Śrīla Bhakti Rakṣak Śrīdhar Dev-Goswāmī Mahārāj on the way to make calculations and progress through the gradation of theism.
“He is the owner and He is the enjoyer. I also belong to Him.” Only with this sort of conception can you come to your normal position. Otherwise, you are suffering from diseased knowledge, false knowledge. If you want proper adjustment with the Absolute, you are to set yourself in such a position.
You belong to Him, and everything belongs to Him; He is by Himself and He is for Himself. He is at the root of everything, and He is the future of everything. In this way, we are to adjust ourselves with the Absolute, and then we can hope to come nearer to Him. Otherwise, we are going far, far away for our selfish attainment.
No standard can measure Him in any respect. Even Mr Einstein has said that a thing is as it is and something more. What is the measurement of “and something more”? Whether He is growing or He is diminishing, that must also be added there. What it is, it is not that—some more qualification should be added there. You leave it in the infinite. What a thing is, it is not only that thing but something more must be added there. The possibility and prospect should be added to a particular thing when you are going to calculate: “This is the length, breadth, and height”, and then you are to add something more there for its possibility.
At every second, everything is changing by the supreme will. Everything is depending for its existence on the divine will, on the whole environment of the divine will. It is so uncertain. Nothing is certain here because it depends on His sweet will, so without calculating Him your calculation is not perfect. Whatever you go to calculate you must consider the supreme will at the back of everything. You are to add something more there because it is dependent on some other cause. The calculation of the sun, the planet, the brahmāṇḍa, and whatever it is, is all changing based on His sweet will, so no definite calculation can do.
Wandering through different stages of life according to our past karma, wherever we are placed, whatever qualification we have got, we are to surrender to the infinite, to the absolute will. That can take us nearer to His plane.
Here in India there are hedonists, or worshippers of many gods, but in the end the connection, the mantram, is, “Whatever I have done I am offering the result, the consequence, to Kṛṣṇa.” This Durga-pūjā, this pūjā, that pūjā, so many pūjās are done, but after finishing the whole ceremony there is one connection, one mantra: “Etat karma-phalam, whatever I have done, I am offering the result to Kṛṣṇa, Śrī Kṛṣṇāya samarpitam aṣṭu.” The link is there. According to my mental tendency, I am bound to do something, but the ṛṣis, the guardians of the spiritual society, have given the link there, “Whatever you do, connect it with Kṛṣṇa”: yat karoṣi yad aśnāsi yaj juhoṣi dadāsi yat (Bg 9.27).
Rāmānanda-saṁvād was begun with the basis of varṇāśram. Then next is Kṛṣṇe karmārpaṇ (offering the results of one’s activities to Kṛṣṇa), because indirectly varṇāśram-dharma is connected with Kṛṣṇa everywhere, but to feel direct connection with Kṛṣṇa with all the results, all the fruits, that is one step higher. Then, to give that up and to accept the conscious plane, dismissing the material energy, in jñāna-miśrā-bhakti (devotion mixed with knowledge) is higher. We should take to that: to have no faith in the material energy, but only the spiritual energy, which is more efficient and powerful. Samaḥ sarveṣu bhūteṣu: placed in such a plane of spiritual substance, we will feel, “I am spirit, I am nothing to do with matter. I am brahma, I am chetan, I am conscious, and my necessity with the material energy is nil. I won’t be attendant of either material acquisition or loss; I won’t be affected by the loss and gain of the material plane.”
“Mad bhaktiṁ labhate parām: from that basis, one is really eligible to search after Me.” When the charm of material acquisition disappears from one’s heart totally, one has a better position. But Mahāprabhu says, “Eho bāhya: this is also a lower conception. Go higher, deeper. This is also superficial. At the stage of Mad bhaktiṁ labhate parām, one has not attained any devotion or attraction and is only independent of material loss or gain. Withdrawal from the negative side does not mean that one has attained some position in the positive world, so, “Eho bāhya: this is also superficial. Go further.”
Then Rāmānanda Rāy came with jñāna-śūnya-bhakti. Wherever one may be posted, in whatever shade of life one may be posted, if one is seen to have some taste for Kṛṣṇa-kathā, for the tidings, the narration, about the līlā of Kṛṣṇa, if the story of Kṛṣṇa is very pleasing to one’s heart, then Mahāprabhu says, “Eho haya, āge kaha āra: here you are. Now I admit: when taste for Kṛṣṇa-kathā is to be traced in any jīva, it is surely a positive link, independent of their external position. Wherever or whatever one may be, even a beast like Hanumān or Garuda, if the taste for Kṛṣṇa is to be traced in one’s heart, then here it is begun. Then go further.”
Source
Spoken 20 January 1982