This is not much talked about topic in spiritual circles. But this is the most relevant topic concerning spiritual growth in one’s life. There are a lot of Spiritual establishments that handle thousands and lakhs of devotees. However such Spiritual establishments will not have a deep impact on anyone’s life. One may only get introduced to spiritual concepts in such places and one may experience some relief from material pain; nothing more than this. The concept of spiritual transparency is experienced only in a “free-share” environment where there are no self or society created walls amongst individuals seeking the same spiritual goal.
The Spiritual transparency that is being talked about here is about the deepest dimension of human consciousness. Only devotees and aspirants who are “spiritually transparent” will experience that deep coolness and exhilaration of bhakti and spiritual practice which is the backbone of Krishna Bhajana. What is Spiritual transparency anyway? When one renounces one’s ego,self-esteem, prestige and honour at the feet of a God-realized spiritual master and when one experiences this relief from socially created material burden, we may say that the aspirant is spiritually transparent. We operate in the material world with ego, with prestige, self-esteem, self-image, social-image because this is the only means by which we can “live” in the society. Unconsciously though, this is our only conception. It is “prakriti” or nature that has established these concepts within us. These aspects belong to the “animal instinct” within each one of us. This is our way of defence to survive in Maya.
However when we decide to attain the Lord ; the Lord wants us back with all the innocence. He does not want us with ingredients fitted inside of us by Maya. Hence when He comes to us in the form of the Spiritual Master; He demands all these “mayic” defence mechanisms which are hindrances in Bhakti. The Lord only wants us to survive with “total dependence” on Him. In the highest mood of Raganuga ; He has reserved entry. Only rasikas , who like the Brajawasis know only Nandanandana are accepted. This means we need to surrender all our false-conceptions, our self-image and esteem; our so-called mayic defence mechanisms at the feet of Gurudeva. These mayic conceptions cannot be shed away through effort; but can be done away with, by surrender. When once we have surrendered our all at the feet of Gurudeva ; life presents many situations where there is a cross-checking of these mayic conceptions in the heart of the aspirant or devotee. The Lord presents multi-level experiences where He deliberately crushes the self-image,the esteem,the conception of “Me and My independence”. However this is only performed by the Lord , when the aspirant has truly surrendered. The act of removal of these deep-rooted “Me and my importance” consciousness from the heart of the devotee by the Lord may sometimes give one a little pain. However these minor surgeries are rendered by the Lord so that the jeeva becomes fearless and learns to depend completely on Guru and Gauranga. This does not mean that the jeeva will lose its entire value . The value system that Jeev Maya has introduced is useless in the spiritual world. The Lord infuses a new set of spiritual values that will multiply the spiritual value of a truly surrendered jeeva. Such an experience will teach the jeeva to view life in the right context and also give the jeeva an equal vision to view one and all.
Charan Pahari 