Welcome to the Purely Prabhupada channel. This video series is called “Reality distinguished from illusion for the welfare of all.” My name is Kamra devi dasi, and I am a disciple of His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada.
This is number twenty-four of the series. It is called “Religion vs Learning to Love God.”
The main teaching of Jesus was to learn to love the Lord with all one’s heart, soul, and mind. This is the way I learned the verse many years back, but the modern translations are a little different, that one should love the Lord thy God with all one’s heart, soul, and mind. In any event, to love God must be learned or relearned, as we have all but forgotten what is inherently most natural for us. Our spiritual master, Srila Prabhupada, also stated that the most important thing is to learn to love God, Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. To learn to love God requires guidance from one who is a lover of God. There is a process by which our dormant love of God is awakened. It is called “devotional service.” It is not a concocted process. It is scientific, it is outlined in the devotional literatures. Even in the beginning stages, it offers comfort and joy to a heart that has been essentially traumatized by an existence in this world that is far from the natural inclinations of the soul.
Religion, in its pure sense, refers to that process that realigns, or relinks, the soul with the Lord. But the term has devolved into something sectarian that values church attendance and its social life and tithing more than the honest depth of heart surrender that is required to reinstate ourselves in loving unity with God.
Religion in the modern world has mostly become just the first step in the materialistic cycle of religiousity, economic development, sense gratification, and then impersonal liberation. We go to the church or temple, from that practice comes economic development, from that monetary gain comes the potential for increased sense gratification, and when we have had enough, maybe we want to have it done with and be left in peace from the onslaughts of our materialistic endeavors. But this four stage process satisfies neither the individual soul nor God. It is not of a transcendental nature and offers no way out of this mundane world. It is dry and has no qualities of the eternality, bliss, and knowledge of engaging in the real process of learning to love the Lord. It contains no sense of getting to know and serve the intimately intriguing personality of the Supreme Lord, Sri Krsna.
The process of learning to love God is what Jesus preached. It is what our Srila Prabhupada preached. It is what they both showed to the world by their words and actions. It is what they were offering to us out of their love. It is why they came to this world of suffering, to give something that was not of this world, to lift us out so that we could be happy and then act to also offer that same saving grace to others.
To begin the process of learning to love God, please visit PurelyPrabhupada.com and study the transcendental literatures that are offered there. Please also accept the chanting of the Hare Krishna maha-mantra, or great mantra, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare, and become happy in your heart.
