By Rsi Kumar Dasa

There is a beautiful pastime of Lord Krishna and Rukmini which amply demonstrates the ideal relationship between a husband and wife and the mood of surrender which is so essential for progress of devotional life.

Once Krishna joked with his dearmost queen Rukmini just to tease her and see her angry mood.  He asked her why she chose to marry Him instead of all other strong princes like Sisupala.  He also said that He is inferior to Sisupala and thought Himself unfit to be Rukmini’s husband.  Though he had joked about this to see her reaction, Rukmini, instead of getting angry, took is very seriously – so much that She could not bear the thought of separation from Her Dearmost Lord Krishna and She fainted and fell to the ground

Lord Krishna then consoled Her and said, “My dear honored wife , although I have thousands of wives ,I do not think that any one of them love me more than you.  The practical proof of your Extraordinary position is that YOU had Never Seen Me before your marriage; you had simply heard about me and still your faith in Me was so fixed up that even in the presence of so many qualified, rich and beautiful men of the royal order, you did not select any one of them as your husband, but insisted on having Me as your husband.  My dear Rukmini, such great and exalted love for Me will always remain within My soul.  As far as I am concerned , it is not within My power to repay you for your unalloyed devotion to Me.”

If we can learn from this pastime and extend the same faith and love to our dear spiritual master Srila Prabhupada, we become the most successful human beings on this planet.  Many people say that it is important to have personally seen/met and heard from Srila Prabhupada or you cannot establish a personal relationship with him other than through those who were directly touched by him.  But the fact is there are many disciples of Srila Prabhupada who have not even seen him – leave alone meet – and yet, they are adhering to his instructions, striving to please him, loving Srila Prabhupada so much, that they have fully surrendered to his order.  On the other hand there may be many of them who have seen Srila Prabhupada but have not taken his instructions seriously and have disregarded his position as an acarya.  They have either disobeyed him or have become complacent.

Mother Rukmini never saw Krishna; yet She sold Herself to Him fully.  If we can sell ourselves to the greatest Krishna seller – Srila Prabhupada – then there is no end to the rains of mercy from both Krishna and His pure devotee.

All glories to Srila Prabhupada!