Words of a saint:"A bhakta is like a pricking thorn in Lord's feet. Bhakti is not a path strewn by roses but

Question

one covered by thorns" How do you understand this?

Hare Krisna these are the words of a saint so pls try to undrestand them.they have a deep meaning. wat saint says is always true so try to resolve rather than contradict. And yes ofcourse I appreciate ur faith and devotion to ur Guru but all Guru make things easier for us sinful people.

Answer 1

Kaami Krodhi Lalchi...In se Bhakti na hoye

Bhakti karey koi soorma...jaati baran kul khoye

कामी क्रोधी, लालची, इन से भक्ति ना होये
भक्ति करे कोइ सूरमा, जाति, बरन, कुल खोये
(कबीर)

Lustful, angry and greedy...cant go on path of Bhakti
Bhakti is done by Braves, who dont care for caste creed and color (of skin)

A pricking thorn?/ well do you think God is comfortable by not caring about bhaktas ? HE has to care for us more..than we care for him... so if HE doesn't care.. we are like thorns in his feet...reminding him of our presence

Answer 2

Very true. A bhakta is person who has surrendered everything to God. Gods duty is to enhance him to enlightment. He has to change him from being a buddu(fool) to a Buddha(Enlightned). This task is not easy it is like a father who beats and forces his children to go to school though he misses his childrens company the whole day. For the child its a cruel thing. Similarly God has to enhance his dear baktha to enligtment. In that way Baktha is really a thorn at lords feet.

Generally all feel a bhakthi jogi is enjoying everything, not bothered of karma or jhana. But the fact is Lord Narayana tests his bhaktha more than ever, than any other. He takes everything that is dear to his bhaktha to draw attention wholly towards Him.He make bhaktha to realize that his world is only Narayana. Even if the sligtest ego or wrong is done Lord corrects that.(refer the story "Talks between Krishna and Rukhmani" in Krshna"The supreme personalty of Godhead")
Hence only if the devotee is steadfast in the path of bhakthi its a path of roses else its a path strewn by thorns.

Answer 3

Path of bhakta is is a path of courage. Bhakta burns his identity and merges in God.

It is eternal love of bhakta for his/her beloved God. For its sake he/she sacrifices everything.

Though it seems to be a path of thorns for worldly minded. Bhakta's in single minded devotion engrossed in the eternal love so joyful, donot even feel the pain.

Answer 4

I am not here to contradict anyone rather i am putting forward whta i have understood from your question with no offense to any Guru or person.
But rather if someone is claiming to be saint must be able to prove his guru parampara ie. you should be able to trace his link ultimately to Krsna,ours links to Krsna is through Brahma Gaudiya Madhava sampradaya and this sampradaya is directly linked to Krsna as adi guru.So we have to be careful about the source of our knowldege otherwise we will not reach the right destination & end up somewhere else.
Krsna Himself declares that this Knowledge should be taken in parampara in Gita Chapter 4.2 Transcendental Knowledge

evaà paramparä-präptam
imam räjarsayo viduh
sa käleneha mahatä
yogo nastah parantapa

TRANSLATION
This supreme science was thus received through the chain of disciplic succession, and the saintly kings understood it in that way. But in course of time the succession was broken, and therefore the science as it is appears to be lost.

So a person not in guru parampara will twist & turn his intepretation to such as extent that the whole meaning is lost and instead of bhakti to Krsna bhukti or material enjoyment appears and we will fall down from path of dharma and progress towards path of adharma.
So the very first thing we have to find out from our guru whether he is in which parampara today some bogus people have gone to extent of calling themselves as Bhagavan what to speak of being a self style bogus Guru and cheating the people in the name of religion & making a lot of donation money in the bargain in this kaliyuga just like Ravana disguised himself as a sadhu & asked Sita to cross the laxman-rekha and kidnapped Mother Sita to Lanka so we are going to be facing the same situation if we dont watch out
So we have to choose between a real guru as explained in Gita & who will show us the right path or some other guru who will make us fall into the ditch by going according to what we want and change everything to suit our whims & fancies.

I am sorry if i am being too heavy on this point as I have been cheated many times by so many bogus Gurus until I came to the lotus feet of Sri Guru His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada who showed me the actual path and without any compromises on the true path . A guru is heavy as his job is the most toughest to take us out of maya.Just like the story i mentioned below.

My question is why will anyone take to the path of bhakti if he does not become favourable to God or vice versa unless there is some reward nobody will do any activity,in this case the Lord removes all thorns from the path of bhakti of His devotee but sometimes a bhakta can become a thorn by acting in a immatured manner or offenses to Lord's other devotees then he can become part of the problem and not part of solution in bhakti which itself is a solution to all our problems.

A suddha or pure bhakta or devotee is never a hurting thorn to Lord's feet but in fact a devotee is more dear to Lord Himself than anything else in this world but bhakti is tough as maya will lay a trap for us always to test our surrender to Krishna but the good news is that Krishna will always protect His sincere devotee and will guide the devotee thru the agency of Guru,Sadhu & shastra and sometimes He will personally guide as paramatma in the heart as He has already declared that His devotee will never perish at the hands of maya,infact maya creates difficulties to make us more determined to serve Krishna in fact Lord loves His devotee who always gets up after a fall down back to devotional service because Krishna sees the effort and the quality & not quantity of bhakti

So Krishna will provide the strength to do bhakti & not that we can do bhakti on our own strength as we have no strength at all ,even the determination will come from Lord & not any other source,this will come from following Guru,Sadhu & shastra and most important sadhu sangha

Once a handicapped boy who had no left hand went to see a wrestling match with his parents & he was very inspired by the wrestling match so he asked his parents that he also want to be a great wrestler & they took him to a wrestling teacher who said he will teach the boy despite his handicap.
The teacher taught the boy only one technique and made him practise for months and the boy was not very happy & he went to the teacher why teacher teaching him only one technique as there are so many other techniques to learn ,the teacher said you just learn this technique only so the boy practised for 6 years after which the teacher asked him to go for the championship match and the boy even though had only one hand to fight obeyed his Guru's order and fought very well with other wrestlers and won the preliminary matches much to everyones amazements and then he won the semifinals and the most tough was finals but he won the championship title to his amazement and his parents too.
he went & asked his teacher why this happened ? how he could defeat everyone in wrestling match ,his guru answered that this was due to two reasons:

first reason was that Guru taught him the most difficult technique which nobody will ever think of trying since it was too difficult

second reason was the only way to defeat the technique was through the left hand so the boy could not be defeated as he had no left hand

so the moral of the story is that Srila Prabhupada has taught us the most difficult technique which becomes easy by Srila Prabhupadas instructions and daily practise and by this single technique we can conquer maya and when we go back to the spirtual world Goloka Vrndavana we apply just this technique eternally and we will always be the winners eternally whether we go to hell or heaven we have the most powerful technique.

For this we should be eternally greatful to Srila Prabhupada & all previous acaryas who has taught us this single technique to conquer this world in just one single move in one lifetime and just by reading & applying the instructions of our great Jagad Guru Srila Prabhupada's books