Lilamayi Subhadra

According to HH Kadamba Kanana Swami, to surrender means to conquer your lower nature. This makes the whole process of surrender seem more practical and manageable. Still… it’s no easy thing. It can be pretty painful to weed out things that have been there since time immemorial, rooted deeply within the conciousness of the conditioned soul. Since these lower tendencies have become so deep rooted, a transformation of the heart is required. This can be successfully achieved by engaging in devotional service to the Supreme Person, Sri Krsna.

HH Sacinandana Swami speaks of the alchemists in medieval times in Europe. These mystics travelled all over the world in search of a formula by which one can turn ordinary bell metal into gold. Their search was not for wealth, but rather for a transformation of their characters, a principle that could be applied to their own hearts. To change ordinary metal into gold you would have to enter into the atomic structure and change the atoms which are held together by a strong force. To enter into the atomic structure requires tremendous energy, and also sets free so much energy. This is an atom bomb. You cannot do it with physical strength. You need strength or forces that are far superior to physical forces. What you could easily do is take copper, paint it gold and say, “I have gold,” but this type of gold would not last (and you won’t be satisfied for long). If you want to change your heart, something of this dimension is before you. When you think deeply about transformation it becomes very clear that we need help. Alone it is to difficult to split the atoms or to transorm copper into gold. Srila Prabhupada gives us the instructions and the knowledge, he presented it so nicely for us, and Krishna will give us the intellegence to understand this knowledge according to our level of surrender - He says so in Bhagavad-gita (10:10) “To those who are constantly devoted to serving Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me.” We need to dive deeply into the ocean of devotional service.