human form is missed, you will have to rotate in the cycle of life and death in 8.4 million forms of life. Then you will rub your hands helplessly and regret. 

Kripaluji Maharaj says, Listen to the words of rasik saints and surrender to the lotus feet of the merciful divine couple, ’Radha Krishna’.

Is Worldly Prosperity a sign of God's Grace?

If you believe this, then when you experience a material loss, you may also feel you have lost God's grace and He has become unfavorable towards you. This inconsistent attitude causes you to fluctuate between being faithful and faithless.

Every soul is bound by his karmic destiny or prarabdh, which is the outcome of his past lives' good and bad actions. Whatever material prosperity we are destined to receive is pre-determined by the immutable law of karma.

A lack of worldly possessions is truly a sign of God's grace. When someone has less, he has less pride, and it is easier for him to turn towards God.

How to teach and train mind that there is no happiness in the material world?

 There are innumerable things in the world, and each thing has endless varieties. If you try to experiencing everything first before deciding that there is no happiness in it, your whole life pass in this endeavor.

 There are people who run after money all their lives, and yet do not decide that it does not have the happiness they are seeking. Again, if you finally do come to the conclusion that the world is not a place of happiness, but the mind doubts whether or not there is happiness in God, then what will you do?

 As human beings, God has bestowed us with subtle intellects that can make this decision even without experience. Broadly, the intellects of living beings can be classified into four categories:

1. The lowest is the intellect of an insect. It is attracted to the fire. On coming near the flame, it gets burnt. But it does not learn from the experience, and commits the same mistake repeatedly.

2. The intellect of a cat is subtler. If it sits on a hot place, it learns from its experience. In future, it refuses even to sit on a cold plate, in apprehension that it may get burnt.

3. The intellect of sheep is even subtler. It has never been attacked by a wolf. But the moment it sees a wolf, it perceives impending danger and runs for its life.

4. The intellect of human is even subtler. Merely by intellectual discrimination, without seeing or experiencing, they are expected to reach the conclusion that there is no happiness in the world.

 Actually, everyone has had experience of the world to a lesser or greater extent. We made the desires of the senses and strived hard to satisfy them.  What was the experience each time? For a moment the desire is quenched, but then it arose again with redoubled intensity. This is the nature of all worldly desires, whether they are teeny-weeny cravings that you have made innumerable times in your lives or the bigger desires that loom more largely on your mind. The principle is exactly same. So we should utilize our experience to date, to reach a blanket conclusion about the nature of all worldly desires. That is what God expects us to do, and that is the instruction of the scriptures.

Relationships with other souls while on the spiritual path. How to get peace of mind when someone has wronged us to no end?

  This material world is like the prison house of God; souls who have turned their backs towards Him have been put here. So, we cannot expect the people of this world to behave like saints. There will always be persons who will come to cheat us, and on some occasions, they may even succeed. That is life; we all get cheated once in a while. But the important thing is to learn to take it in our stride. That is where the quality of forgiveness comes in.

  If we continue to harbor resentment towards those who have wronged us, we will be unable to progress spiritually. Resentment acts like a poison on the mind, filling it with bitterness. And we keep reliving the sour experience within, pinned down to the past. Someone aptly said: "Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die."

  On the spiritual path we must be careful nor to nurture ill feelings towards anyone, realizing that they will harm us more than anyone else. Jagadguru Shri Kripaluji Maharaj says:

भूलिहुँ दुर्भावना कहुँ, हो न सपनेहुँ प्यारे।   (साधना करू प्यारे)  

  "Even in your dreams, do not make the mistake of harboring ill-will towards anyone."

  Forgiveness is a sublime personality trait that immediately releases all bitterness from the mind. It is a favor we do, not to the other person, but to ourselves. The lives of saintly people are full of inspiring stories of how they forgave their wrongdoers, and even succeeded in winning them over by their love.  

Always remember!

We, the Sadhaks (devotees) should always keep in mind that whatever good we are doing is all due to the grace of the Guru and God. Otherwise, we have been bound by Maya, awfully attached to the worldly possessions, absolutely worthless, having hideous ideas, full of dirt and filth from time immemorial.

If we are able to do something good, if a tear trickles from our eyes for God, if we have some good word and noble feeling for the Guru, we must conclude that it is all due to the Guru's grace.

If he had not given us the spiritual knowledge if he had not bestowed his love upon us, how could we be inclined to go good things in life? So, do not ever give credit to yourself. It will only give rise to egoism. Egoism takes away humility. Once humility is gone the castle of bhakti or devotion will come crashing down. Life will be filled with vices in no time. So, if you have done some noble deeds, YOU MUST BE THANKFUL TO THE GURU with whose grace alone you are able to do such things. This will save you from the vice of egoism.

We must always keep in mind that if we had not met the Guru, if he had not shown us the way, and had not given us his love and affection, we would not have inclined towards God.

On the other hand, if we have done something wrong, have been negligent in doing the right thing, or have committed some crime, we should hold ourselves responsible for that so that we could realize our mistakes and we would not repeat them.

We should attribute our good deeds to the God's grace and the grace of the Guru and for all the wrongs that we may have done, we should hold ourselves responsible.

O My Mind! This Golden chance of Human Life is passing away...

अरे मन! अवसर बीत्यो जात

Even Brahma, Vishnu and Shankar are under the influence of Time, then where do you stand? Having received this priceless human body which is desired even by the celestial gods, why are you wasting it in worldly pleasures? Like a deaf and blind person, you neither listen to saints nor see the reality of the material world. You simply remain infatuated by the pleasures of senses. 

Now I will do, now I will start doing devotion, saying like this, you keep on procrastinating, for which you will have to repent. Jagadguru Shri Kriplauji Maharaj says that “Annihilation takes place within a fraction of a second. Then on what basis are you so overconfident? ”   

What is The Right 'Age' to start your devotional practice?

Having attained the human form, we do not realize how precious it is. We indulge ourselves in material pleasures for sensual gratification. We devote our full attention to our family and their needs. When somebody asks a little boy/girl to do devotion, he/she replies – this is not the age to start devotion. There is still time and we can do that when we are old. When you ask a young person to do devotion, he/she flatly refuses and says that it is for old people and life is for enjoying.

When you ask a middle age person to do devotion, he/she replies that there is still time for it after retirement. Now is the time to earn money, enjoy life and look after the welfare of the family. By the time retirement comes, many ailments plague the body and there is very little strength left in the body, thereby making it difficult to perform devotion.

We forget the fact that death can come to anybody at any age at any time.

It is ironical that a father, who is taking son's body for burial, does not think about his own death, though the reality may be that he dies of a heart attack on his way to the cremation ground.

Life is very uncertain. Do not think that you will live in this human form forever.

Whatever your age is, start doing devotion!!!

How to find a good balance to keep God alone in my heart while developing compassion and caring for all around me?

    A teacher is personally detached from her students, and yet she lovingly teaches them. A nurse isn't personally attached to her patients, but she compassionately takes care of them. Similarly, if you dissolve your attachment to others, you can still be compassionate towards them.

   A part of that compassion is to not apply the same strict standards of spiritual conformity to them as you do to yourself. Remember that they probably do not possess your level of enlightenment. By the grace of God and Guru, you have understood many spiritual truths, but this Grace has not been bestowed upon them as yet. For yourself, try to be totally detached from worldly relatives, but in your expectations from others, be understanding and kind, if they display attachment.

   This attachment and detachment that is talked is an internal state of the mind. The fact that you are detached from others does not have to reflect in a distortion of your behavior towards them. A marketing representative has no attachment towards customers, and yet puts on his best behavior towards them. Similarly, even while being detached within, you can externally behave kindly and lovingly with others.

   Having said this, a word of caution must be given. In the initial stage, when our detachment from worldly relatives is slight, it may be necessary to distance ourselves from them to some extent. Else, external sympathies may result in corresponding increase in internal feelings. If you do distance yourself for the sake of achieving your spiritual goal, it is not wrong.

    

Let us remember what our Guru has taught us?

He himself had taught us to practice the presence of God and Guru with us at all times. In concurrence with his teachings, let us remain steadfast in the conviction that, although we cannot see him with our material eyes, he continues to stay in our midst, noting our every thought and action, and showering his grace as we strive to walk the path he revealed to us. We should strongly reaffirm our resolve to implement his every Instruction for purifying our hearts and for pushing forward his mission. This is the most befitting way of showing our respect to him

What they have given to humankind during their stay in our world can never be sufficiently eulogize in words; the whole planet shall remain indebted to them for their gift of Love. We offer our respectful obeisance’s unto our Spiritual Master, who has opened our eyes, which were blinded by the darkness of ignorance, with the torchlight of knowledge.

An easy way to control the mind.

  Very often we feel helpless in front of the vagaries of the mind; we feel the mind is completely out of our control. But that is not true. And that can be proved with a very simple example. Most people in the world dislike going to work, unless of course they are self employed. Just as the Sunday evening Sun starts to set, a discomforting feeling takes over the mind. Yet, people overcome the dreadful Monday morning blues and make it to office week after week. How is it that even when our mind doesn’t enjoy doing something, it ends up doing the very same thing every single day? How do we control the mind?

  This is how the human mind works – the mind is a subtle machine that generates thoughts. Along with the mind is the intellect, also called the power of discrimination that controls our thoughts. The conviction of our intellect creates the direction of thoughts in our mind. If our intellect is convinced that there is happiness in money, all our thoughts will run towards earning money. If our intellect is convinced there is happiness in service to society, are thoughts are directed towards charitable efforts.

In the above example, our intellect is firmly convinced that if we do not go to office our survival will be jeopardized. Where will the money to fulfill our basic necessities come from? How will we feed our family? The intellect is firmly convinced that going to office and earning money is critical. Hence despite all the hardships that come our way, the decision of the intellect pushes us to office every day.

  Now if our intellect could make such decisions again and again in the proper places we would immediately gain control over the mind. In other words to control the mind we need wisdom, it is not merely an exercise. Very often people treat meditation like an exercise. People wish to develop power of focus and concentration like they develop muscles. But that is a very tedious and limited means of gaining control over the mind. If we could appreciate the power of our intellect in controlling the mind, we would not struggle so much with the mind. An easier way to control the mind is to illumine the intellect with the right kind of knowledge and then make it convinced about it. Conviction in the knowledge comes with repeated contemplation.

  Spiritual aspirants struggling to gain control over the mind should illumine the intellect with divine knowledge. This knowledge is received from the Guru and Scriptures. Then they must repeatedly contemplate over that knowledge through shravan, smaran and kirtan. Once their intellect becomes convinced about the knowledge that our Supreme goal is to love and serve God, there is nothing that can distract the mind.

Tips to encourage Devotion in Kids!!!!

1) Think Krishna to be your best friend and imagine that you are playing, walking with Him. Do all actions keeping Him with you. When you are alone, just think of Krishna and do not feel lonely. Keep in mind that He is always there with you, helps and protects you every moment.

2) When you are doing your homework, imagine He is sitting next to you and helping you.

3) You must believe in Him and believe that He will surely help you. He is always yours. He talks to you in your mind. Krishna never forgets you even for a single moment. The coolest thing is that nobody will know you are talking!

4) Don't think, "When I grow up, I will start remembering God." Start now.

5) Chant the Name of "Radhey Shyam" constantly and silently. Say "Radhey" within your mind when you breathe in, and say "Shyam" within your mind when you breathe out.

6) Avoid bad company.

7) Every night before retiring to bed, recall and count the number of wrong deeds you committed for the day and pray for forgiveness, whether it was done knowingly or unknowingly. Resolve to correct yourself and not to commit the same mistake again.

8) Give respect to everyone. Never fight with others and hurt anyone by your bad behavior. Realize that God resides in everyone's heart.

9) Never feel lonely or alone. Don't get angry. Try to be nice to everyone.

Why are we here in this world?

"Once, I was giving a lecture in a town. There was a college boy, who had heard my lectures and was staying with me during his vacation. After the lecture we went for a walk. He asked me the question, "Swamiji, why are we here in this world?"

 I wondered how to answer this question. There was a cinema hall in front and the night show had begun. I asked him, "Do you have money for the tickets?" He said, "Yes" I said, "Buy two tickets." He replied, "Swamiji you will see the movie!" I answered, "Let's see it with you today." So, he purchased the tickets. We were a little late. We entered the hall. It was very dark except for the screen. The gateman usher us in with his torch and with a narrow beam of light, inspected our tickets, and indicated to walk down the stairs, and said, "Sit on those two empty seats." We went and sat down there.

 Now, the movie had begun. The college boy immediately engrossed himself in what was happening on the screen. It was very attractive, beautiful lights, so many colors moving at such a fast speed. Fifteen minutes went by. Now, the boy forgot that I am sitting next to him. I said, "Hey! Listen to me." The boy said, "Don't disturb." I caught his hand and gave him a jerk. Then he replied, "O Swamiji!" Now he realized. Then I asked him, "Why have we come here?" The boy didn't have any answer. Fifteen minutes ago he had asked me this question. "Let us go out; now you get the answer to your question,"

 I said "In the cinema hall you had lost total contact with reality and forgotten who are you? What are you doing? What is the goal of your life? There was some white light that was falling from the projector bulb and you identified that light as reality. "This is the hero; this is the heroine; that is villain; this is an airplane." In other words you had fallen in to illusion. What was the reason for this illusion?

 The reason was the fact that there was darkness in the hall. Because of that darkness you were engulfed in illusion. Suppose, the manager came and switched on the light. Immediately, the illusion would be dispelled and you will start thinking, "Where are my slippers; Where are my shoes; Has my handkerchief fallen down? Let me be the first to reach the car stand." The illusion would be dispelled. So, the cause of illusion was lack of light."

 Similarly, God is All-light, All-knowledge, and we have lost our contact with Him. We have turned our backs towards Him. Now, turning our backs to light we have been engulfed by the darkness of Maya, the material energy of God. This material energy has made us forget our own nature. All the souls are under the influence of Maya since eternity. However, the true identity of a soul is that it is an eternal servant of Shree Krishna. Being the eternal soul we are thinking that we are material bodies. And thinking of ourselves as the body, our goal has become bodily pleasure. How to give happiness to this body? For that we are running in this world. That is the reason we are in this world."

When God can do anything, He should also be able to bestow His Grace on us without our surrender. In this way, He should liberate all the souls from the material world. Then why does He require us to fulfill any conditions for bestowing His Grace?

  

  

  This statement that God can do anything needs to be understood carefully. It means He can perform feats that are impossible for us, such as create the world, maintain it, annihilate it etc. He can even perform contradictory actions, such as simultaneously being formless and possessing a form, being further than the furthest and closer than the closest, being soft as  a rose and hard as a thunderbolt etc.

  However, God has His own rules of action that He never breaks. For example, He has a rule: 

करम प्रधान विश्व करि राखा। 

जो जस करइ सो तस फलु चाखा।। 

(रामायण)  

  "The law of karma prevails in this world. Whatever you do, you shall reap accordingly." This law has been created by God Himself, and He never breaks it. Thus, we see that Dashrath, the father of the Supreme Lord Shree Ram, passed away; his wife, Kaushalya, become a widow; but Ram did not save His own father. God says,"The rule is the rule. It is immaterial whether someone is My mother or father. This is not a homely affair that the Judge (God) has become a member of the family, and so there will be some concessions. Everyone will get results according to their karmas." That is why everyone has faith that they can expect justice from God, although worldly people may cheat them, for there cannot be an unfair God.

  Similarly, there are innumerable other rules that God never breaks. Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj says he could write a book on all the things that God cannot do. Likewise, God has a rule that only if we surrender to Him, we will receive His Grace.

  We may say that if this rule did not exist, it would be very advantageous. What would be the advantage? Well, we would not surrender to God and would still receive His Grace. Yes, but the reverse could also be true, that we surrendered to God and still did not receive His Grace. That would be disastrous. So God says that He does not break His rule. If we wish Him to bestow His Grace, we will have to surrender to Him.

How can we inflame our aspiration to traverse the path to God-realization?

  

   One of the important devotional virtues, which will stand you in good stead as you move ahead towards God, is the intensity of your aspiration. A strong aspiration will help you cut through the greatest hindrance as a knife cuts through butter. However, if your aspiration is weak, then every little obstacle will appear like a mountain to you. So, you must endeavor not to remain lukewarm, but to keep the desire for spiritual attainment burning brightly.

  How can you inflame your aspiration for God? This requires chintan, or contemplation. Repeatedly contemplate upon the Divine knowledge of the scriptures, and the knowledge you have heard from the lotus mouth of your Guru and the Saints. Usually seekers feel great inspiration when they attend the lecture series, but once it is over, they find their enthusiasm waning. The reason for this is that while hearing lectures, the knowledge remains fresh in their intellect. But then, due to lack of revision, the knowledge starts evaporating, causing a dip in their enthusiasm. Chintan, or contemplation about what you have heard and read, is the antidote for this. Such chintan will strengthen your decision that your eternal relationship is with God alone. And a strong decision will be your asset to further steps.

  The Vedas describe a powerful formula for progressing quickly on the path:

स यथा कामो भवति तत् क्रतुर्भवति यत् क्रतुर्भवति 

तत् कर्म कुरुते यत् कर्म कुरुते तदभिसंपद्यते ||

( बृहदारण्यक उपनिषद् 4.4.5)

  "The stronger your decision that attaining God is the goal of your life, the more intense will be your desire to meet Him. And the more intense your desire, the deeper will be your resolve to do the things that take you closer to Him. The deeper your resolve, the harder you will try. The harder you try, the more Grace you will attract, and the closer you will come to Him."

  So, appreciate the importance of a strong aspiration on the spiritual path and endeavor to ignite it within yourself. Do your sadhana on a daily basis. Read Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj's "Prem Ras Siddhant" regularly in which he has summarized the knowledge of all the Vedic scriptures, watch the lecture DVD's you have procured, and keep revising the knowledge with your intellect. 

   

Whenever I am in satsang, I feel de-stressed but once I am out of satsang, the stress level increases. My question is how to get relieved of stress permanently?

We experience stress because we want certain outcomes, situations and results. However, the soul is not independent, and it is not within its ability to fulfill all of the desires. By nature, the soul is a servant of God. Now, what is the duty of the servant? To fulfill the wishes of the master. If we surrender to God and think whatever He does is for our welfare, this attitude of surrender will help us get rid of stress. A surrendered soul says:

राज़ी हैं उसी मैं जिसमें तेरी रज़ा है। 

यूँ भी वाह वाह है त्यों भी वाह वाह है ।।

   "I am happy in Your happiness. Whatever situation You put me in, I will blissfully accept it." Thus, stress is a symptom of lack of our submission to the Will of God. When we experience stress, the best medicine to cure it is to increase our level of surrender. 

   Now, what is the problem in increasing the level of surrender? Worldly attachments! We keep on pondering, "This should happen this way; that should happen that way." That is the main hurdle to complete surrender. For achieving that goal, we need to increase our detachment from the world.

    

   Before God-realization, there will always be some amount of tension within everyone, because the extent of surrender will not be one-hundred percent. However, by giving us tension, God signals to us that something is wrong and we need to correct it by surrendering further to Him. This is just as when we put our hand in the fire, we feel pain. What would happen if we did not feel the pain? Our hand would burn without our knowing it. The feeling of pain is, in fact a form of Grace. It is a signal that something is wrong, and that must take the hand out. Similarly, stress is a signal that we need to increase our surrender and devotion to God.

     A spiritual doctor will prescribe you the medicine of submitting to God for getting rid of stress, whereas a material doctor will give you all kinds of medicinal drugs. However, such drugs will not help eradicate the root cause of  stress. By increasing the level of surrender, the source of stress will itself be eradicated. Shree Krishna states in the famous verse:

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।

मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भुर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि ।।

                                                                                 (Bhagavad Gita 2.47)

Read full commentary by Swami Mukundananda

     "Work with full dedication. Do not be careless while performing your tasks. But do not get attached to the fruits of those works."

Shree Krishna again says:

योगिनः कर्म कुर्वन्ति संगं त्यक्त्वात्मशुद्धये ।।

                                                         (Bhagavad Gita 5.11)

Read full commentary by Swami Mukundananda

     "A yogi is one who can work without any attachment to the results." If we follow this formula, stress will be abolished from its roots.

How can we learn to desire the Right thing?

In this Bhakti, there are no desires from the beloved. See these desires that we make I want this! I want this! I want this! These desires will never have any end. We think O God! you know I don't have any other desire but this one desire if you can please fulfill these, after that I will never ask for anything. That fellow who is thinking in this manner is very simple, because the moment desire is fulfilled it will lead to greed. That desire will come back with redoubled intensity. This is the material world people always know I have this deficiency; I have this deficiency. I have got this problem; I am going to problem to problem. So if we ask God there will be no end we will keep on asking. So what happens in these asking? My desire is fulfilled Shree Krishna is very good, not fulfilled he is not good, he is alright. I have been harmed, Shree Krishna, there is no goodness in him. He is very hard hearted.

Our love for him will oscillate like this. Like it does in the world. My husband is very good very bad. My wife is very good very bad. These drama goes on 10 times in a day. The same thing we will do towards God and Guru also. If our formula is that they should fulfill my desire. Now the thing is that these desires we are making are on the wrong platform. There are on this platform of ignorance that I am the body. So because we are thinking I am the body, for the happiness of the body we will going to make desires. Now we have to decide I am not the body, I am the soul. So if I am the soul then what should I desire you should still not desire because desire is against the nature of love. 

This love is that in which the only desire to give and give. In other words, it's not for our happiness, it is for the happiness of beloved. You desire to make Shree Krishna Happy. In other words, you desire to please him, to give him happiness and when you give him happiness he is not a miser, he will multiply it many fold and will give to back and that happiness that you get in giving to him that is the happiness of divine love which is the sweetest of all which is so sweet that Brahmaji to become a blade of Grass in the land Vrindavan to relish that and Udhavji become really a blade of grass. It means you learn to desire the right thing. 

• If God have given you a wonderful voice, desire to glorify him with your musical abilities. 
• If god has given you a good literary skill, then desire to write something in his glorification. 
• If god has given you a business acumen, then desire to earn and glorify the lord with your wealth. 

In other words, whatever God has given you, you desire to glorify him with that. So when we desire to serve him with everything our desires become perfectly oriented and we experience the highest bliss which is the bliss of the soul. 

Hear this lecture on SoundCloud by Swami Mukundananda

Since my childhood whenever I imagine about Lord Krishna, the form of the Lord that I saw on the TV serial Mahabharat comes to my mind. When I see Mahabharat's Lord Krishna I feel as if He is my Beloved Lord Himself and not any character played by the actor. But all my friends and relatives warn me that I am doing a sin worshiping an actor in the costume of Lord Krishna. Please help me, Swamiji. Shall I meditate on the Lord's form as portrayed by the actor?

     For Roop Dhyan, the form of God that you meditate upon can either be made by the mind, according to your liking, or you can take the help of a deity or picture of God, and meditate upon it. Now your question is that instead of the deity etc., you wish to meditate upon the form of an actor who played the role of Shree Krishna in the famous Mahabharat TV Serial.

    This is not wrong. If you attach the mind to that form with the sentiments that this is the Supreme Lord Shree Krishna, you will get the benefit of your Sentiments. This is like when one worships a stone deity with sentiments that is Lord Krishna, one gets the benefit of engaging in devotion to God. The Lord is seated in your heart and notes and rewards the Divine sentiments. Similarly, if you worship the form of a TV actor with the sentiments that it is the Supreme Lord, you will get Divine results.

    However, it is usually not recommended that you meditate upon a living material personality. Tomorrow if you hear about his faults, you will not be able to retain your Divine sentiments. Hence it is suggested that either you imagine the form of God with your mind itself, or else take the support of a deity or a picture, where there is no scope for seeing faults.


-Excerpted from Spiritual Dialectics by Swami Mukundananda

The Divine Mother of our Mission.

Our Divine Mother, Shree Maharajji’s wife, whom we devotees lovingly called Amma, closed her manifest leelas in the material realm, and went back to the Divine Abode of Radha Krishna.

Amma had descended to assist Shree Maharajji in his mission of distributing Divine love of Radha Krishna to evolved souls on this planet. She was born on Diwali day in the year 1925, in a small village called Leelapur, about 100 kilometers from Mangarh. Her father was a great Sanskrit scholar and devotee. She was married to Maharajji in her childhood itself, in accordance with the tradition of child marriage prevalent in Uttar Pradesh at that time. In her youth, she stayed mostly in Mangarh, while Maharajji would go on preaching tours for eleven months in a year.

As the satsang grew and thousands of satsangis became a part of the mission, she showered her love on them, and helped them in their devotion to Shree Maharajji. While Maharajji, as the perfect Spiritual Master, was often as hard as a thunderbolt, Amma was the soft, forgiving, patient and caring mother, whose love could always be counted upon. While Maharajji maintained an externally strict profile, Amma provided the gentle human touch that gave so much strength to the devotees in their arduous journey to God-realization.

Amma’s life was always one of sacrifice for her Divine Beloved. She never complained about having no opportunity for personal time with Maharajji. His happiness was her only consideration throughout her life, and she sacrificed her all for it. She was thus the epitome of purity, and of selfless devotion to her Divine husband. Amma’s causeless and oceanic love could not be described in words. While Maharajji’s fame spread throughout the world, and devotees came in hordes from many countries, she expanded her heart to give a place to everyone. No wonder, in her arati, she is described as “Jagadamba” or Mother of the Universe.

In Amma’s soft heart, the material welfare of the devotees was as important as their spiritual upliftment. I have sweet memories of how I once fell sick with cold and fever in the ashram. Amma was so concerned about my illness, as if I were her own child. On the third day of the fever, I came out of the room to join the parikrama around the ashram. On seeing that I was not resting, Amma got so annoyed that I had to immediately return to my room. Such was the love that she bestowed on each and everyone who came close to her.

Amma’s visible pastimes are no longer manifest on the earthly plane. However, in the hearts of the devotees, she will continue to live, in loving memories of her Names, Form, Virtues, Pastimes, and Abode. When we pray to her to bestow on us true love for our Guru and God, we know that she will always be there to respond to our entreaties, as generously as she did during her lifetime.

Her little child,
Swami Mukundananda.

What stops one from complete surrender? Do one's past negative sanskārs and vāsanās play a part in determining the level and speed of surrender? How can one overcome one's inherent negativities and make progress towards self-surrender faster?

Surrender is not a one-time procedure. It is not that we surrender once, and we are done with it forever. We have to keep surrendering at every moment. In this process, there are innumerable obstacles. Our mind is made of Maya and it naturally runs towards the world. We need to beat this mind with the intellect. We also have saṁskārs of past lifetimes that must be countered. And then, we have the ignorance or agyān within us, which is the source of all the problems.

However, we must not feel disillusioned. Innumerable souls in the past have overcome these obstacles to perfect their surrender to God, and have attained Him; if we endeavor sincerely, we too will be successful.

First, we must illumine our intellect with the spiritual knowledge given to us by our Guru. Then, with this purified intellect we must work on the mind, to detach it from the world and attach it to Names, Forms, Pastimes, Virtues, Abodes and Saints of God. Along with our sincere efforts, we must pray to God and Guru for help, firmly believing that Their Grace can make us perfect our surrender.

To speed up the process of surrender, we should strengthen the sentiment, "God and Guru alone are mine." When we develop love for God and Guru, surrender becomes natural and automatic. When we reach the state of complete surrender, the feeling "He alone is mine" will always remain in our mind, and all our thoughts and actions will be in consonance with it.

If we can keep increasing our desire to serve, that is also a very potent tool for progress. Jagadguru Shree Kripaluji Maharaj states:

सौ बातन की बात इक, धरु मुरलीधर ध्यान।
बढ़वहु सेवा-वासना, यह सौ ज्ञानन ज्ञान।  

"Fix your mind on Shree Krishna, and keep increasing the desire for sevā. This is the most powerful weapon for conquering the mind and Maya." 

Many a times in our Life we come across so many mishappenings with us, during those conditions we actually do not realize the grace of God but after somewhere we realize that it was for the betterment of us. Then how can we realize the grace of God during those unfavourable conditions because momentarily obviously we get panic?

Well that is Positive Thinking that you see a positive aspect in everything. We want situations to be favourable to us always! and when situations are not favourable then our natural reactions are like as you said we start getting panic.

However if we bring this piece of knowledge in mind at that time that an unfavourable situation is an opportunity to rise higher.

Swami Vivekananda said "Life is a continuously  unfoldment of a being under circumstances tending to press it downwards". So whenever there is an unfavourable situation if we look on it as an opportunity, as a stepping stone then we can see it as a grace of God and that is the secret of seeing situations as graces of God.