"I Am Yours"

My friend Madhava recently posted this amazing quote from Mahaprabhu on Vilasa Kunja, I have slightly modified it:

kṛṣṇa, tomāra haṅa, yadi bale-eka-bāra |
māyā-bandha haite kṛṣṇa tāre kare pāra ||

"'Krishna! I have become yours!' — if one says a single time,
Krishna will have that person cross beyond the bonds of illusion."
(CC 2.22.33)

This is totally amazing! It started me thinking about how "easy" it is to surrender to the Lord by just stating it once with sincerity that you are His. But is it really that easy? Are you His, say, when you are talking about Shilpa Shetty on Celebrity Big Brother on the phone to your friends? Are you His, when your mouth is salivating at the thought of some juicy treats? Are you His, when you gladly pay money for some rubbish CD that you will probably never listen to?

Now this probably sounds like the typical "yoof" rant that I was spoon-fed for so many years and which I spoon-fed in turn to so many others. But it's not, it's really more a question of heightening awareness over so-called surrender. The problem is the same everywhere; some critics or disillusioned followers of Christianity have often mused over how ridiculous it is to confess and repent one's sins on a Sunday and then proceed to sin through the rest of the week. I would be more concerned about trying to maintain an attitude of constant awareness of surrender at each moment. A prick of the conscience at the very least should occur if one is engaged in activities that are not pleasing to Mahaprabhu, much less an outright disgust and a cause to spit.

But there's me getting all judgemental and superiority-complexed again. Whatever happened to trinad api sunicena? The basic point is this: to stand in front of Krishna and declare to Him that you are His is no small feat. It most definitely involves the most heartfelt surrender with an implicit commitment to follow His direction, as well as a certain amount of self-consciousness that acknowledges one's lowly position, what is the point of such half-hearted surrender otherwise? And above all, love. To stand in front of Krishna with a heart brimming over with pure love and a pure-hearted surrender to Him, just once with full humility and sincereity, and maya is destroyed forever.

Such a beautiful thing to hear directly from the beautiful lips of Sriman Mahaprabhu. And the weight of His promise!

Dear reader, am I trying to convince you or myself? I think that the honest answer is 'both'.