Krishna is Present With Us At Every Moment

This is an excerpt from a lecture that HH Radhanath Swami gave. I found this to be so beautiful and relevant that I wanted to share it. You can find the complete lecture transcription at www.radhanathmaharaj.net/node/5

So we find here, Gajendra in his condition has complete faith. He’s not offering a prayer that "Maybe the Lord will come, I hope He comes, I hope He hears me, I hope He exists." Have any of you chanted with that frame of mind? You chant in a very very dangerous situation. We’re chanting the Holy Names and we may be thinking, "I hope Krishna exists, I really need Him and I hope He hears me and I hope He reciprocates." In other words we are practicing bhakti but we don’t have complete shraddha, nista. Nista means very, very deep and strong faith. This is preliminary to bhava or to love awakening within our hearts. We have to have very strong foundational faith in whatever we do. When we’re making a garland, we have such faith that Krishna at this very moment is accepting my service or we’re sitting in Bhagavatam class, when we’re chanting our rounds, when we’re doing kirtana, when we’re sweeping the floor or washing the walls or whatever service we’re doing, management or book distribution or taking care of our child or our parents or studying in school with a spiritual purpose. Whatever service we may be doing it’s important that we have complete faith that here and now at this very moment, Krishna is present. Present in my heart, present in between every atom, present in the effulgence of Brahman, present in the moon and in the sun, present watching, hearing, responding, accepting my efforts and if I’m doing it properly, Krishna at this very moment is pleased with me. That is bhakti. Not that, "I’ll please Krishna tomorrow, today there's just some other things I have to deal with in my mind." Tomorrow never comes in that sense.