So if you accept Kṛṣṇa as your son, as your friend, as your lover, you will never be cheated. So try to accept Kṛṣṇa. Give up this false illusory servant or son or father or lover. You'll be cheated. You'll be cheated. If you love your son with your heart and soul, that very son will may be someday your most veritable enemy. Yes. This is the world. The wife you love so much, but the wife may be someday so great enemy that she can kill you for her own interest. There are so many instances. So if you want to have real... The Māyāvādī philosophers, they are afraid of having such relationship again. Because they have got bitter experience of this material world, they want to make it zero—no more relationship, no more son, no more daughter, no more lover, no more master. "Because we have got very bitter experience of these things, I am disgusted with these things. I will make it zero." But that is not the fact. The fact is that if you make the same relationship with Kṛṣṇa, it will never become zero; it will be enthusiastic more and more. Ānandāmbudhi-vardhanam, it is said. Ambudhi, ambudhi means sea. This morning we were walking. The sea cannot come, overflood, under certain extent, limitation. That is called... We have no experience the sea is increasing. No. But in the spiritual world, ānandāmbudhi, the ocean of spiritual bliss, is increasing. Here the ānandāmbudhi—I have got some relationship with my father, with my wife, with my husband, with my master, but it will decrease by and by. The relationship is personal interest. "If you pay me, I will serve you." "If you serve me, then I will pay you." This is relative term, duality. But in the absolute world it is something different.
Therefore here it is said that na karhicin mat-parāḥ śānta-rūpe, yeṣām ahaṁ priya ātmā sutaś ca sakhā guruḥ. You can establish your relationship in so many way. There is no question of making it zero. Because that is reality. Just like in the Bhagavad-gītā, Fifteenth Chapter, it is stated, "the shadow of the tree." The shadow of the tree has got the branches, fruit, leaves. Everything is there. But it is nonreality. The real reality is up in the spiritual world. And that is shadow. Ūrdhva-mūlam adhah-śākham (BG 15.1). That is very practical example in the world. Ūrdhva-mūlam. The real mūla is up. Therefore we sometimes find that the lowest abominable thing is the highest there. Because the opposite. You see the upside of the tree down, but the upside is there. Therefore the rasas, there are so many mellows, and the parakīyā-rasa... Parakīyā-rasa means love without marriage. That is called parakīyā-rasa. Therefore you will find the parakīyā-rasa... Kṛṣṇa's loving affairs with the gopīs without marriage, that is called parakīyā-rasa. Parakīyā-rasa is the highest, topmost relishable spiritual bliss. Therefore Caitanya Mahāprabhu recommended ramyā kācid upāsanā vraja-vadhū-vargeṇa yā kalpitā. Kṛṣṇa displayed everything so to attract us, that "You are captivated by this material jaḍa-rasa, material rasa." There is rasa; otherwise why a man is working so hard to maintain the family? Unless there is some ānanda, why he is taking? Nobody is taking so much hard responsibility for others. But children, wife, family, they take. There is... Unless there is some ānanda, how he can take? So the relationship has got ānanda. But this ānanda is flickering, illusion. Ato gṛha-kṣetra-sutāpta-vittair janasya moho 'yam (SB 5.5.8). This is moha. It will not stay; it is temporary, illusion.
So don't be attached to this illusion. Tamasi mā. Tamasi means ignorance. In ignorance, if you accept somebody as son or wife or friend, that is darkness. It is not actual fact. It is ignorance. Tamasi mā jyotir gama: "Go to the light." Have real friendship, real fatherhood, real lover, real beloved, real son. So if... And another point is that a devotee, real devotee, he doesn't want to be the son of God. He wants to be the father of God. Why? The father means he will simply give to the son. And son means he will simply take. So just like in the Christian philosophy it is said, "O God, give us our daily bread." This is one philosophy. That's a fact. God is giving. Eko yo bahūnāṁ vidadhāti kāmān. God is feeding everyone. That's a fact. But a devotee does not want to take anything from God. He does not worship God for his daily bread. One who asks daily bread from God, they are pious, but they are not devotees.
- catur-vidhā bhajante māṁ
- janāḥ sukṛtino 'rjuna
- ārto jijñāsur arthārthī
- jñānī ca bharatarṣabha
- (BG 7.16)
Kṛṣṇa says there are four kinds of beginners of devotional service, four kinds. What are..., who are they? Ārtaḥ. Ārtaḥ means one who is distressed; artha-arthī, one who is in want of money; ārto ar...jijñāsuḥ, one who is searching after knowledge; and jñānī, and wise man. So out of these, ārto and arthārthī, they are low-grade worshiper. Those who are jñānī and jijñāsuḥ, they are higher grade. Generally, they are lower grade. But they are not pure devotees.