“And what does it mean to surrender our ego to Krishna? It means, "Krishna. You are enjoyer. I am meant for your enjoyment."- H. H. Radhanath Swami. The excerpt was taken from the post - http://servantoftheservant-ananda.blogspot.com/2008/05/surrender-our-ego.html. You can read the entire post in the above link.
I would like to elaborate on the above statement more. What does the above statement mean? It means for ever yone of us Krishna has a divine plan (of course we have our own selfish plans). I am not talking about that. I am talking about Krishna’s plan for us. What is that plan?
Per BG 5.29 Krishna says
"A person in full consciousness of Me, knowing Me to be the ultimate beneficiary of all sacrifices and austerities, the Supreme Lord of all planets and demigods, and the benefactor and well-wisher of all living entities, attains peace from the pangs of material miseries"
So if Krishna is our ultimate well wisher, then His plan for us will be the best thus overriding all our personal plans. For example, Krishna’s plan for Arjuna was to fight in the battlefield of Kurukshetra not for personal gain but to maintain dharma. This was Krishna’s plan – to re-establish dharma with Arjuna as an instrument. Similarly, Krishna has plans for every one of us.
If we sincerely follow Krishna’s plan (and not ours) then we fulfill the above statement “Krishna you are enjoyer and I am meant for your enjoyment”.
Let me give a practical example. For example, I work fulltime, I am a husband to my wife and I am an aspiring devotee of Krishna. So I am a career person, husband and devotee all at the same time. Krishna’s plan for me would mean I perform all these roles in a way that pleases Him. Krishna is the ultimate controller and maintainer. This material and spiritual energies are controlled by Him. So whatever I am today materially and spiritually is not without the sanction of the Lord.
So when I work at my office, I work with the thought that Krishna is the ultimate doer of all activities. The natural thing, then, would be to dedicate our results to Him (as He is the ultimate doer). By doing this, we are not implicated by the material actions. This is not just sentiment that Krishna is the ultimate doer. It is an objective fact. Krishna says in the Gita (BG ch 18.14) that the body, senses, type of endeavor, soul and ultimately the supersoul is the cause of any single action. The soul which is the real self is just one part of the action while everything else is done by Krishna through the Supersoul and His material modes of nature. We have absolutely no abilities more than just make choices. How then can we accomplish complex material tasks and take all the credit for ourselves and just be puffed up with ego. So objectively, the body, senses and endeavors cannot function without the sanction of the Supersoul, so the rightful thing is to dedicate the results to the rightful owner (that is Krishna).
Then as a husband, my role would be to serve my wife (similarly wife has to serve husband). H.H.Radhanath swami in one of his lectures mentioned that our wife or husband or children are actually property of God and hence we should not use them for our own selfish purposes, rather we should engage Krishna’s property for Krishna, isn’t it not? If you have a car and you hire a chauffer, then if the chauffer uses the car for his personal enjoyment instead of using it for you, he become a thief.
Similarly, serving my wife means I engage my wife to make sure she goes back home back to Godhead. It should not be for enjoying my wife. Ok…wife you do this for me, then I will do this for you, you make me happy by doing such and such work etc etc…no not like this. Similarly, children, we are so proud… oh my child is like this, like that…son you do this, daughter you do this…like this we have so many expectations and plans for our children. Ultimately, we treat wife and child for satisfying our own ego…if not why we encourage them to be material when we know material is only suffering. Therefore, from the very beginning of our marriage, beginning of our child’s birth, our only purpose it to serve them…service means to make them a servant of Krishna…why because they are actually the property of Krishna and the right thing to do is to give one’s property back to the rightful owner, if not we are considered thieves (enjoying God’s property for our own selfish needs).
So when we sincerely strive on this platform as a career person, student, husband/wife to perform God’s will at every moment, then, there is no question of our own “ego”, then we will fulfill the statement Maharaj - “And what does it mean to surrender our ego to Krishna? It means, "Krishna. You are enjoyer. I am meant for your enjoyment"
This is the practical way to be instruments of Krishna’s enjoyment by simply following the plan of Krishna just as Arjuna in Kurukshetra.
Hare Krishna
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