All our relationships here, either as master and servant or as friend and friend or as parents and child or as husband and wife or as lover and the beloved, any relationship, whatever we see here, that is the perverted reflection of our eternal relationship with God.

Perverted Reflection

Megan Meier's parents have difficulty accepting her suicide at the age of 14.

A reflection of our eternal relationship with Krishna

Everyone in this material world, he's a servant. Nobody is master. One thinks that "I am the master," but he is actually servant. Suppose if you have got your family, if you are thinking that you are the master of your wife, of your children, of your servants, of your business, that is false. You are the servant of your wife, you are the servant of your children, you are the servant of your servants. That is your real position. Any case you take. The president, he is considered to be the master of your country, but actually he is the servant of your country. So if you go on analyzing that our position is always servant... So either we shall become the servant of illusion or we shall have to become the servant of God. But if we remain the servant of illusion, then our life is wasted. Everyone is servant of illusion. He's servant of nobody but servant of illusion. He is expecting some profit. For serving, he is expecting some profit, but that profit is transient and illusion. Therefore he is servant of illusion. And when a person becomes to his real senses, transcendental senses or jñanam, when he becomes actually the person in knowledge, then he becomes the servant of the reality. Because I am servant always, this way or that way.

So knowledge means: "Then why shall I serve the unreal illusion? Let me serve the reality. If my business is to serve and nothing to be...never to be master, always to serve, then why I shall serve the illusion? Let me serve the reality." That sense is called knowledge. So anashritah karma-phalam. Sannyasa, renounced order of life, means one who is in perfect knowledge, he can take sannyasa. Otherwise, if he takes all of a sudden the renounced order of life, he will create misery for himself and misery for others. In full knowledge, that sannyasa. So here, how that full knowledge is exhibited after sannyasa, that is explained here by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. What is that? Karyam [duty]. "It is my duty to become Krishna conscious and to serve the cause of Krishna. Oh, that is my duty. That is my real duty." When we come to this knowledge, then we become mahatma, or the great soul. Vasudevah sarvam iti sa mahatma sudurlabhah. You'll find in the Bhagavad-gita. Bahunam janmanam ante jñanavan mam prapadyate [Bg. 7.19]. "After many, many births, when a person, when a soul, is perfectly elevated to the platform of real knowledge, transcendental knowledge," then what does he do? "He surrenders unto Me," Krishna says. "He surrenders unto Me." Why? Vasudevah sarvam iti [Bg. 7.19], "You are everything, Vasudeva." Vasudeva means Krishna. This is Krishna consciousness. But Krishna says, "Such...," sa mahatma sudurlabhah, "such great soul is very scarce, rarely found." But any intelligent person, if he understands this philosophy, that "My ultimate goal of life is to surrender unto Krishna, why not surrender immediately? Why shall I wait?" Bahunam janmanam ante. "Why shall I wait for so many births?"

So that stage is called real sannyasa. Karyam. Karyam means "It is my duty." I am not forced, but voluntarily, out of love, transcendental love. Just like mother serves this child out of love. There is no question of salary or remuneration. The mother loves this child. Similarly, you can love the Supreme Lord in many ways. You can love the Supreme Lord as master, you can love the Supreme Lord as friend, you can love the Supreme Lord as child, you can love the Supreme Lord as your husband. Any way. There are five different rasas or humors, in which we are eternally related with the Supreme Lord. And when we are actually in the liberated stage of all knowledge, we can understand that "Our relationship with the Lord is in this way." That is called svarupa-siddhi. That is real self-realization. That is real self-realization. Everyone has an eternal relationship with the Lord, either in the conception of master and servant, or in the conception of friend and friend, or in the conception of parents and the child, or in the conception of husband and wife, or in the conception of paramour and lover, and the beloved. So these relationships are there eternally.

Now, the whole process of spiritual realization is to come to this stage, transcendental stage. This relationship with the Supreme Lord is pervertedly reflected in this material world. And therefore we have got this relationship here, master and servant. But because it is perverted, therefore that relationship is not master and servant. That relationship is with the money and the benefit. There is no love. There is no love. Here in this material world, the master and the servant, that relationship continues so long the master is able to pay the servant. As soon as the payment is stopped, the relationship of master and servant also stops. Therefore that is not eternal. Similarly, here also, there is relationship between friend and friend. But in slight difference of opinion the friendship breaks. The friend becomes enemy. Therefore it is perverted reflection. Similarly, the relationship between mother and son. A slight difference of opinion breaks the relationship, and the son becomes out of the relationship of mother, mother becomes out of... Every way. Husband and wife, a slight difference of opinion, there is divorce, separation. So no relationship here in this material world is actual. Always remember that all relationship in this material world is perverted reflection of that relationship which we have got eternally with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. It is simply reflected. Just like the sunshine. The sunshine is reflected in the glass, and that reflection comes to your, in my apartment. At six o'clock the sunshine comes from the western side... eastern side. So in the evening the sunshine cannot come from the eastern side. The sunshine comes from the western side, but it is coming because it is reflected through a glass in the opposite house. This is the idea of reflected. That reflection of the sunshine is not real, but it appears just like sunshine. Similarly, all our relationships here, either as master and servant or as friend and friend or as parents and child or as husband and wife or as lover and the beloved, any relationship, whatever we see here, that is the perverted reflection of our eternal relationship with God.