Swami Mukundananda Audio Podcast JKYog.org

Shree Krishna is the biggest rasik. He is called Rasik Shiromani. Moreover, He is considered rasik in two ways- He grants ras to the devotees and He experiences the ras from His devotees. But why does God need ras from us? The reason is, the ras that He gets from Himself is called Swaroopanand and the ras which He grants devotees is called Swaroop-shaktya-anand, which is more sweeter.

The specialty of the Divine ras is, firstly, it is infinite in extent. Secondly, once received it will always remain. Once we get the Divine ras, it will remain with us forever. After that there will not be any discontentment. But even in the Divine realm, there are many verities. Like, there is the bliss of formless aspect of the God and then there is the bliss of the personal form of God. In it also there are many variations. List for more.

What is this ras? To relish bliss is ras. It is the essence of happiness. The material ras can be divided into three categories. Tamasic (mode of ignorance) ras is highly destructive to the soul. It throws a person to the deep darkness. Rajasik (mode of passion) ras, though higher in experience than Tamasic, is also not at all satisfying to the soul. In fact it is very disturbing. Rajasik ras is like the itching sensation, the more you scratch more it comes back. Satvik (mode of goodness) ras is much higher than these two and is elevating to the soul but not yet liberating, it cannot satisfy the soul. Why? listen to get the answer.

God is not impressed by anything-neither knowledge nor austerity. He is only impressed by love. Swami Mukundananda in this episode cites example of Sage Balmiki, Dhruv, Gajendra the elephant, Kubja, Sudama and Ugrasen and says that they neither had good conduct, nor age, or education, or beauty, or wealth or chivalry, still God Graced them and accepted them. Swamiji quotes from scriptures and says, "God can be impressed by only one thing and that is love."

God is under the influence of love and He has this rule- as much as you love me, that much I will also love you. If you say-"O God! you do not have any personality, you are just light", God will say, "Alright, I will meet you as light." If you say-"No God, I am not satisfied with light, I want to see you and I want to witness your Divine pastimes, and tie you up with a rope, and take care of you like mother Yashoda", God will say, "Alright, then I am your child."
God has this rule that whichever soul loves him at whatever time to whatever extend in whichever bhav; God will love the soul back at the same time to same extend with the same bhav.
In this episode, Swami Mukundananda explains beautifully this law of God with examples and quotes from the scriptures.

Have faith that you will attain the goal of God-realization. This faith comes from the fact that He (God) is the savior of the destitute. One of the symptoms of devotion is the firm faith, "Yes! I will reach there."

Listen to this audio podcast from Swami Mukundananda to find more on the importance of faith in devotion. He also share an interesting story of Shree Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and his disciple.