Chanting with Feeling, from the Heart

Giriraj Swami: Hare Krishna. Somehow I had missed the fact that I was scheduled to speak this morning which is not a problem and on top of it the topic is very open, practically no topic. So I have drawn a topic from the things that I’ve heard from this morning from Yajna Purusa Prabhu that affected me the most and they all come to the point that Krishna is a person. Because of conditioning in the material world we tend to be impersonal. We don’t really have faith that Krishna is there and is a person and that all the things that we’ve read about Him are true because if we did believe it, we would lead our lives in a very different way.

The first thing that Yajna Purusa Prabhu said that struck me was leading up to when he said that Krishna is a grateful God because I’d heard it before but somehow today the fact that Krishna is a person and He is waiting for us to turn to Him, these are things that we’ve heard and read, and if we think of Him both ways, as a dear friend or as a father, but in this case say as a father . . . As Srila Prabhupada often said that the child may run away from the father and forget the father but the father never forgets the child. You can imagine a child leaves home and the parents don’t know—of course Krishna knows everything—the parents don’t know where the child is. I have experienced it. It is a reversal because what I’ve experienced is parents in distress because their children have left home to become devotees. Sometimes the children go where parents have no idea where they are. They deliberately don’t want their parents to know where they are so that their parents won’t find them. And the parents are frantic, “Where is my child?” They never forget. If something happens and the child communicates with the parent, the parent is so relieved, happy.

So we’ve turned away from Krishna. He is our everything—mother, father, best friend—and if we turn to Him, give Him some attention, like we are doing here, devoting all this time just for Krishna to acknowledge our relationship with Him and try to develop our relationship with Him, so He is very happy, He is very grateful.

There are two factors here. One is the sincerity and intensity. Yajna Purusa Prabhu gave the example of the girl who was running around the Boston temple going here and there, and then when she finally got locked in the bathroom, then, “Father, Father . . .” just louder and louder and more and more intense and hysterical and then “this is serious.” That intensity really depends on being akiñcana or niṣkiñcana. In Queen Kunti’s prayers to Lord Krishna she says that, “You are the property of those who are materially impoverished.”

And discussing this verse tat te ’nukampāṁ su-samīkṣamāṇo, how things that are reverses, misfortunes from a material point of view, maybe fortunate from the spiritual point of view. Now there is a related verse, yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ, in which Krishna tells Maharaja Yudhisthira that, “When I am especially favorably inclined to a devotee, I take away his material attachments, and then when he has no money, he has no one to look after him, then he can turn to Me and surrender to Me fully.” We have so many material things and we naturally try to hold on to them and we put our faith in them. We think that these things will protect us or satisfy us and when by Krishna’s mercy we realize that they cannot protect us, they cannot satisfy us, and we realize that Krishna is the only one who can, then we can really chant His name with feeling. In the purport to this verse, akiñcana-gocaram, Srila Prabhupada remarks that according to scripture by once chanting the holy name one can destroy the reactions to more sins than one can commit. Then Srila Prabhupada says but there’s a question of quality of the chanting that one who is materially satisfied or who is on the path of material progress—janmaiśvarya-śruta-śrībhir—good birth, wealth, education, beauty, he cannot or she cannot chant the name of the Lord with true feeling whereas one who has nothing or has no sense of false proprietorship can chant with real feeling. There are many verses like that. Lord Chaitanya manifests Himself to those who have no other possessions than the lotus feet of Lord Chaitanya.

So from the material point of view to be impoverished is unfortunate but from the spiritual point of view it is most fortunate. Of course we are preaching so we don’t renounce material things that can be used in Krishna’s service, but if we develop a sense of false proprietorship, over lordship, false enjoyment, then even those things that are meant for Krishna’s service can become obstacles. Anything—money—it can be used in Krishna’s service, but if we have some duplicity in our purpose and want to use it for our enjoyment, it is an obstacle. We have relationships that are meant for Krishna’s service but again if there is some duplicity, we want some personally satisfaction out of the relationship instead of seeing the other person as Krishna’s to be engaged in Krishna’s service, we think the other person is meant for our gratification in any gross or subtle way, then it becomes an obstacle. Queen Kunti prays to Lord Krishna, “Please severe my ties of affection for my kinsmen, the Vrsnis and the Pandavas.” Srila Prabhupada explains that both of her families—on her father’s side and on her husband’s side—they were devotees and affection for devotees is not outside the range of devotional service. So when Kunti prays, “Let my ties of affection for my kinsmen be severed,” she really means the affection that is based on the body, otherwise as souls we are related to each other through the medium of the Supersoul.

There’s another affection even among devotees that can contaminate the pure relationship of two souls engaged in service to the Supreme Soul. As long as that sense of wanting to enjoy, another person takes service from another person, just get some gratification from another person who is there, it’s an impediment. We can’t really surrender fully to Krishna; we can’t cry out to Krishna; because we think we have something else or someone else to protect us, to satisfy us, and so on. So sometimes Krishna will take away some false attachment. If He sees that a devotee is sincere that the devotee wants to develop a relationship with Him, but at the same time is unable to give up some attachment and dedicate himself fully, so Krishna may take away the attachment.

Srila Prabhupada, from his point of view, he saw that in his life. He had a business and his idea was that he would earn money to support Krishna consciousness from the business and then everything started to go wrong. One of his workers actually pillaged his office when he was away. It came to the point where he couldn’t maintain the business, couldn’t continue the business. He had his wife and children and even his wife, she pawned his Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam to get money to buy tea biscuits. All this was happening, it was so different from what Srila Prabhupada expected or planned and he thought, What is happening? And he thought of that verse, yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi hariṣye tad-dhanaṁ śanaiḥ. He consulted a Godbrother, “I wonder if this is what’s happening to me.” The godbrother thought, Yes, this may be what’s happening to you. And that’s Krishna’s mercy.

Srila Prabhupada used to say if Krishna with His ten hands wants to give you something how much can you take with your two hands and with your two hands if you want to hold onto something how much can you hold on if Krishna wants to take it away with His ten hands. He can come from this side, this side, this side, this side—He can come from any side. You don’t have a chance. But that’s Krishna’s mercy.

In terms of my own life when I think of three momentous events—it is funny because Yajna Purusa Prabhu, first he said it could be health, Krishna takes away your health—that happened to me. It could be a relationship—that also. And then even he was describing his visa situation. Even that happened to me. For seven years I couldn’t return to India. No visa. But in each case there was benefit. I could discuss each case and give a whole talk. In Delphi I gave a whole talk about heart disease and what I had Iearned from heart disease.

But Krishna does that. He doesn’t do it with everyone, but if He sees someone is sincere but at the same time has some attachment that is holding him back, He can do that. Then when we have nothing—akiñcana-gocaram—then we can really cry out to Krishna. So that’s the intensity. It goes with the other point. The other point is different.

The other point if consistency. People want consistency in a relationship. Krishna’s a person. Just like someone meets you. They are very friendly to you. They really greet you and speak with you and spend time with you and hear from you. You think, This person really wants to have a relationship with me. You get very encouraged. But then the next time you see the person, he passes you right by. He didn’t even see you. It is like you don’t even exist. So then you are confused, “What is this person’s intention? I thought this person wanted to have a relationship with me. Now the person is just ignoring me.” And then the next time the person sees you and is sort of friendly but not that friendly but still pretty friendly, you get confused, “What is this person’s intention?”

So it can be like that with us in Krishna. We might suffer some calamity like a dear one dies and one will feel detached. One will think, What’s the use of all this effort? In the end we die. We lose everything. What’s the use? And there’s like a complete sense of detachment. One thinks, Rather devote my time and energy to my relationship with God. That will last. But then our mood changes. That’s śmaśāna-vairāgya, the detachment of the crematorium. It doesn’t last and eventually one goes back to the same materialistic pursuits.

So consistency. I think of the rama, the “ra” is to become free from material attachments; and the “ma” is so they don’t come back again. Krishna will intervene or the material nature. The material nature is also under Krishna. She is not independent. And we’ll feel some detachment. We’ll feel, “Yes, I had so many false hopes in this scheme or this person. I should just develop my relationship with Krishna. Krishna will never disappoint me,” which is true. But then some time passes and we think, Well, let me try again. Maybe I just didn’t do it right the last time. That’s why it didn’t work. Now I know what not to do. So next time I’ll do it better. And that’s also in the Bhāgavatam in that series of verses, yasyāham anugṛhṇāmi, that Krishna takes it away and then He tries to build it up again. Krishna takes it away again and the person tries to build it up again. Krishna takes it away again; he tries to build it up again. Eventually it comes to the point where he gives up. He realizes that, “I can’t fight Krishna,” or, “I can’t fight the laws of nature. Surrender.” Like there’s a war between two parties and the defeated party waves their white flag, “Okay, I surrender.”

And that is our unfortunate tendency, my unfortunate tendency, that we’ll try everything else except Krishna. In our youth there were the hippies and then . . . yuppies were later . . . yippies? Anyway, whatever it is, we would have these love-ins and be-ins and protest marches and things. So during those days they used to call the police pigs. So at one of these love-ins or be-ins, the hippies or maybe the yippies to make fun of the police they brought a pig to the park and they were putting flower garlands on it and pampering it and worshiping it. Prabhupada commented that, “They’ll worship anything except Krishna. They’ll worship a pig but not Krishna.”

So that is our unfortunate tendency. The two go together. If we realize we have no other relationship that’s really going to satisfy us and last, if we have no real protector other than Krishna and if we realize He is a person and have faith in Him that He is a person and He is a responsive person then we can cry out to Him and be consistent in our efforts. Sometimes we might cry out, in a moment of intense pain we might cry out, but then after a while we think we are okay and we forget.

I had this once. I’ve heard other devotees have had similar experiences. Once I almost left my body. I was in Johannesburg and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe and I was thinking, My God, this is it. This is the end. I can’t breathe. And then after making every effort to try to be able to breathe and I realized I couldn’t breathe, then I just cried out to Krishna, I surrendered to Krishna, I cried out to Krishna not vocally because I couldn’t breathe but internally, and He responded. I was able to breathe. And then they rushed me to the hospital. If they were ten minutes later I might have died. There are a lot of devotees in similar situations.

So we may come to that stage in a moment of intense pain or crisis. I had another one. It shows how stubborn I am because I keep surrendering and then forgetting that I surrendered. This was something I would never do but anyway this is also in South Africa in Port Elizabeth. The devotees arranged a picnic at the beach and they wanted me to come. It was okay. It was a picnic. There was some kirtan. But they were going swimming in the ocean and they were saying I should go in too. So I went in and I didn’t know the area. I could swim but not that good. I started to get carried away by a current. It was a strange current because it was taking me further and further away from the shore. Rip tide. And I thought, My God, I am just getting further and further away from the shore. I tried to call for help and no one could hear me. Again I thought, Well, I guess this is it. [laughter] And I just started to chant in helplessness. I don’t know what happened, something changed, the direction changed, and I got carried into the beach.

So we all have these experiences. We are in a crisis. We have no one else to turn to except Krishna. We cry out to Krishna. Krishna mercifully intervenes. And then we forget. We go back to life as usual. As Prabhupada wrote, we should always be conscious of death that death can come at any moment and that at the time of death it’s just us and Krishna. We never know when death can come or will come. If we chanted each name as if it was the last name we would ever chant, we would chant with feeling; we would chant with intensity.

I mentioned the devotee Madhava who leads kirtan from Mauritius, he’ll lead kirtan, pretty slow kirtan. He’ll do two hours at a stretch, the same melody with his eyes closed. So after one kirtan HH Biriraj Swami asked him, “You are sitting there with your eyes closed for hours just chanting. What are you thinking?” He replied, “I am thinking that each name that I sing, it could be the last name that I ever sing, it could be the last time.” That’s good. I guess it is subjective but I hear him lead kirtan, it makes me feel like crying because there is so much feeling in his chanting.

One thing that Bhakta Carl Herzig, Tamal Krishna Goswami’s brother told me, he said that whenever anyone in his family leaves the house, they always say, “I love you,” to the other family members. The idea is that when someone walks out of that door, they don’t know whether the person is going to come back again. So they want to have the last memory of the person that, “I love you,” not like you have a quarrel and leaves the house and then never comes back and that’s the last thing you have to remember.

It is true, we don’t know what will happen next. So if we chant in that mood like, “This could be the last name I chant,” eventually there is going to be a last name. When we take rest at night we tend to think that the next day is going to be pretty much the same as the previous day, and it may gone like that for weeks or months or years, but eventually one day is going to be different from the other days. One day you are going to have some serious disability, some illness, you lose a loved one or a relationship will change. So it is really just a matter of time. It is only our illusion, our false complacency that we think everything is fine and it’ll continue to be fine. But it is not fine. But even if we think it is fine as it is, it wouldn’t stay the way it is. So it really is Krishna who we have. He is so personal. Really like that example of the parent, that the child leaved home, the child might forget the parent but the parent never forgets the child. The parent is just waiting, “When will the child come back to me? So Krishna is like that. We take one step towards Him, He takes so many steps towards us. He is more anxious to get us back to Godhead than we can imagine.

Once the other Dravida who became Panca Dravida—it was very interesting—he approached Srila Prabhupada. Srila Prabhupada was sitting on the balcony of the Calcutta temple, 3 Albert Road. He was lamenting because ISKCON had become so big and he felt he didn’t have the same chance to associate with Srila Prabhupada now that the movement had become so big. And he said, “Srila Prabhupada, ISKCON has become so big now. It’s different.” Prabhupada said, “Yes, ISKCON has become big but I am still very small.” He said, “But how can we approach you now?” “Well just like you are now. You are sitting down next to me and talking to me.” It was sort of related but he related it to Krishna that Krishna has so many servants, what difference would it make to Him if we serve Him or not; what difference in having one more servant make to Krishna. Srila Prabhupada said it is like you have ten fingers. Now if one of your fingers is diseased and it hurts, will you think, Well, let me let get rid of that finger. I will still have nine others. No. You want all your fingers. So Krishna wants all of His parts and parcels and it is not that . . . if we give ourselves fully to Him, He’ll give Himself fully to us.

I think however big or small the reversals in life are with health, with finance, with relationships, they are all meant to teach us that we can’t put our faith in these things, we can’t depend on these things. We can put our faith in Krishna and depend on Him but to do that we really need association. We need to hear about Krishna. In my case today hearing Yajna Purusa Prabhu speak, it really hit home that Krishna is just waiting for us to turn to Him, to pay attention to Him like we are for these four or five days. But what about after that? It’ll be like that—hot and cold—like you are really warm and the other person thinks, Wow! This person really likes me. This person wants to be with me. This person really loves me. And then the person turns his back on you and you don’t see him or hear from him for days. That would be really disappointing. Krishna is also a person. So we don’t want to . . . it sounds odd to speak about Krishna in these terms but we don’t want Him to be disappointed. We don’t want to give Him the idea that we are really serious about developing our relationship with Him and then we leave the japa retreat and then it’s just business as usual, “Oh, Krishna. Yes, yes, I remember that retreat. [laughter] That was pretty good. I don’t remember it that clearly.”

We always hear the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” what about applying that to Krishna? The six exchanges of love, dadāti pratigṛhṇāti guhyam ākhyāti pṛcchati bhuṅkte bhojayate caiva ṣaḍ-vidhaṁ prīti-lakṣaṇam, Srila Prabhupada said we can apply those to Krishna as well. Yes, we do it with devotees. We do it with Krishna. We reveal our mind to Him; we offer food to Him; we take the remnants of food. Of course one might say, “We reveal our mind to Him. We come in front of the Deity. We reveal our mind to Him.” We can also do that through His devotees who are extensions of Him. We can also do it with Him directly, the Deity. If we are fortunate enough, we might get some answer from the Deity directly. But He also speaks to us through the scriptures. So many devotees have experienced being in some doubt, some crisis, some dilemma, and they’ll read Bhagavad-gītā or Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and they’ll get their answer. That’s Krishna speaking to us. And offering gifts in charity.

So we can do all of those things with Krishna, with the Deity. But we need each other to encourage us because maya is so strong and because of suffering so much pain in the material world, we have the tendency to become impersonalists. So we need to hear about Krishna from other devotees. Bodhayantaḥ parasparam. Devotees spend their time discussing Krishna and enlightening each other. That verse is quoted in the Ādi-līlā of Śrī Caitanya-caritāmṛta and in the purport Srila Prabhupada says that when devotees get together and discuss Krishna, share their realizations, Krishna is pleased with them, Krishna becomes happy, and He blesses them with His mercy. In and of itself it helps us to think of Krishna as a person, a real person, and the act of discussing Him also pleases Him and then He blesses us with His mercy.

Prabhupada said impersonalism is a reaction to suffering. We suffer so much in the material world so we think, Okay, let me escape. I’ll just merge and become one with God. I’ll become God. He gave the example of a cow is in a barn that catches fire and the cow manages to escape. He has that remembrance of that traumatic experience of the fire so then whenever the cow sees red, the cow thinks, Oh, its fire, and is afraid. So in the same way the impersonalists and I think we all have this tendency until we are completely purified, he has been hurt by personality so whenever he sees personality he wants to run away because he has been hurt by personality.

I actually had an experience. I was chanting. I had been through some experience that was painful with another devotee and I was chanting and I was trying to chant one mantra. Externally I was articulating the mantra and with my intelligence I was controlling the mind and the mind was hearing the mantra, but it wasn’t entering deep. It was very peculiar. I was hearing it but it wasn’t entering deep and I was thinking, What’s happening? And then I realized under the surface I was afraid because I had been hurt by this other experience with a devotee and without thinking in any conscious way I was just afraid, “If I give myself to Krishna I might get hurt.” If we give ourselves to a human being you get hurt. That was really very primitive and primordial and irrational because Krishna is the one we should be giving ourselves to. He is the one who won’t hurt us. But because of having so many mishaps in the material world, so many bad experiences with people being hurt so many times, we might have the same fear if we give ourselves to Krsna. First we think, Does He really exist? Is He really a person? But then if we give ourselves to Him is He going to break our hearts.

The fact is He won’t. In that Nitai Pada Kamala song, nitāiyer caraṇa satya, Srila Prabhupada says that just as we’ve taken shelter of so many false things in the material world that have proven to be temporary and false, maybe the lotus feet of Lord Nityananda will similarly prove to be false. And Narottama dasa Thakura says, ”No. Nitāiyer caraṇa satya. The lotus feet of Lord Nityananda are real. They are eternal.” And tā̃hāra sevaka nitya: one who surrenders to Lord Nityananda, a servant of Lord Nityananda, he also becomes eternal. So if someone is really surrendered—tā̃hāra sevaka nitya—Srila Prabhupada, he is also there and we know he will never leave us; he will never disappoint us; he’ll never fail us; but he’ll point us towards Krishna. And when we actually reach Krishna, he’ll be there. Like we say the means and the end are the same, Srila Prabhupada, in a way he is the means by which we attain Krishna by following his instructions and serving him, but he is also the end, because when we get to Krishna he’ll be there too.

Hare Krishna.

Devotee: Maharaja, I find it through this session I am craving to hear some little bit about simultaneously being good to each other. Perhaps we are on this path because . . . sometimes in our zeal to develop our relationship with Krishna we might not care who we step on to get there. It’s been my experience over the years that . . . when you talk about being heard by devotees and such, we know we can take shelter of Krishna, but [inaudible].

Giriraj Swami: I should say I am sure I have inflicted much more pain on other devotees than I felt. It is not like I am feeling like a victim or anything. The key is tṛṇād api su-nīcena taror iva sahiṣṇunā amāninā māna-dena kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ. The devotees are extensions of Krishna. They are children of Krishna and we should honor them in relation to Krishna. I remember the last japa retreat here on the sixty-four-round day when I was getting up there—fifty-eight, sixty—I was getting that realization or sense that I’m a spirit soul, one tenth thousandth the tip of a hair. A fraction of a point if there is such a thing. I was thinking of that verse, tṛṇād api su-nīcena, and I was thinking, A blade of grass, I’m nothing compared to a blade of grass. One ten thousandth the tip of hair. A blade of grass is huge compared to one ten thousandth the tip of a hair. And then I was thinking of the other devotees who are servants of the holy name how dear they are to the holy name. They are chanting the holy name; they are serving the holy name; trying to develop their relationship with the holy name, and so being filled with respect and appreciation for them and also knowing . . . and then just not wanting to quarrel. Kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ. You don’t want to take time away from your relationship with Krishna. You don’t want to take time away from your japa. So even if there is a little friction, it’s better not to bother with it because it is just going to . . . If you can do something to relieve the pain of another devotee, that’s something else, but if some devotee says some little thing that pricks your false ego or something, to deal with that, it is going to take away from your chanting.

So kīrtanīyaḥ sadā hariḥ. To chant constantly you have to be humble, be tolerant, “Okay the person said it. Just tolerate him. Go on chanting.” Sometimes to remove those things makes it worse. Once I had that idea once. It was on a larger level. Somebody had written something about ISKCON in the newspaper and I was thinking of trying to counteract it in the newspaper and one godbrother said it is like a vehicle is passing by and it splashes mud on your cloth, if you try to get it out it could make it worse. It just spreads more and it is better just to leave it. So a lot of things are like that especially if someone says something that offends us. Devotees speak like that but they usually are not really malicious. They just have that habit of talking about other devotees. They are not really malicious. They don’t really want to hurt you but they just have that habit of speaking negative things. So just leave it. Don’t take it seriously.

Devotee: You said that when Krishna sees that a devotee is sincere and if you have material attachments sometimes Krishna will let him hold onto that . . .

Giriraj Swami: I said if someone is sincere but he has some material attachment Krishna may take it away from him so that the devotee can surrender fully to Krishna, but He might let him keep it for a while too.

Devotee: I see sometimes devotees do have material attachments and Krishna allows them to work with these attachments.

Giriraj Swami: That’s right.

Devotee: So why is it that Krishna will sometimes take away a little attachment from some other devotees especially if a devotee feels that they have attachments but they’ve had everything taken away from them?

Giriraj Swami: Why does Krishna take away everything from someone and not someone else?

Devotee: Yes, that’s what I mean, but both. They should just really be a bit more subjective. Sometimes I feel that Krishna is taking something away from me though I have that desire but when they have that desire but Krishna is taking it away anyway.

Giriraj Swami: So you should be happy.

Devotee: Yes, ultimately I am happy.

Giriraj Swami: Krishna deals with each devotee individually and He uses His best judgment to decide how to intervene in the life of a devotee. And it is true, sometimes we might work on something ourselves and deal with it ourselves, but sometimes we might not be able to deal with it alone and then Krishna will intervene.

Srila Prabhupada had a disciple who was translating his books into Hindi in Delhi and the boy’s father was also favorable to Krishna consciousness, friends with Srila Prabhupada. So once the boy and his father came to meet Srila Prabhupada after the first Delhi pandal and Prabhupada asked the father, “Have you been able to give up smoking?” The father looked down and he said, “No Srila Prabhupada. I am sorry I haven’t been able to.” And then he had an idea, “Can’t I get some special mercy?” Srila Prabhupada said, “Special mercy? Yes, there is such a thing as special mercy.” Then he quoted the verse, yasham anugranmmi sanaih, that the first installment of Krishna’s special mercy is that He takes everything away from the devotee. And then when the devotee is completely poverty stricken and helpless then he can take shelter of Krishna. Then Prabhupada said to the man, “So, do you want some special mercy?” “No Prabhupada. No Prabhupada. I’ll do it on my own.” [laughter]

It is true, if we can deal with something on our own, but sometimes we can’t. The attachment is too strong or we are too weak and Krishna knows our sincere desire. He’ll intervene and in a sense that becomes a test: are we going to try to chase after the thing that Krishna’s taking away or are we going to stay with Krishna. And if we stay with Krishna and let that other thing go, taking it as Krishna’s mercy, then we become closer to Krishna.

Karunatha dasa: Just along that same line I remember hearing one lecture where a woman asks Srila Prabhupada, from a different angle, they are talking about free will and how we have misused our free will and that’s how we have fallen into maya and she asked, “Well then, Srila Prabhupada, can we pray to Krishna to force us to surrender to Him?” And Prabhupada chuckled and he said, “Well you can but you might not like it if He forces you.” Then he told the story about how he didn’t want to take sannyasa and then he was forced. He said you become very morose when Krishna takes everything away from you and forces you to surrender.

Giriraj Swami: Yes, that is part of it.

Devotee: Then you become happy. You may be morose at first but then when the spiritual intelligence kicks in then you become happy.

Giriraj Swami: Yes. That’s exactly. You suffer the results of one’s past misdeeds but in the end you enjoy boundless bliss. Prabhupada said that whenever Krishna takes something from a devotee, it is only to give him something better. So we should always think that Krishna is taking something away for a purpose. It is not without purpose. It is to give me something better and ultimately the best thing is Krishna Himself. He gives Himself to the devotees. Like Bali Maharaja, He took everything from Bali Maharaja but He gave Himself. So we should be ready for that. Not just ready, we should pray for it.

Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada.