To live a life of bhakti is often conceived in terms of
living a life centered on God. That is certainly true.
The Bhagavad-gita (12.19) indicates that for exalted
devotees, Krishna is the home for their consciousness – he is the center of
their inner world, the point to which they return and the point around which
they orbit. Just as, say, one celestial object orbits around another – making
that object the center of its orbit, so too do we need to make God the center
of our life.
Everything we do, we connect with Krishna and we strive to
come closer to Krishna.
Additionally, we need to make Krishna the circumference of
our life too, That means that we don’t let our life cross the boundaries that
Krishna sets. Of course, just as different circles can have different
circumferences, so too can different people have different levels of capacities
to connect with Krishna.
In the Gita’s twelfth chapter, over a set of five verses
(12.08-12), Krishna outlines various circles at which we can practice bhakti,
staying connected with him at different levels.
If we claim that our life is centered on Krishna, but if we
don’t have him as our circumference, then that centering will largely remain a
matter of illusion.
Love always brings with it bonds and boundaries. When we
love someone, we choose to do the things that please our beloved and we avoid
the things that displease our beloved.
The same principle applies to our aspiration to love Krishna
too. If our claim to love him is genuine, then we need to work at regulating
our life according to his guidelines.
The more our life is centered on Krishna, the more we will
be able to expand the circumference for taking Krishna’s message to others. But
before we can consider extending Krishna’s grace to others, we need to first
ensure that we ourselves are well connected with Krishna. That requires
learning to live within the circumference of Krishna’s guidelines.
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