Question: My experience of Krishna is that He is easy to access and quick to answer a prayer. I have been the lousiest of devotees for over 35 years now but He never leaves me or gives up on me. If I even just look towards Him, He blesses me somehow. And I know I am not special. I have absolutely no qualifications or rights to Him, but He is always there for me. So, I do not understand the concept of Krishna being hard to approach. I am sure I am missing some point or something. Would you please be so kind as to answer this for me?
For example, I recently read the following “Instruction for the Week”:
When we pray to Krishna, we may express to Him *Please accept me*. Persons
sometimes ask “what does this mean?”
When Krishna becomes the object of our affection, then all of the inconsistencies, the limitations, the inebrieties, and all such things are gone and the heart’s desire is fulfilled in an inconceivable way. Krishna can make that happen, even if we have no attraction, if we approach Him in this humble petitioning mood, “Please accept me. I have no qualification. Great devotees that have qualification can’t get access. I am shameless and I am asking anyway.” In Nectar of Devotion, this is described as hope against hope. “Still I have the hope, because You are very merciful and You are powerful. So, please accept me in Your service.” Then there is some taste, and that taste is so attractive that material attraction just becomes insignificant. The poetry of the *Srimad-Bhagavatam* is helping us to get there.
Answer by Romapada Swami:
Thank you for your thoughtful question. There are two levels/angles from which this question can be answered.
The first is that Krishna can be easily approached by the humble and meek, but He is extremely difficult to approach for those who have pride or a challenging / competitive attitude. This is repeatedly illustrated: great demigods are bewildered by Krishna’s pastimes but simple cowherd boys, girls and fruit-vendors are able to intimately approach Krishna. The sacrificial brahmanas could not satisfy Krishna but their wives who left everything to go and see Krishna received His favor. Great philosophers and yogis struggle very hard to elevate themselves but Gajendra could see the Lord face-to-face.
One may argue that these examples are all of pure devotees, but the same principle applies even for beginning devotees. This is confirmed in the BG 7.15-16: one may still have material desires or material contaminations, but if they approach the Lord in a humble and dependent mood, although it is not the highest devotional position, the Lord accepts them as “broad-minded” and as “very dear to Him”. Whereas the highly learned “mayayapahrta-jnanas” are unable to surrender to Him. They become bewildered in their attempts to understand God, His actions, His creation etc. So many philosophers and scientists and leaders are so confused and find it very difficult to chant Hare Krishna, but a simple mataji is able to easily accept the process.
Although you may be struggling with some of your spiritual practices and so on, yet because you don’t think of yourself as a very important person or accomplished devotee and so forth, you are still able to sincerely turn to the Lord when you are in distress or in need and you feel His reciprocation. Krishna is conquered by simplicity and devotion, not by any amount of severe austerity or rigid following of rules and regulations etc. Srila Prabhupada therefore said: “Krishna consciousness is simple for the simple, but very complicated for those who are crooked.”
You are correct in expressing that the Lord is equally merciful to everyone; at the same time, our ability to perceive His mercy is proportionate to our purity and eagerness for that relationship. The difficulty in approachability is not from Krishna’s side, but from our own side. Our own lack of purity, our own selfish-absorptions, attachments and aversions, high estimation of ourselves and so on block us from *fully* and *constantly* connecting to Krishna. And until we come to this stage of ahaituki-apratihata bhakti, the living entity cannot experience full satisfaction. Krishna is more anxious to accept us, than we are to be accepted and return back to Him! Therefore the prayer and the supplication to the Lord to please accept us is in fact partly to overcome our own lack of enthusiasm and feeling of dependence. It is to enhance our appreciation for how great the Lord is, that the privilege to know and serve Him is not to be had cheaply or casually or without purity, and to make us more open and receptive to the relationship that Krishna is extending to us.
The other answer is that Krishna is always alert and ever-responsive to ALL His part-and-parcel living entities. Each one of us — in whatever condition of life we may be in, whether conditioned or liberated, has an eternal, unbreakable relationship with the Supreme Lord. He is ALWAYS responding to each one of us, as the most faithful, well-wishing and supremely loving friend. He is ever-attentive even to the thieves, even to the insects and worms, accompanying them as Supersoul and fulfilling their desires! It is the conditioned soul who is ignoring or forgetful of the Lord, but as soon as we turn back to Him, we are able to see that He is responding to us, and always has been! But although the Lord is equally merciful even to the crooks, they are unable to perceive it, their vision being covered by their own sinful attitudes. This implies that in order to actually approach Krishna we have to become purified.
As one goes into deeper levels of devotion and purity, even a moment of not experiencing his connection with Krishna makes a devotee feel like a fish out of water. Furthermore, he is not content with the understanding that Krishna is taking care of him and fulfilling all his needs, but becomes increasingly eager to serve Krishna and to know Him and connect to Him more intimately. And the more one tries to approach closer to Krishna, the more one realizes how infinitely great Krishna is, and this naturally makes the devotee feel more humble and more dependent. In his humility he feels Krishna is still far beyond his reach and becomes more eager to approach Him. These are the transcendental feelings which makes a devotee always hanker for Krishna and never take Him for granted, even while being fully confident of Krishna’s all-merciful nature — just as Grandfather Bhishmadev was humbly feeling that he may not get another opportunity to see Krishna face-to-face even though he was sure to go back to Godhead!
