2024.04.06 - Nama Retreat. Session 1: Introduction. Importance of Emotions - Bhakti Vijnana Goswami

To achieve real spiritual emotions, we need to practice the emotions of saranagati. Actually, bhakti begins after saranagati. Spiritual emotions should descend upon us - we cannot practice them or squeeze them out. However, we can practice the emotions of saranagati. Krishna only hears the prayers imbued with the mood of saranagati, He wants a complete surrender. For this, our heart should obtain a certain quality of softness and this soft heart will come out in the form of tears. Our hearts may remain hard because of several reasons. First, we are engaged in mundane arguments and want to show that we are better. The second reason is that we have a tendency to control. Emotions are the highest manifestation of spiritual intelligence. It is said that we are Homo sapiens, or rational human beings, but actually, we are Homo emoticus, or emotional beings. As a result, rationality plays a very small role in our life. The goal of every endeavor of a human is happiness and happiness basically means emotions. Therefore, the emotions of saranagati act as a bridge from our conditioned stage to the spiritual stage, which we strive to achieve.