A Perverted Reflection

Srila Gurudeva: If there is no love and affection, anyone cannot realize happiness in his life. A person can be poor, no harm, but if there is love and affection with his children, brothers, father and mother, then the family will be happy. But if there is no love and affection there, even if a person is very wealthy, much more wealthy than anyone else, like the king of Iran or any king who is selling oil and getting so much wealth, still no happiness will be there. If there is no love and affection in this world, no one can be happy. But in this world, pure happiness, pure love and affection is not there. Only a shadow of that love is here. The love of this world is only a shadow, a perverted reflection of that actual pure love and affection from the spiritual world. What is the meaning of a perverted reflection? If we see our reflection in the mirror, the right eye will be seen on the left and the left eye will be seen on the right. So, it is the opposite, it is perverted.

We are part and parcel of Krsna and Krsna is the embodiment of prema, so by our constitution there is some love and affection in us. But we have left Krsna, we have forgotten Krsna, and that is why we are searching for ananda, happiness, here and there. If we have no one to love, we may accept a dog, which is the opposite spelling of God, and we will serve them. We will take that dog in our car and we will go to work. We will bathe it with soap and we will do so much for that poor dog. So you will be a servant of a dog if you are not loving God.

This pure love and affection is within the constitution of the jiva (the living entity) and Krsna. But we have forgotten this and we are searching here and there for this love and affection. We think that this happiness is in wine, but it is not in wine. We take wine to forget our miseries. We think that happiness is
in wealth, but princess Diana was so wealthy, so renounced, so beautiful, everything, but how did she die?

Where is happiness? It’s only in krsna-bhakti, in loving Krsna. If you love Krsna, then you can love your husband, children, and everyone. You can love and chant and you will see Krsna even in an ant. You will see Krsna everywhere. You will realize this. We should practice to love Krsna. By hearing the qualities and very sweet and beautiful pastimes of Krsna, we can give our hearts to Krsna. Krsna is so powerful. He knows everything. He lives everywhere in all living entities. If you will offer your heart to Him, He will at once take it. He will save us. He will sprinkle His mercy on us and thus He can make us His beloved. You should determine that, “Krsna is my beloved.”

[Spoken by Srila Gurudeva on January 28th, 1998, Malaysia, published as part of the Bhakta Bandhav Anthology, Volume 25]