What is the greatest helper and the greatest obstacle to attaining love?

An intimate conversation with Pujya Shri Hit Premanand Govind Sharan Ji Maharaj in Shri Hit Radha Keli Kunj, Vrindavan. Sadhaks bring their questions about their life and sadhana, and Maharaj Ji resolves them.

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Sumit Patel ji from Madhya Pradesh: Hello, Radhe-Radhe Maharaj ji, Jai Sitaram Maharaj ji, Maharaj ji. For attaining the love of the Lord, what is the greatest helper and the greatest obstacle?

The greatest helper is the mahatma who loves the Lord. mahasangas durlabho agamyo amoghas
Association with the great is rare, unreachable and unfailing. If we do not get the company of great souls, love for the Lord cannot happen at all. Until today, anyone who has received love for the Lord has received it through great souls. Anyone who has progressed even a little in the spiritual path has received the company of some saint.

Without a mahatma who loves the Lord, love cannot arise. Take Uddhav ji. He was the Lord's companion, the Lord's friend, the Lord's minister, and Brihaspati's disciple, a supremely wise Uddhav ji. Yet he did not know the Lord's love. When he received the dust of the feet of the loving gopis on his head, and came to Vrindavan and saw their tears, all his knowledge seemed insipid to him. He said: may I become a creeper or a herb of Vrindavan, so that the dust of these Braj gopis' feet falls on my head, and I too become a lover. So without the company of mahatmas who love the Lord, love does not happen.

The greatest obstacle is described by Devarshi Narad ji:
kastarti kastarti mayam
Who crosses over maya? Who crosses over?

yo sangajti yo mahanubhav sevte
One who renounces bad company and serves the great souls.

Whoever associates with great souls, and renounces bad company, crosses over. Our way of seeing must not be in bad company. Our way of speaking must not be in bad company. Our thoughts must not be in bad company. Our conduct must not be in bad company. If we get the company of great souls now, love will be attained.

Whoever falls into bad company, their intelligence is ruined and their cleverness becomes base.
yah ko kusangti paye nasha rahe nich mte chaturi
The influence of bad company is very strong. Whatever we see, if it is impure and bad, its influence will fall on us. Look, the mahatma Saubhari ji wanted to bhajan undisturbed in the Yamuna, so he stopped the water and did bhajan. But when he saw a fish mating, he got married fifty times. One scene corrupted Ajamil. He had gone to the forest to bring wood for his father's yagya. There he saw a courtesan and a libertine man, and as soon as he saw that scene, madness took over his mind.

He abandoned all dharma and began to live with the courtesan, given to her company. He gave away all his wealth. One scene destroyed him. Hearing dirty talk through the sense of hearing, hearing wrong gossip, keeping wrong thoughts in the mind, wrong actions: this is the greatest destroyer of bhakti. Bad company is everything, and satsang, the company of mahatmas who love the Lord, grants love.

Narad ji's yo mahanubhav sevte, one who serves the great souls. yo sang tejti, one who renounces other satsangs. What falls under bad company, yo nirmamo bhavti, one who keeps no attachment anywhere, except attachment to the lotus feet of the Lord alone. Such a person crosses this ocean of worldly existence and attains love for the Lord. To attain love for the Lord, two things are firm: the company of great souls. And the meaning of their company is to walk on the path they have shown. Do naam jap, do leela and guna gaan, do Thakur seva, act in such a way and do not act in such a way. This will be counted as their company.

Company does not mean merely sitting nearby. It means accepting their words and renouncing bad company. What is bad company? The thing, person or place through whose association our mind becomes restless and goes to pleasures, and forgets the remembrance of the Lord. This is called bad company. And what is satsang? That through whose association our mind's nature of going towards the world turns and starts going towards the Lord, and our bad habits begin to fall away. Know that the company of a mahatma has happened. Satsang means renouncing bad company and walking on the path of the Lord. For example, many who hear satsang give up alcohol, meat and dirty conduct, and then they say: it has been six months since we gave them up.

We heard satsang, and just the words of satsang that fell on our ears will transform us. But the influence of bad company is even greater, because we have not been doing satsang since birth after birth. We have been doing bad company. So the habit of bad company takes effect very quickly. Six months of satsang and six hours of bad company. Therefore, renouncing bad company and consuming satsang will surely bring love for the Lord.

Anuj Sharma ji from Delhi. Radhe Radhe, Radhe-Radhe Maharaj ji, Maharaj ji. What are chetana and sadhana?

Look, chaitanya is the nature of the Self, and to know that is called sadhana. The direct meaning of sadhana is to sadh, to accomplish. Sadh means that desire is no longer left. The state of desirelessness is the state of the soul.

jahi na chahia kabuhu kachu tumh san sahaj sanehu.
bashu nirantar tasu man so raur nij gehu ॥
May you dwell constantly in the heart of one who never desires anything and whose love for you is natural. That heart is your own home.

What is the form of attaining the Lord? brahmabhut prasannatma na shochti na kankshati.
One who has become one with Brahman, whose self is serene, neither grieves nor desires. Neither any desire nor any worry should remain, only the Lord, only the Self. So the purpose of sadhana is to walk on the means of attaining the Lord that have been described, and chetana, consciousness, means the Ishwar-ansh jeev, the imperishable, conscious, pure, natural..

The conscious being described as the treasure of happiness is the soul, the atma. The means prescribed to attain it are called sadhana, and the plain meaning of sadhana is that no desire for worldly enjoyment remains. As long as there is desire, there is an obstacle to sadhana.

sakal kal kamna hin je Ram bhagat ras leen
Those who are free of all desires, and absorbed in the essence of devotion to Ram.

When no desire remains, when there is no wish at all, one attains one's own conscious form. All desires belong to the body. They do not belong to the form of the self, the atma. When attachment to the body ends, one becomes free of desire. This is the very meaning of sadhana.

Sadhana is not a wish. People say, "my great sadh has been fulfilled," meaning a desire has been fulfilled. Sadhana is longing: the longing that no other desire remains. Sadhana is the longing for the attainment of the Lord, and the end of the longing for worldly enjoyments. This is what is called sadhana.

Taming one's senses and taming one's mind, and engaging the senses and mind in the Lord, is what is called sadhana. When no desire remains in the heart, that is called sadhana. Being filled with longing for the Lord is sadhana.

When will the Lord come?

When will I drown in the remembrance of the Lord? When will I weep for the Lord? This is what is called sadhana.

This text is taken from the video's auto-generated subtitles, so it may contain word errors. For authentic words, please listen to the video itself.

Original video: Bhajan Marg (YouTube)