Prabhupada said: eighteen days and we could take the government.
Everyone has faith in something, faith even in doubt, fear, despair. Krsna reciprocates with our faith. Faith is need and if you need something bad enough, it happens. You do whatever it takes. If the oasis is five miles away, you don't flop down on the roadside and cry that you'll never be able to have a drink. You walk — if you need to live. It takes some effort, some patience, some FAITH… but you walk. If you’re in jail and you know a way out, then every day you can chip away. I have to accept that I’m in jail and there’s no quick and easy way out. However long it takes, however little closer I can get, every day I do something to escape and one day I will — because I know where I am, where I want to be, and how I can get there… And devotional service lets you out of jail in one step.
Even if your destination is a long way off, you can be peaceful while travelling there, because of faith; because your destination is sure; because you’re on the right path. You are excited: “I’m going to such and such a place… goody goody”… rubbing my hands together. Maybe I’m a million miles away, but I’m on the plane, I’m on the way. And for a lot of people, the journey is the most interesting thing about going somewhere.
When the magnets of sambandha & prayojana are strongly attracted, then abhidheya is very dynamic. That abhidheya — which is saturated with intense faith — can move mountains if need be.
How do you get to need? And how does feeling turn into willing? — By contemplation; by purposefully considering a relationship and an outcome that you intend to bring into physical experience; by accepting the inevitability of an idea bound up in the "future".
Contemplation fosters attachment (need). Attachment spawns action. Action bears fruits for the present. Those fruits initiate further action.
The ultimate abhidheya is stated in "tivrena bhakti-yogena". Such a doer of abhidheya would have faith that the purusam param, Krsna, is the master of all relationships and experiences (outcomes). Such an actor would find all needs in Him and find Him in all things.
What sets contemplation apart from dreaming? — FAITH: faith in a relationship and the experience it promises.
I want to ask Krsna for all the things that will make me happy, or rather I should say: peaceful. But I don't ask. I'm afraid I'll actually get them, because if I had all the right facilities and relationships that allowed me to be happy executing my natural work, then I'd think there was something wrong. My false ego would be out of a job. I'd be out of an excuse to hate the world, myself, and God. I'd have to stop taking pleasure in being a poor fellow and feeling sad about it. I'd have to give up feeling justified being selfish and alone and hating everyone and everything because they all suck. I would have to cease reveling in being a victim with an injustice to put right and a cause to wage war with. I could no longer live with myself when I choose to assert my independence and excellence above all others — when I flaunt my foolishness in the presence of the Lord. I couldn't accept His blessings because I would have to feel ashamed. I couldn't accept the gifts of God because I would have to acknowledge his existence, and moreover that He's a nice person who likes me, somehow loves me, even as I don't want to like Him, even as I envy Him and am determined to control and enjoy without Him, and even as I'm killing the soul and trying to kill Him.
So I don't ask, because I'm faithless. I have no faith in my happy relationship with God. Why? —ILLUSION, IGNORNCE, FALSE EGO, ANGER, ENVY… demoniac qualities, the vyasti consciousness of a separatist. This is insane. I want to be happy. I want to do my natural work for His glorification, and I want the facilities and relationships that let me get on with that comfortably, that let me be peaceful but sober. I don't need to waste my time figuring out how to tear up floors, doors and windows or running in circles to get the guys who do and won't absolutely rip me off. I JUST WANT TO DO MY OWN WORK, and I want a nice conducive daily environment. I'm attached to serving Krsna in a certain way—sorry—therefore I dislike things that get in my way. So maybe it's His mercy that I'm thwarted and frustrated. Maybe He wants me to become completely surrendered—detached from both the results and the nature of my work—and this is His method: to annoy the hell out of me with half or more-than-half empty glasses when only a full pint would soothe this ego… But that's not the full picture, is it? The only person creating all this is me. I can easily have what I need to serve Krsna. I’m just not resolved on serving Him. Attachment is cured by Krsna conscious engagement. So it all actually comes back to me. I need to go to Him for my all other needs. Right now I need humility and faith. I HAVE TO ASK , properly. I have to have austerity. When I get, if I get, then I'll take the Giver in the gift, and maybe He won't mind giving to me again.
Why am I still not asking? Because I think I don't deserve what I wish I could ask for. I don't believe Krsna would give it to me. I guess that's why: "First deserve. Then desire." But what is ‘deserving’? — Austerity. And the result of proper austerity is FAITH, in God. Therefore to have faith is to deserve. Deserving can be having faith that even though I don't deserve this, I can ask it from Krsna because He is the Supreme Controller and Enjoyer. So whatever I get will be engaged to serve and remember Him. You can deserve it if you actually will use it properly. And Krsna knows if you will. He knows my faith.
When an individual gets an arbitrary advantage that catalyzes further advantages to the increasing disadvantage of others, a sociologist calls it “the Matthew effect”:
“For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath” (Matthew 25:29).
I remember being puzzled by this biblical verse. I thought it was unfair; I didn’t get it. What was God’s reasoning? Then I thought, “Well everyone has something, or how could ‘even that which he hath’ be taken away?” So who is it that ‘hath not’? I figure it’s the person who doesn’t notice what he has; the person who never has enough and is always absorbed in what he doesn’t have — in other words: a miser (etymologically ‘unfortunate’). A miser can’t appreciate what he has and so he doesn’t use it and has to lose it. He has so much faith in what he doesn’t have that Krsna reciprocates to make it true. (If a man doesn’t appreciate his wife and imagines something else… then he won’t have a wife even if he’s married) And the person ‘that hath’ is he that knows it, because ‘having’ is a mentality. Someone can have a lot and feel poor; another can have a little and feel wealthy. The person that appreciates what he has is eligible to get more because if he has something he can share it or give it and his charity will attract more wealth. If he thinks he needs to keep it, he never really had it. So because he feels secure, he can make others secure and feel himself secure in abundance. Unto every devotee who knows that Krsna maintains him, unto him who sees everything in Krsna’s service — unto him shall be given, and he shall have abundance.
Krsna responds to my faith. I might ask, but only faith gets. If I really have faith, then I seriously ask… and keep asking.
But why not just dream? What's so much better about the jagat (gross material) experience? — Well… why didn’t creation stop at the primary level? Why not be satisfied looking at the map? Who needs to go and explore? …If you want a full experience of ahankara, then you have to go with ahankara to its fullest expression, i.e. the gross. The jagat experience is also a dream. But who would argue that it isn’t more intense than the one you make in sleep?
Dreaming is desire, but realization is the meeting of need, so you tell me: Why aren’t you satisfied with dreaming out your desires? — It’s because imagination seems under your control, and that kind of fun has its limits. You can do anything you like, create an entire world, but you’re only ever working with three out of eight elements, so there’s a lot missing. What’s missing is the unpredictable interaction of the Lord in His form as the potency around you. She changes shape according to how you want to experience Krsna, His qualities. You try to use Her to get to His qualities, and she keeps you chasing shadows. You try to serve Her in serving Krsna, and She takes you to His lotus feet; You will see Him everywhere. You’ll realize Him. Krsna is the essence of any need. What you are seeking is only an aspect of Him. So why do you want to REAL-ise your attractions? — Because only Krsna is real.
Six months. That’s all. The Lord appeared to Dhruva in six months. “Oh, but that was another age. So much merit was available. So much determination was possible. Now we cannot perform this astanga-yoga. Who can focus so sharply and cease all bodily functions? Who can stop breathing and get the Lord’s darshana?” You can’t of course, but guess what? You don’t need to. This is another age and the best of ages at that: Because simply by sankirtana, the highest thing can be attained. If by following a process of meditation that usually takes tens of thousands of years to perfect, Dhruva was successful in six months by his condensed faith and his chanting of the Lord’s name, then how much more quickly can we progress by constantly taking His names in an age when such chanting is the rocket fuel for escaping this atmosphere? The intense application of bhakti-yoga attracts even more-so the Lord’s mercy in this age and in the wake of the flood of divine love released by the most merciful Lord Himself, Gauranga Mahaprabhu. Whether one is desireless for mundane life, or has every desire under the sun, or desires to escape from the mundane atmosphere, the infallible prescription is the same in all circumstances: Just give yourself to the Supreme person. And how should you do that? — By tivra bhakti-yoga: sharp, fixed, focused, intense, condensed devotional service. Make every moment a strenuous attempt to give pleasure to the Lord according to your duty and the instructions of Sri Guru… Maybe you have a need, maybe you have several. How will you be relieved of them? — Only by Krsna’s grace. And what can you do to get His grace sooner rather than later? You can give Him your intense dedication… Six months is nothing. The question is: Do you have the faith in Krsna to bother?
I said to a devotee: "It's a matter of faith. Krsna is ready. But in my heart is doubt, and faithlessness." He said to me, "Krsna likes it when we take risks for Him, isn't it? Then you'll see Him." And I thought about it: That small boy who immediately got Gopal — he put unflinching faith in his mother's words; and he also entered the forest... alone.
So it dawned on me that faith is proved by action. It IS action. You can't say, "Yes, I have faith. So why is it all not happening? I'm asking God, but He's not helping." No. He reciprocates with our faith. And if you have the faith—if you actually do—then you'll act on it; you'll take a chance on Him. He stepped first (as all good males do): He made Himself available and He advertised His kindness. Now the ball's in your court. What do you want? A second ball, a third one..... And then maybe you'll hit the first? ...You want the ball again from Krsna? First you have to hit it back!! And if you want to play with five balls, ten balls, fifty balls… you better learn how to play with one. …We can't have Krsna scoring aces against us all the time now can we? I mean where's the fun in it? …Everyone likes a good 'on the edge of their seats' rally :)
At the initiation of a disciple into chanting the maha-mantra, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura instructed that Krsna should be allowed to land in our hearts, just as an army is landed by the navy... Then the fight begins! Maya has erected her high walls on all sides, but Krsna is a thief, and gradually He will capture the whole thing.
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