Question to Radhanath Swami: How to attain love for God as soon as possible?
Radhanath Swami : That is a very nice question.
To the degree we make that ideal a priority in life, to that degree we realize it quickly. If we make it a first priority in life then we will make very rapid advancement. If we make it a second or third priority in life then we will make very gradual advancement.
Now, making a priority does not necessarily mean giving up everything else. It means giving up separate motives. Lord Krishna told Arjuna, “You should surrender unto Me”. But Arjuna was a married man. He was married to Draupadi and Subhadra, and he had eight children , and even grand children. He was a warrior. After hearing Bhagavad-Gita from Krishna he did not become a sannyasi, a person in the renounced order. He performed his duty of fighting because he was a military man, and he continued to maintain his family. But now he did all these in a spirit of service rather than a spirit of greed and exploitation. He did it as an expression of his love for God.
Arjuna made love for Krishna and surrender to Krishna the priority in his life. That means he rightly oriented his occupation, his domestic situation. He did not renounce it. But he renounced greed, he renounced envy, he renounced pride, and he renounced lust. With a pure state of consciousness, with a desire to serve, he aspired for the ideal of love of God through the situation he was in.
So to develop love for God, you do not have to give up school; you do not have to give up family. You just have to make the purpose behind these responsibilities one with the purpose of loving God. And that becomes natural when we are in association with people who are already doing that.
