Jayananda Thakur 3


Real Love Lasts - for Eternity

We all look for love, and finding it in this world is a matter of relative truth. When spiritual love is found, by divine grace, then the soul comes out of his bewilderment as to what is real love. The stop and start love affairs of this world are temporal at best, they are like driving in rush hour, LA traffic, with a tanker accident a block ahead, with 5 minutes left to get to the altar on time, and scores of red lights popping on, and all coming to a halt. The young couple falls in love, and all seems wonderful, and even if they live "happily ever after" (I always wondered what the song means, "love you forever," how is that possible?) still when the spirit soul leaves the body, and takes on the next, the soul forgets the former mate’s face and name forever. Just a new name and face takes their place. It may be a hog’s face, may be human, hey, its still love, isn’t it?

Love of Krishna, and his devotees is the love that stays for eternity. Jayananda showed us that kind of love, by his activities of always serving others. He never stopped his love and bhakti for Krishna and his jivas. He always talked of Srila Prabhupada, whenever we had a break in our work, it would be some story of Prabhupada, Jayananda really loved his spiritual master, and his love of Prabhupada and Krishna means that he loved everyone. When I read of the great servants of Lord Chaitanya, like Murari Gupta, and how the breeze blowing by their bodies, would put others in love of Krishna, Jayananda was like that, whenever he was present, the atmosphere was Krishna Consciousness, and we were serving in bliss.

Actually, I did not get his association. What I mean, is, that it wasn’t enough. It was only a year, and that year went by like a moment. That is the cruel handiwork of providence, that somehow, by some causeless mercy, you may come in contact with a pure soul like Srila Prabhupada, or Jayananda, and fate just takes them away before the full realization hits you, of how sacred the moments were. One year, or two, or ten years are not enough to satisfy the hankering for pure association with the servants of Krishna. Yet, lavamatra, sadhu sange sarva siddhi haya, just a moments association with Krishna’s dear servant, gives all perfection. That moment expands into eternity, by divine grace.

Krishna proves that he never stops loving us. He stays as our friend, as Paramatma, in all our countless bodies, waiting for us to turn our face to him. There is no friend like Krishna, nor ever will be. Srila Prabhupada once told Pusta Krishna Prabhu that, "don’t rely on me, I will let you down, but rely on Krishna, he will never let you down." Of course, this was Prabhupada’s humility, he will never let his disciple down, he was conveying the never ending love of Krishna. And Krishna’s devotees, like their master, has that same quality of endless love. This is what I found in Jayananda.

There is a nice verse by Srila Rupa Gosvami which shows the endless love of Krishna: "Great souls are always saved from sufferings. Even if, somehow or other, a devotee takes birth (as an animal) in the jungle, (as a human being) in one of the directions (of this world), (as a demigod) in the three celestial planets, or (even as a resident) of hell, the Supreme Personality of godhead always brings him to His (lotus) feet. The Lord never wishes to abandon him."

The real love is there, beyond all limitations of time and space and dimension. Jayananda showed me that somehow, in his special way, by his association beyond the boundries of this physical world. I wrote a former article which speaks of the NDE, or near death experience, that I had a few years ago, and how Jayananda came to me in my dream. I wondered why it made me so emotional afterwards, for such a long time.

I sort of got a clue of this from a George Harrison song. Being the father of two teenagers, it is not surprising to some, that I have had, on occasion, heard a song or two of George. And he is my old mentor, this is true. He was very instrumental in showing the path, with the early "all things must pass," and preface to Krishna book. I heard this song of George, and thought, "hmm, George might be in a little maya, this sure sounds like a love song to me, and at his age?" But after hearing it again, and actually hearing the lyrics, I found it to be one of his, if not his most, Krishna Consciousness song of all. It suddenly became a powerful song, eliciting strong emotions in me. He is singing to Krishna, saying, "I know you’re in the sun, I know you’re close to everyone, at times it’s like you don’t have a hold on me, I see you in the love, I see you in the moon above, but I want to know that you're not lost inside of me, I'm tired of playing games with you, though there's nothing else I want that would set me free, I know that you're a part of me, but it's a must to know that you love me too." This is the line that really got me. "To know that you love me too." Its important to know that god loves us too. Sometimes we think we are trying to love him, but not sure of him returning the love. Although he is always giving it, we are not receptive of it, or we are not perceptive of it. Mercy is always raining down, but our maya sheilds us from the full reception. Srila Prabhupada always loves us. Jayananda always loves me and all of us, this is the fact. This is what I really wanted to know, I loved Jayananda, and it "was a must to know you love me too" and he did show his love, in a very special way.

I sort of figured it out after a spell, as these things are not so easy for me to grasp. Life is certainly hard, as they say, "life’s a bummer, then you die," and after a hard life, then death is really hard, its the most end-all difficult experience of all, and you get no rehearsal for it, usually. My fear was, that I would die alone, not remembering Krishna, and nobody caring. A hard end to a hard row of a life. That was almost the case, as I had this nde, alone, and thinking "this is it." I don’t think any amount of words can convey that kind of feeling, that realization, that "this is it, this life is all over, here’s the big one, here’s that ominous door creaking open, with the big unknown behind it." And you feel like nobody gives a darn. Of course, that is not true, some really do, but it seems like they don’t, because they are not there! But as the endless truth of spiritual love would prove, Jayananda was there for me! In my darkest hour, he was there for me! The dream was as real as waking life. Spiritual dreams are real, many of us have had Srila Prabhupada in dreams, they are real.

And to prove that it was not just an hallucination or a weird concoction of the mind, he came in a powerful way, to my inner sight, every day, for a year, and on, to hammer home that this really happened. To hammer home that this spiritual love is for real, not like the shadow of love we foolishly try to get. To prove that he cares, and will always care. This is how Krishna and his devotee will never let us down! This proves to me how their love is endless and eternal. This is the realization there for everybody, somehow may we all come to know this as a fact, Krishna’s love, Srila Prabhupada’s love, godbrothers/sisters hopefully, and saints like Jayananda, their love is there always for each and every one of us, eternal love, as in nitya, sat-cit-anand, kirtaniyah sada hari.

I say this with all sincerity, if we can only grasp this realization, (I have not yet) that if we know that Krishna's love, Guru's love, the saint's love, is always there for us, always, in all circumstances, at any time, with no conditions, never-ending ... then this is the life of our life's breath and sacred treasure of the heart that sustains us through all the tribulations of life, and gives success to our life, and gives us passage back to their abode, to get their full association.

We get their association, it is always there. Physical or not, it is there, and feeling it, knowing it, is the same as seeing it. To see Krishna or his servant, or be with them, is wonderful, and equally, to feel their love, and know it is there for eternity, that is the same as seeing, being there with them. We may get lost along the way, and they will always be there to guide us back out of the ditch and back on the road. To believe this and know this, is the most wonderful thing. Real love is the most wonderful treasure, nothing else will ever compare to it, as it comes down from divine grace, from Krishna,from our divine master Srila Prabhupada, and from the saints, like Srila Jayananda Thakura.

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