There’s a process of gradually becoming surrendered. If we are turned away from Him (God, Krishna) and want to become sanmukh (turned toward God), it doesn’t happen all at once. It happens as a process, and that process is called bhakti (devotion), or more specifically, sadhana bhakti (the practice of devotion).
Sadhana means something you practice in order to reach a goal. Our goal is to become 100% turned toward Shree Krishna (God). In other words, to open our heart to His grace 100%. That’s the goal, and we’re doing sadhana to make that happen.
We’re doing sadhana to purify our heart, to remove the impurity of our heart. All the past sins, all the past thoughts, all those sanskars (impressions accumulated from past experiences and actions), they’re all accumulated in our mind. We have to clear that out.
If our mind were 100% pure, and any Saint came to us and said,
“Just surrender to Krishna, and you’ll get His grace,”
we would instantly surrender. But we have to purify our hearts. That’s what’s preventing us from surrendering. The process of devotion is the gradual effort that we make to purify our mind and become surrendered, or, in other words, to gradually turn toward Shree Krishna. The process involves attaching our mind to Shree Krishna. That is the essence of it - smaran (loving remembrance).
मानेर स्मरण प्राण, मधुर मधुर धाम…
মনের স্মরণ প্রাণ, মধুর মধুর ধাম …
Maner smaraṇ prāṇ, madhur madhur dhām…
- Prem-Bhakti-Chandrikā: song 6, verse 2 (partial)
The essence, or the life, of devotion is remembering Shree Krishna. When you do smaran of someone, that smaran is something that happens deep in your heart. It’s not a mental exercise or an intellectual exercise that you’re doing. When you do smaran of someone, why are you doing smaran? Because they mean something to you. It’s a loved one, or perhaps somebody that you despise. But either way, they’re deep in your heart. They mean something to you. The one that you love, you feel you belong to them, and they belong to you. You feel that if this person comes close to you, they’ll make you happy. So they’re very important to you. And when you do smaran, you think deeply about that person.
“If I meet this person, I’ll be happy.”
You think of their face. You think of their qualities, of their personality, and you repeatedly reflect upon them. That is called smaran.
Now, we also do the same thing with someone that we despise, and the result is the same. That person also deeply enters into our heart.
But in devotion, we take the positive aspect of that smaran, and we try to repeatedly and constantly reflect upon our relationship with Shree Krishna.
“He is mine! He has been mine forever! Even though I’m not surrendered to Him, He never leaves me, and He always keeps gracing me. If I get to meet Him face to face, I’ll get perfect happiness. I want to serve Him! I want to see Him and then do something to make Him happy.”
These are all the feelings that a devotee gets when they do smaran. Our mind is always active.
न हि कश्चित्क्षणमपि जातु तिष्ठत्यकर्मकृत्। …
Na hi kaśhchit kṣhaṇamapi jātu tiṣhṭhatyakarmakṛit…
- Gita 3.5 (partial)
Our mind is always thinking of something. If we don’t direct the activities of our mind toward Shree Krishna, then it’s going to do smaran of the world, definitely, because the mind is always looking for love and happiness. So, if we don’t tell our mind and forcefully direct it,
“Your perfect love and happiness is Shree Krishna,”
then it’s going to keep going into the world, doing smaran of the world and multiplying our worldly bondage.
