Becoming Available to Grace

by Vanessa Ruedeman

~When the rain clouds come, take shelter in Krishna~

My name is Vanessa, born and raised in Long Island New York. I came to my first kirtan 2 years ago, not knowing exactly what it was, but still knowing I just had to be there. Life had taken many turns up to that point in my life, and it seemed I was destined to suffer every heartbreak childhood had to offer. I had lost my mother, my family, and my home by the age of 12 and spent the decades of my 20s trying to fill the missing pieces of my heart with all the unhealthy things one tries to fill it with before turning to yoga, and eventually and unbeknownst to me at the time, to God.

One day I had one breakup too many, and just like that my heart cracked into pieces. It wasn’t the breakup or the person who left me specifically, but the last drop in that proverbial bucket that had been waiting to tip over. It felt like falling into an endless pit of despair, a perpetual Alice hurtling down the looking glass, with no respite or end in sight. Realizing how much my emotional well-being seemed to be wrapped up into many aspects of material life I started asking myself, “Is there something more?”.

Enter my first Kirtan at the Bhakti Center. I sat in the most beautiful room I’ve ever seen, so neatly kept, with so many gorgeous and mysterious paintings around me. Comforted by the mere presence of other people around me, I sat on my cushion on the floor and wept openly. I let out all the pain from my heart and channeled it into something called the Maha Mantra. When I made my way home, my heart was still broken, but something miraculous was already starting to happen…. I felt the warm sensation of comfort starting to trickle its way back into my heart. In the two years that followed, I had begun an incredible journey into the world of Bhakti yoga. Kirtan has become such a central part of my practice, because it literally is a direct connection to God.

Kirtan is so many things. It’s an opportunity to connect with the divine, it’s a prayer, a mantra. It’s total surrender and a humble request to always be the Lord’s servant. It's a mood. It’s a physical manifestation of what’s in our hearts through the form of divine sound vibration. It's everything that the mind cannot even express. It’s crying out as loud as we can like a child crying for its mother, and knowing that no matter what, we’re never alone and always have a place we can call home.

As far as what I hope to gain, I can only hope that I'm able to take full advantage of every day and all its opportunities to love and serve the Lord.  And to cleanse my own heart from what I believe is the root of most human suffering: the illusion of separateness, from each other and from Krishna. I pray that I am in tune with his love and grace, and that I’m able to serve in return. I pray to remember to have gratitude for that painful day when my heart cracked open as the biggest blessing of my life.  It was through that suffering that I had found Krishna, and started to become available to his Grace.
Hare Krishna