Guardiões
da
Devoção
Spirit of Dedication
by Srila Bhakti Raksaka Sridhara Maharaja
Devotee: Guru Maharaj, in the scriptures it is said that in Kali-yuga so many concocted processes will come.
Srila Sridhar Maharaj: Yes, maybe it is likely. Kali means kala, quarrel. Quarrel means clash of many opinions in many interests, Kali. So many interests, many paths will come and they quarrel with one another. That is Kali. Kali means the separatists, they will have the greater field of different opinion.
In Kali-yuga everyone will think himself a model, an acharya. "What I think, I know that is the best." And they will come to quarrel. So, quarrel in an extensive way means everyone thinks that he's perfect, he's the absolute, and whatever he understands that must be. This is Kali.
kaler dosa-nidhe rajann asti hy eko mahan gunah
kirttanad eva krsnasya mukta-sangah param vrajeSukadeva Goswami tells Pariksit Maharaj: "O King, the age of Kali, the repository of all evils, has but one glorious characteristic: in this age, those who simply chant the Holy Name of Krsna are liberated and reach the Supreme Lord."
(Srimad-Bhagavatam, 12.3.51)Take the shelter in the sound divine. Then also there are so many, "Why Krsna, why not Kali, not Jesus, not God? That is also one and the same." Everywhere they doubt understanding.
Krsna, the attraction, the affection, that is our solace, the Absolute attraction. That is love. Love is above all, and love must be divine, not this lady love, or fame loving, or money loving, but God loving, conception of God, God the love, God is love. We must try to love one another and to go to the land of love divine. And to differentiate any other things from God from us, that is lust going on in the name of love here, we are to eliminate that. And this money loving, so many loving, love of fame, that must be eliminated and directed towards the unseen, the attractive, the centre of love.
Love means dedication. We try to understand the science of love. As much love so much dedication is for the cause. That is love, the criterion of love is that, dedication, self sacrifice, yajna, sacrifice, to be habituated to give something for others’ taste, others’ pleasure, that is yajna. Love is the highest and purest and divine form of yajna. Yajna means to sacrifice. The dedication to the whole centre absolute that is to be acquired, that spirit of dedication, and not the dedication to a partial representation.
Bhakti means bhajana, dedication, and not temporary dedication by applying any medicine to forget one’s own self. To get an injection or a pill then I am unconscious, that is not dedication. And to have a dream of this and that thing in a sleeping stage, that is also not dedication. Wholesale dedication, standing, awaking, fully awake we must march towards dedication. Dedication for the country is very famous and widely accepted. One who is dedicating himself for the cause of his own country is a patriot. But that is all partial. So dedication is not extended selfishness, dedication is for the whole centre, the all accommodating Absolute. That sort of dedication should be developed within us, and it is already there.