Chanting from our heart, with deep feeling, we must take shelter of the holy name, like a little baby bird that is hungry waiting for his mother to feed him. He is helpless, can’t go anywhere and is so dependent upon her.
If you are not hungry, you can’t really digest food very well. In order to enjoy food and digest it, you need hunger. That is the principle. In order to really digest the holy name and for it to penetrate our heart and transform the soul, we need to have that greed, that hunger. That means we have to feel a sense of need. Queen Kunti prayed
janmaisvarya-sruta-sribhir / edhamana-madah puman
naivarhaty abhidhatum vai / tvam akincana-gocaram
“My Lord, Your Lordship can easiiy be approached, but oniy by those who are materially exhausted. One who is on the path of material progress, trying to improve himself with respectable parentage, great opulence, high education, and bodily beauty, cannot approach You with sincere feeiing.”
She was a hungry lady spiritually. When you have material opulence you can become complacent spiritually. You don’t cry out the name with feeling. When you feel in the heart that nothing is mine, I need God – that is the impoverishment she is talking about.
His Holiness Radhanath Swami
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