Monday, March 2, 2009

How do we envision the Supreme Lord?

One day Srila Prabhupada took us to the Jagganath Temple at Puri and stood behind the pillar which contained the stone deity of Garuda which was some distance in front of the wooden, divine forms of Jagganath,Baladeva and Subhadra .Whilst standing behind that Deity of Garuda ,he instructed us the method of Being able to envision Lord Jagganath ,firstly, that we should never ever cross over this deity of Garuda.
He informed us also not to attempt to simply gaze at the deity of Jagganath but in fact should try to be seen by Lord Jagganath.The living entity when he gives up the ignorance that he is the enjoyer of his actions or stops exploiting the material energy, at that time by the cultivation of pure devotional service, he is able to see the Supreme Lord. The minute when one attempts to make the Supreme Lord his order-supplier by his vision, at that time instead of seeing the Supreme Lord he simply sees a wooden form which may be like another interesting historical artifact for pleasing our senses. Only when we can actually understand in our heart that He is perceiving us for His enjoyment and we are part of the ingredients to be able to please His transcendental senses having curtailed all our illegitimate desires to enjoy Him,then will He manifest before us.
Ordinary people think that they are able to to exploit Lord Jagganath with their vision or try to interpret or estimate His transcendental deity according to their distorted vision after which they consequently endeavour to give vent to insatiable desires.However,knowingly or unknowingly,this type of intelligence will never bear any fruit.The proof is that even after having visualized the transcendental deity all such people become completely bewildered by the material energy.
After visualising the main deities ,we all circumbulated the temple with tumultuous congregational chanting of the Holy Name under the guidance and authority of Srila Prabhupada which is the real way of performing the circumbulation of any holy place,even before that the existent lotus footprints pedestal of Sriman Mahaprabhu in the temple were honoured and given respect to in the proper way.

0 comments:

Post a Comment