Srila Sankarshan Das Adhikari
Riga, Latvia, Fall 2004

 

Uplifting the Global Consciousness

Our mission in this Krishna consciousness movement is to uplift the global consciousness, to deliver the entire human society from the nescience in which it is currently so deeply sunk. In order to have any hope of fulfilling our mission we must always very sincerely and conscientiously endeavor to root the defects out of our hearts. How will we do this? The answer is given in the Srimad Bhagavatam as follows:

yat-pada-pankaja-palasa-vilasa-bhaktya
karmasayam grathitam udgrathayanti santah
tadvan na rikta-matayo yatayo 'pi ruddha-
sroto-ganas tam aranam bhaja vasudevam

"The devotees, who are always engaged in the service of the toes of the lotus feet of the Lord, can very easily overcome hard-knotted desires for fruitive activities. Because this is very difficult, the nondevotees -- the jnanis and yogis -- although trying to stop the waves of sense gratification, cannot do so. Therefore you are advised to engage in the devotional service of Krishna, the son of Vasudeva."Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.22.39.

This process of devotional service is so wonderful. In this process we do not have to try to kill our desires because the desire extinguishing process of the jnanis and the yogis is an impossible feat. Instead we fill our hearts with many varieties of ways to serve the Lord to such an extent that they are overflowing with such desires. In this way material desires are overpowered by spiritual desires and they become automatically reduced to nil.

In this connection Srila Prabhupada explains,

"It may be argued that the waves of a river are incessantly flowing and that they cannot be stopped, but the waves of the river flow toward the sea. When the tide comes over the river, it overwhelms the flowing of the river, and the river itself becomes overflooded, and the waves from the sea become more prominent than the waves from the river. Similarly, a devotee with intelligence plans so many things for the service of the Lord in Krishna consciousness that stagnant material desires become overflooded by the desire to serve the Lord."Srimad-Bhagavatam 4.22.39, Purport.

The conclusion is that by flooding our hearts with unlimited desires for serving the Lord in many, many varieties of ways we can easily root out all material defects from our hearts and thus become fully empowered to distribute this Krishna consciousness process for the spiritual upliftment of the entire world.

Sankarshan das Adhikari