Is it just my imagination?

My ini­tia­tor guru, A.C. Bhak­tivedanta Swami said there was no need for ekadas-bhav ini­ta­tion in which one is given a spir­i­tual iden­tity by a guru, one would realise one’s own spir­i­tual iden­tity in due time. Gau­ranga Das Babaji advised me to never leave Vrind­a­ban because every­one there was engaged in med­i­tat­ing on Radha Krishna and would strengthen my med­i­ta­tion. Sri Lalita Prasad Thakur ini­ti­ated me into ekadas-bhav and told me to go back to the West and preach. I learned a method of visu­al­iza­tion and med­i­ta­tion from him. I won­dered if Goloka Vrind­a­ban existed on its own, or did it exist because I imag­ined it.

After many years, I now con­clude that it doesn’t mat­ter. Every­thing we can imag­ine is real on some level of exis­tence. With so many per­sons imag­in­ing Radha Krishna and Goloka Vrind­a­ban for so many years, they must exist. What­ever we most desire, set our mind on, love, cher­ish and focus our life energy on, we will think of at the time of death and that will carry us on to the next life. I am still plac­ing my bets on Radha Krishna. Their eter­nal ser­vice is the be all and end all of my life. There is just noth­ing else more attrac­tive to me, and I have stud­ied many dif­fer­ent paths. I am also sure that when I fully real­ize the Divine Cou­ple and their abode, it will all be much more than I ever imagined.

Don’t stop doubt­ing and ques­tion­ing. Cer­tainly God is not offended by these things. Rather they are signs of a true seeker. It is through doubt­ing and ques­tion­ing that we are able to real­ize the truth in real­ity. Ques­tion the scrip­tures. Ques­tion the tra­di­tion. Ques­tion your guru. If your guru is offended by your ques­tions and does not want to answer them, he may not be the right guru for you. When I was in my twen­ties, I thought I knew it all. Now, I am not as cer­tain of things. There is much we do not know and many paths form­ing pieces of the puz­zle. Yet I know that for me Radha Krishna love and devo­tion can’t be wrong. Bless­ings. Jai Radhe!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 14th, 2006 at 10:23 and is filed under Steve's Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.