2019.06.12 - CC Mahya 8.68. Inner transformation (Berlin) - Bhakti Vijnana Goswami

We all come to the spiritual movement for some radical transformation because we are unhappy. But our stubborn nature is very difficult to transform. Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu asks Ramananda Roy to quote the sloka about the goal of life. Usually when people seek a spiritual path, they ask different questions about the outset. But Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu does not ask such questions, He asks about the goal. We are doing our practice but it does not help in a very significant way because we are not really fixed on the goal. Our experience in this life, not necessarily on the spiritual path, but any experience we have in this life, depends very much on the goal we have. So many people have the same practice, but the results are different, because they do the practice differently depending on their connection with the ultimate goal they want to achieve. Usually people are looking for some easy method that will miraculously change everything, but this is the wrong attitude, they will never reach the goal. We will not be able to practice properly with all intensity unless the goal is firmly established, in this way the goal will be able to influence our present. The problem in our society is that people very often mix the goal and the means to achieve the goal, and they take the means to achieve the goal as the goal itself. First of all, we have to know the real goal, which will make me completely happy as a soul. And that in itself is a very difficult task, because you can not find it in your heart, you can only get it from somebody who knows that this is the goal. So we have to listen to the person, who has this goal in his heart, and his desire has to become our desire. Hearing is not a passive process, when we hear someone and we open our heart towards what he says many good things can come to our heart. To achieve the goal we have to know how to increase our desire more and more. Our goal is not even Krisna, our goal is not love of Krisna, but our goal is how the inhabitants of Vrindavan love Krisna. If we hear and read about it, then the same desire will definitely appear in our heart, and when it becomes strong enough, only then will our practice bring us to this goal. For transformation to take place, we need to focus all our energy on it, and we also have to collect little specks of spiritual experience in our heart and remind ourselves about them again and again. To have any experience in this life three conditions should be there: 1) the opportunity; 2) the ability; 3) the desire. To have the experience of Krisna bhakti you need two things: 1) the desire; 2) the ability. We have the ability because we are the soul, the opportunity will be given by God, if we add strong desire, the experience will be there.