All things aside, at the end of the day, we’re all going to die. We’re all going to leave our bodies and we have no idea when. There’s no guarantee that we will live 20, 40, 60, or 100 years. There’s no guarantee. Some people leave their bodies very early on when they are considered still young. Some people leave their bodies in the middle of their life, and some just keep hanging on. Today we have such a short duration of life. Human life is said to be around 100 years in Kali yuga, but half of that time is spent sleeping. So, if you are thinking, "maybe I will live 50 years..." half of that time is spent sleeping. "O learned one, in this iron Age of Kali men almost always have but short lives. They are quarrelsome, lazy, misguided, unlucky and, above all, always disturbed." (SB 1.1.10)
We don’t have very much time at all, and as much as the idea of basically just following our hearts and following our intuition–letting that guide us through life as we do, we should not feel so completely secure in that position, because so many times our “heart” or "intuition" has led us so far astray down a path that, though learning along the way, could have been avoided. Had we heeded the knowledge received from higher powers, from higher authorities. We have no time to waste, which is why the path of surrender to a perfect authority is very wise. That surrender must be deeply informed by our life's experiences; not finding full satisfaction or perfect answers anywhere else, being constantly deluded by our own bodies and minds. By sincere inquiry, posing intelligent questions and receiving scientific answers, a real faith can begin to develop which is not a blind faith or a blind surrender. It is definitely not recommend to blindly follow some authority which you have not taken the time yourself to understand, to really understand, and to really ask the questions that you need to ask in order to have trust that, "OK I trust this person. I can follow this person, because the knowledge that they’re giving is coming from an unbroken line of a bonafide disciplic succession– an eternal chain of sound vibration coming directly from God Himself. Unchanged, unadulterated." So, this is really important to consider, when we’re looking for a proper source, an authority, to surrender to or to look to for guidance. Srila Prabhupada says, "That is a fact -- fact in this sense: even though we cannot understand, we have to accept the words of the authority. Just like I cannot understand how big is the sun globe. It is not possible for ordinary man to understand how much great is the sun globe. But when you go to the authority, he will say the sun globe is fourteen hundred times bigger than the sun. So you have to accept it; otherwise what is your knowledge? You cannot experience. Even now the people are going to the moon planet. I do not go with them, but when it is published by some authorities, we accept it. So not that everything I have to experience personally for each knowledge. I have to accept the authority; that is perfect knowledge. As I give you several times the example, that nobody knows who is his father, but his mother introduces, "Here is your father." So mother is authority; otherwise I cannot know who is my father. That is not possible. There are so many things not that by our direct experience we can know, we can see. Therefore according to Vedic principle, knowledge means, perfect knowledge means, to receive it from the perfect person, perfect source. That is knowledge. Otherwise it is not knowledge. Imperfect persons cannot give you perfect knowledge..." (Lecture – May 11, 1976, Honolulu)
We are all constantly looking for an authority to surrender to–whether or not we are aware of it–we are constantly seeking knowledge. We're constantly seeking relief from bodily pain, mental pain, emotional pain–the pain of not knowing. "Everyone is turning to material subjects for enjoyment and is compiling as much knowledge as possible. Someone is becoming a chemist, physicist, politician, artist, or whatever. Everyone knows something of everything or everything of something, and this is generally known as knowledge. But as soon as we leave the body, all of this knowledge is vanquished. In a previous life one may have been a great man of knowledge, but in this life he has to start again by going to school and learning how to read and write from the beginning. Whatever knowledge was acquired in the previous life is forgotten. The situation is that we are actually seeking eternal knowledge, but this cannot be acquired by this material body." (BBD 1: We Are Not These Bodies)
Though we came into this world with a deep level of sensitivity and accumulated impressions from our past lives, we still had to relearn everything from our parents. They taught us everything about the basics of life like how to eat, walk, ride a bike, how to cook or grow food, how to communicate our needs. So our parents were our initial authority in this lifetime, and if they were not able to satisfy our need for higher knowledge then we naturally sought that elsewhere, whether it was from our teachers in school, a relative in the family, or someone we looked up to. When the world situation became one of rapid-speed information through the internet and social media, we mostly turned to these sources to satisfy our natural tendency for inquiry. Google and ChatGPT are literally based on this universal tendency of the human mind to seek knowledge from an authority outside of our limited awareness. Or we turned to the plant medicines for these answers, but regardless, we are seeking an authority from which comes a perfect knowledge and we have no choice but to surrender to various authorities throughout our lives because we are limited in our understanding of so many things. That is the nature of the individual living entity, though they are one in quality with the Lord, they vary in quantity. "The small sparks generated by a blazing fire have no power to illuminate the original fire, nor can they burn it. The quantity of heat and light in the original fire is always superior to the quantity found in the insignificant sparks. Similarly, the minute living entity is generated from the internal potency of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as stated in Vedanta-sutra..." (SB 11.3.36)
So, Krishna's knowledge is complete and unlimited, but ours is limited and incomplete, thus we must surrender unto some authority and if we are seeking real knowledge, knowledge of the soul and of God, then we will seek out some authority who is in direct connection with God. "The minute living entities, being amsah, or sparks of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, can never equal the Supreme Godhead in the quantity of their potency. The quantity of knowledge and bliss in the Supreme Personality of Godhead is always superior. Therefore, when a foolish conditioned soul tries to illuminate the subject matter of the highest truth with his tiny brain, he merely illuminates his own foolishness. The Personality of Godhead has personally spoken Bhagavad-gita, which is the blazing fire of perfect knowledge that burns to ashes the insignificant speculations and theories of so-called philosophers and scientists regarding the ultimate truth." (SB 11.3.36)
"Becoming one with God does not always indicate that a living being merges into the existence of the Lord. To become one with God means to attain one's original, spiritual quality. Unless one attains one's spiritual quality one cannot enter into the kingdom of God. The members of the impersonalist school explain their idea of oneness by the example of the mixing of river water with the seawater. But we should know that within the water of the sea there are living beings, who do not merge into the existence of water but keep their separate identities and enjoy life within the water. They are one with the water in the sense that they have attained the quality of living within the water. Similarly, the spiritual world is not without its separate paraphernalia. A living being can keep his separate spiritual identity in the spiritual kingdom and enjoy life with the supreme spiritual being, the Personality of Godhead." (LoB verse 25)
It's no accident that we are persons, no mistake. The Vedas tell us that God is a person, and that we are eternally related with God through a relationship of service, where God is the enjoyer and we are the enjoyed. So, we are meant to be in relationship. Our primary and central relationship is with God, or Krishna. Krishna literally means the all attractive one. Consider, if God is a person and we are supposed to believe that He is the best person that exists, and that we should want to have a relationship with Him, wouldn't it only make sense that He possess qualities that are so irresistible that we cannot find them anywhere else in full no matter how hard and wide we search? And that’s why God is called Krishna, the all attractive. He possesses all the opulences in existence, they are all coming from Him. Anything we admire in this temporary material world is a small spark of His splendor. He is the most famous, the most beautiful, the strongest, most opulent, and He is the most renounced–and that right there is a really beautiful quality...Krsna is all attractive and He is also called "Bhagavan", which means the possessor of all opulences. That’s a really beautiful person... that He is fully and completely renounced, but at the same time, He’s breathtakingly beautiful, famous, wealthy and powerful. He’s all of those things, while being totally renounced.
Being a soul, possessing a body or accepting a body as self, due to that decision to accept the body as the self in order to enjoy Krishna‘s energies–the material nature automatically puts us under stringent laws that we are powerless to affect. The only way that we can bend those laws is through mercy, a descendent mercy. We cannot just climb the ladder and force our way into God's bedroom, and exclaim, "here I am. I skipped all the steps and by my own power brought myself here, so have a relationship with me now!" That’s not.... that’s not how love works, that’s not how relationships work. Maybe some of them do here in the material world, but they’re sick and toxic. Krishna is renounced and so He’s given us free will to choose Him or not to choose Him, because without our choice, it’s not love. Krishna is a person also, and He also wants to be loved. If it’s forced, Krishna doesn’t accept that, He doesn't make us stay in the spiritual world with Him. He doesn’t make us do anything–but at the same time–our free will is not unlimited. It is very limited. "he clue is given there in the Bhagavad-gita that the living entities are fragmental parts and parcels of the Supreme Lord, this means that all the qualities of Krishna are therefore present in minute quantity in each of His parts and parcels. That is simultaneously one and different philosophy -- the living entities thus have free will because they are parts of Krishna and Krishna has free will, but the free will of Krishna is Supreme while the freedom of the parts and parcels is minute. So if the living entity out of love subordinates his free will to Krishna that is his liberation. He is no longer forced to act helplessly, but he acts freely rendering loving devotional service to Krishna in every way." (Letter to: Madhudvisa -- Los Angeles 14 February, 1970) Our free will consists of, "I choose faith or I choose doubt/fear." We all have this choice at all moments in time, so that means, "I choose to depend on and trust God, or I choose to turn to the old familiar material energy, which I have become so addicted to– my mind, my body, my mundane relationships, my comforts, my bodily comforts," whatever it may be–that’s our free will. That is because we are not God, and we will never be God. We are as souls one in quality with Krishna , which means that we are the same as God but at the same time we’re different, because we are not one in quantity with Krishna . We are tiny sparks and Krishna is the Original Sacred Fire. Krishna is Bhagavan, full of all opulences, and he is the all attractive one for which there is no equal. We have a very small quantity of power compared to God. There would be no meaning to "God" if everyone was God, there would be no God, that simply does not make sense, it is common sense. God is the One in which everyone comes from and Whom is always God. God is always God, He always retains His individuality and His complete independence, and we are always completely dependent on God. We are always dependent and there’s no way to avoid this because it’s who we are, we are servants of the Divine. "In everyone's life there are two duties: one is to serve the illusion, and the other is to serve the reality. When one serves the reality, he is a real sannyasi. And when one serves the illusion, he is deluded by maya. One has to understand, however, that he is in all circumstances forced to serve. Either he serves the illusion or the reality. The constitutional position of the living entity is to be a servant, not a master. One may think that he is the master, but he is actually a servant. When one has a family he may think that he is the master of his wife, or his children, or his home, business and so on, but that is all false. One is actually the servant of his wife, of his children and of his business. The president may be considered the master of the country, but actually he is the servant of the country. Our position is always as servant -- either as servant of the illusion or as servant of God. If, however, we remain the servant of the illusion, then our life is wasted. Of course everyone is thinking that he is not a servant, that he is working only for himself. Although the fruits of his labor are transient and illusory, they force him to become a servant of illusion, or a servant of his own senses. But when one awakens to his transcendental senses and actually becomes situated in knowledge, he then becomes a servant of the reality. When one comes to the platform of knowledge, he understands that in all circumstances he is a servant. Since it is not possible for him to be master, he is much better situated serving the reality instead of the illusion. When one becomes aware of this, he attains the platform of real knowledge." (PoY 7: Yoga as Reestablishing Relations with Krishna)