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Even going to Jaipur—it was like one of those bumpy roads that we went on yesterday, but for the whole way. Now it’s nicer, but it still takes an extra eight hours to go to Karaulī.
But going to see Madana-mohana there is a heartfelt experience—to see the devotees and how they love that Deity. Madana-mohana represents attraction to the spiritual world; this is sambandha-jñāna. In many philosophical systems, there is no conception of attraction. There is only renunciation. Dry renunciation of the material world means: "Because I’ve been victimized again and again by my senses and by the sense objects, I decide that I will cultivate detachment and become free from the tyranny of my senses."
Some take it a step further and they say, "Let me have no senses. Let me become nothing." In the concept of Nirvāṇa, as given by some, there is a candle flame; if you blow it out, then there is no candle flame. The idea is that the experience we’re having now in this world—that I’m conscious, I’m aware, I love, I hate, I have emotions—is all the process of material nature. It’s happenstance. And by my meditation, I’ll come to a point of realizing that I’m not that awareness. I’m not anything. I’m not part of the process; I’m not the process; there is no process. There isn't anything, and I’ll achieve nothingness.
But even that nomenclature is the problem. Consciousness is something you cannot deny, because as soon as you deny, it is an act of consciousness. Therefore, Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavad-gītā says (BG 3.5):
na hi kaścit kṣaṇam api
jātu tiṣṭhaty akarma-kṛt
kāryate hy avaśaḥ karma
sarvaḥ prakṛti-jair guṇaiḥ
The soul is always active. We want something, and especially, we want love. So Madana-mohana brings the clarion call to us: "I am your beloved. Here, you can become attracted, and you don’t have to fear the loss of our relationship."
Prabhupāda tells about how, when we approach Kṛṣṇa—in Deity worship, the arcana process—it is so sweet and personal that sometimes the servitor installs the Deity and worships in such a heartfelt way that the relationship is so "thick." He mentions in a purport that after that servitor passes away, the Deity performs the piṇḍa ceremony for His servitor out of love for the servant.
So, when we come to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we are not left with nothing, or we are not asked to recede into the void. As we say, "namas te sārasvate deve gaura-vāṇī-pracāriṇe"—we are hearing Gaura-vāṇī—"nirviśeṣa-śūnyavādi-pāścātya-deśa-tāriṇe." Śrīla Prabhupāda relieved us of that Where’s the entry place? It’s Madana-mohana.
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