Why We Are Not God, Part 3 - March 3, 2015

This is part three of a three-part series of talks given at the ISKCON of DC Sunday Open House. This three-talk-series will examine the human search for full self-realization as a progression—if it achieves fulfillment—through three stages or platform. In this third talk, we will discuss bhakti. By the intervention of God and God's devotees, a seeker may rise to the highest state of spiritual realization, called bhakti. Understanding that mere negation can transport one only to the outer border of transcendence, one can embark on the next stage of complete spiritual restoration by attaining of one's own eternal, spiritual individuality as part and parcel of, and joyous servant to, the Supreme Spiritual Being, Krsna. In this relationship, liberation is experience not merely as the absence of suffering, but as endless, ever-increasing, variegated spiritual bliss. Even the material world—rejected in jnana —returns in bhakti, unveiled by illusion, as the Lord's own handiwork and residence, and thus, as full of joy.