How Much Do You Want It?

This seems to be a recurring theme in my life. Krsna is constantly asking me "how much do you really want this?" "This" can refer to anything, to an intense desire, to a prayer or a just a fleeting "that would be nice..."

I feel very fortunate that Krsna is testing how much "I want" in Sridham Mayapur. It's true what they say...Mahaprabhu is very, very, very, very, very merciful with purifying you in Mayapur. It's actually very sweet and almost imperceptible at times. It's not the tough love that Srimati Radharani can sometimes give you in Vrndavana, which of course is wonderful in it's own unique and beautiful way as is Srimati Radharani. :D But here, Mahaprabhu, in the mood of Radharani, just melts away any stone-hearted blocks you may have.

So yesterday was ekadasi and I had a super intense desire to go to the Jagannath Mandir. So after our meeting with Rama devi with respect to the pushya abhishek that's happening here this weekend (YAY!), my friend Apurva and I ran to the gate to hail a rikshaw. It was just starting to drizzle a little bit but we thought nothing of it as for almost 2 months now there has been no rain here in Mayapur. As we continued along our bumpy path it started to rain harder and harder until it was so heavy that the rikshaw driver stopped off to the side to wait it out. So we waited and waited for at least ten minutes and every second we could feel, "Jagannath we want to come see you!!!! Please let us come. Please let us come. Please let us get your darshan." But the rain just kept coming down even harder!

So Apurva tried to arrange for a taxi to come pick us up from Mayapur but due to English-Bengali language barriers he never came! LOL! But Jagannath is so merciful and even though the rain didn't completely stop the rikshaw driver got back on and pedaled us to Jagannath. Next came the huge mud puddle in front of the Jagannath Mandir gate. Some thoughtful devotee had put some bricks to step on, but unfortunately it didn't help and both of us stepped almost knee deep into the muddy water! LOL! So we finally got through and there was Jagannath with a huge smile on his face and to me it seemed like he was laughing at us saying, "So? You came. :D I'm here for you." It's probably one of the sweetest darshans I have ever experienced in my life.

There's nothing that makes you value something like endeavoring and praying like anything to get it. To some small degree I can somewhat glimpse why Krsna keeps testing us over and over asking, "Do you really want me? Are you sure you don't want this last bit of maya?" So determination and prayer are the two ingredients to success. And how sweet is that goal? Well in this case it was the extremely sweet, beautiful, smiling face of Jagannath.