The boatman and the marriage party

One of my Guru’s favorite stories comes from his Guru Mahārāj, Śrīla Bhakti Siddhānta Sarasvatī Ṭhākur Prabhupāda. In Bengal, India, two villagers planned a lavish wedding in the bride’s village – every detail timed to an auspicious moment: the constellations, the sun’s position, even the exact hour.

As evening fell, the groom’s party boarded a simple rowboat to cross a wide river and drift downstream. Confident, the boatman said, “Sleep well – I know this river.  I’ve been on it all my life, you can all go to sleep and relax and first thing in the morning when the sun rises we will be at the destination, and we’ll arrive right on time.” Under a glowing moon, they slept peacefully.

At dawn, roosters crowed and birds sang. But to their shock, the boat lay exactly where it had been the night before. Bewildered, then furious, they yelled at the boatman – who, after looking around was even more bewildered than them, because through the entire night with all of his might he was rowing and rowing. Finally, a passenger spotted the problem: he’d forgotten to pull up the anchor!

How to make real spiritual progress

 Little Prahlāda’s words in the Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam go to the heart of the matter:

“However much effort we make – whether through wealth, our spiritual practices, morality, or piety – we can’t really make progress as long as the anchor of material ego and attachment holds us down.”
(ŚB 7.6.9)

Like the boat, we cannot move forward while our ego and fleeting desires weigh us down. True spiritual advancement begins when we let go of that anchor and take shelter in the Supreme. That begins with knowledge and its application. The knowledge of who I am and what I really want, not what the flickering mind and senses are wanting from moment to moment. But who am I and what do I really want?

Our true nature – ānandamayī – is pure, inconceivable bliss beyond the mind and senses. That’s our nature. Our nature is joy. Therefore, we are always looking for joy.

As Śrī Chaitanya Mahāprabhu told Sanātana Gosvāmī: Wherever there is life, there is a living entity,  there’s the presence of soul, the jiva. And the nature of every soul is to experience the joy of serving Kṛṣṇa.

To serve is to please. Krishna tells in Gita [11.54] that ‘you can only understand Me when I reveal myself to you. That ‘I only reveal Myself according to your love’. To serve God really means to love God. what other service could God want from us?

Everything within the universe is composed of the energy of the Supreme God Krishna, parāsya śaktir vividhaiva śrūyate, [Sb 10.3.19] nothing is separate ever. The only real separation of anything from Krishna, from God, is our awareness of His connection.