These modern times demand a lot from us. Not every soul has the possibility to dedicate the whole day exclusively for all the different items of sadhana-bhakti, like chanting, hearing, reading, worshiping and so on.

Most of us are having regular jobs where we need to be at our best.
Many are in a relationship, many have kids, many have other “wordly” responsibilities.

So, are we hopelessly lost? Are we “damned” to forever remain in “maya”,
not being able to dedicate our whole life for the Divine Couple, Sri Sri Radha Krishna?
Can only those living in monasteries achieve the highest goal?
Living in total seclusion, fully apart from this material world?

The answer shines a bright light into our lives:
No. The mercy of Sri Caitanya Mahaprabhu is something extremely precious and extremely powerful.
Everyone can dive deep into this wonderful wave of prema.

It is not and has never been a matter of “outer” circumstances. It is and has always been a matter of consciousness.

Spiritual life means what? We are doing sadhana-bhakti every morning for 1 – 3 hours, and then we fall in “maya” and are “disconnected”?
If we decide to actually do this, then yes, we are really deprived of the mercy of Sriman Mahaprabhu.

We certainly should do our best to be able to engage in our sadhana-bhakti in the morning, but only with one goal:
To stay connected to spiritual life the WHOLE day.
Like plugging our batteries into the electricity-current.
We are then fully charged for the whole day.

But how to see our regular, daily material life in the context of spirituality?
In my humble case, I am a teacher at school and every morning I am off to work after a certain amount of time used for my daily bhajan.
So I have to teach young kids stuff for about 6 hours and of course, I am not teaching them bhakti-yoga.
So how can my daily activity still be seen in a spiritual light?

It all depends on our consciousness. How do we actually perceive “the world”?
It is not like this: Here is spiritual life and over there is material life.
It is not black and white.
It is about how I perceive the material world and how I deal with it.

Do I see my children as just mere bodies waiting to be filled with knowledge or do I see them as spiritual souls at the beginning of their young lives?
Do I see myself as “the teacher” or do I see myself as their servant, helping them “receiving” knowledge?
It is a constant form of meditation and of course I humbly admit that I am not always capable of doing my job with this “vision” or in this consciousness.
But to always remind oneself and to always have this perception as an underlying layer of consciousness helps a lot.

We need to see all living beings as parts of Krishna. We are allowed to recognize Him in all living beings.
When we start to learn to see “life” like this, Krishna will be very pleased.

Everything we do can be seen in a spiritual light. My Gurudeva told me once that I should see him in all living beings,
trying to teach me something every day.
Again, I admit, it is not so easy and it needs a steady consciousness.
Therefore it is of utmost importance to always “charge our batteries”in the early morning.
Then it is very easy to remember that everything is connected to spiritual life.

Sriman Mahaprabhu came to give us the highest love possible: the love of the maidservants of Srimati Radhika.
As manjaris, we should always think that we are together with Radhika, even in the midst of so-called mundane activities.

One time a great sadhu was seen walking to a water faucet where he filled a container with water.
“You all think that here is an old man, getting some water. But actually, I am fetching water for my Swamini Radhika.”

So we can see that all is dependent on our inner consciousness.
How deep are we in bodily consciousness?
How deep are we in soul-consciousness?

Trying to become manjaris of Srimati Radhika, we start to meditate on our manjari form.
We start to think about what actually happens “there”?
What is our role “there”? We start reading about the lilas of the Divine Couple,
imagining our own spiritual self as being right there with Them.

But how to “reconcile” these high aspirations with our regular daily life? When we are working in our jobs?
I am not able to see my work-space as a nikunja of Vraja and I can´t see my work-people as fellow manjaris,
serving the Divine Couple. And this is fully alright.
To reconcile this seemingly big gap between our “mediations” and our “daily life”, we need to first develop our inner bhakti.
Step by step we will progress under the guidance of our Gurudeva and we will imbue slowly the feelings of the eternal manjaris of Radhika.
They are our role models and as we progress and as our inner emotions become more and more similar to theirs, we can start to act accordingly.
We can then REALLY see our daily life as fully spiritual. Our actions will be done with love.

What actually is the glory of manjari-bhava? What is the excellence of that precious consciousness?

Humility.

We follow our Gurudeva and we learn to become humble.
The love of the manjaris is the most brilliant and SELFLESS love. They want NOTHING for themselves. They only want to give.
This material world is like a training ground. Here we can try to practice this love.
Here we can try to be in their mood: to always give and to expect nothing in return.
We can learn to forget our ego-bhava. We can see ourselves as servants of EVERYONE.
Love-in-action will be our motto.
Always being comforted in the knowing, that my Gurudeva and my Swamini are my only shelter.
May the waves of the ocean of this world be as high as ever,
I will always be sure that I am loved by my Gurudeva and by my Swamini.

If we can not live such a love in this world here, how can we expect to enter the world of Sri Sri Radha and Krishna?
We can prepare ourselves here. Everyday.
At all moments we can choose if we want to be in a spiritual consciousness or
if we want to be the enjoyers.

But we have to be very honest about where we stand, about what we can actually manage to do.
Nothing will happen by brute force.
All should develop naturally.
Of course, everyone still has his or her “little pleasures” here in “this world”, and of course we need also some “ego-time”,
but if we are honest, authentic and true to ourselves, we can still and we surely will progress on the path of bhakti.

We always have to know one single thing:
EVERYTHING happens by mercy.
We always should pray for the mercy of Sri Gurudeva and the Vaishnavas and actually everyone else..
We always should try to not offend anyone, also in our “daily life”.

Then the mercy will flow. Always.
Sometimes there are so-called “set-backs” or little “time-outs”, but we should always have the goal in front of our eyes:

Krishna-prema, in the mood of Radhika´s maidservants.