Superficial Speculation

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Nrisingha Palli, 29 November 2020, part 5

Question: If someone thinks they are praying with reverence, how can they know that Krishna hears their prayer?

The scripture tell this:

ষড়ঙ্গ শরণাগতি হইবে যাঁহার ।
তাঁহার প্রার্থনা শুনে শ্রীনন্দকুমার ॥

sad-anga saranagati ha-ibe yahara
tahara prarthana sune sri-nanda-kumara

"Sri Krishna hears the prayers of one who surrenders in this six-fold way."

If somebody can follow the six types of saranagati properly and prays to Lord Krishna, then Lord Krishna will always hear their prayer. This is what Srila Bhaktivinod Thakur says. We sing this song every morning,

দৈন্য, আত্মনিবেদন, গোপ্তৃত্বে বরণ ।
'অবশ্য রক্ষিবে কৃষ্ণ'—বিশ্বাস পালন ॥
ভক্তি-অনুকূল মাত্র কার্য্যের স্বীকার ।
ভক্তি-প্রতিকূল ভব—বর্জ্জনাঙ্গীকার ॥

dainya, atma-nivedana, goptrtve varana
'avasya raksibe krsna'—visvasa palana
bhakti-anukula matra karyera svikara
bhakti-pratikula bhava—varjanangikara

"Humility, self-submission, taking the Lord as your guardian, keeping the faith that 'Krishna will certainly protect me', engaging only in activities that are favourable to devotion, rejecting everything unfavourable to devotion."

Krishna must hear the prayer of those who have these six types of saranagati—who have a proper faith in what Krishna has told, in what Gurudev has told, who are fully surrendered to Gurudev. Krishna Himself also says in Srimad Bhagavad-gita, "I only know My devotees (sadhus), nothing else; and those who are sadhus (saints), who are My devotees, know only Me—they know nothing else besides Me." This is what is said in Srimad Bhagavad-gita. The Lord Himself says, "They only know Me, and they only want to hear from Me or from My devotees—they do not want to hear anything else except that."

This is what is said in the scriptures. So, if your position is like this or you can bring yourself to this position, or level, then, yes, Krishna will hear your prayer.

Are there any other questions?

Question: Apart from the war at Kuruksetra, when can war be justified?

Kuruksetra war happened by the will of Lord Krishna because there was a necessity of this war. Krishna wanted to show His power and if that war had not happened, how would we have been able to tell apart good from bad? Why was the war necessary? What is the reason for the war? We cannot judge what is necessary and what is not necessary. If something is to happen by the will of Krishna, who can stop it? It does not depend on us or anybody else. Also, when Arjuna became a disciple and fully surrendered to Krishna, he could understand why Krishna told him that war was necessary.

Besides, we suffer from kama, krodha, lobha, maha (lust, anger, greed, illusion), etc.—we always fight against the six enemies within us, we always fight against maya (illusory environment). We are also in a battlefield. When we cannot defeat maya, we also end up in a problem.

It is not necessary to consider all these things externally. In this world, people read Mahabharata and tell so many nonsense things—people think externally, but if you think deeper, you will see there is an internal reason. It is necessary to search for deeper things—it is necessary to search for the Original Source, for the deeper underlying cause why the fighting was necessary. Otherwise, when two brothers fight over some land, you cannot compare such fights with the Kuruksetra war. These are not the same things.

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