​Should devotees rigidly force people to take to Krishna consciousness?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
yes ma’am so question sometimes devotees are very rigid and adamant in having people to take up to Krishna consciousness how far is this to be approved yes this is our movement will go through various phases and this is how every religious movement goes through there is initially the vision the mission of conversion where the idea of conversion is if we consider a circle which is a rigid dividing line between insiders and outsiders so those who are following a particular principles according to a particular interpretation of those principles according to a particular application of those principles those who are doing special practices they are considered insiders and remaining people are considered outsiders and outsiders are somehow pulled and pushed and dragged to try to become insiders otherwise they are often scorned so it is best that this sort of thing it’s always going to happen in the initial stages but eventually as we mature as sattva guna comes more and more we recognize that the broad Vedic vision is not like a rigid division of insider and outsider rather raising consciousness of people which is our ultimate purpose that is to be envisioned as a set of concentric circles of expanding radii and different people will situate themselves at different situations with different locations within these concentric circles so there may be people who rigidly follow the principles of bhakti as given by Srila Prabhupada in terms of 16 rounds and 4 regulative principles but there may be others who chant a few rounds and who follow some of the principles but they are inclined they are favorable towards Krishna they have a culture of Krishna bhakti and they are ready to help in various ways so there may be people who are in general God conscious but they are not necessarily connected with any spiritual organization they are also congenial towards bhakti but they themselves don’t want to practice bhakti so we don’t have to alienate such people we have to recognize that even in the past when Satyuga was there not everyone was ready for the commitment required for going back to the spiritual world in one lifetime and the Vedic culture accommodates that that you can take this journey over many lifetimes also and there will be different people who will want to take up spiritual progress at different paces and we shouldn’t present spirituality as something like a digital logic 1 or 0, you follow this then you are going back to God if you are not following this, you are going to go to hell and we condemn them for that spiritual progress is more like analog ascension gradual heightening and different people will be at different levels so don’t disturb people’s minds rather engage them according to what level is comfortable for them without disturbing them so we should, in our interactions with people we need to present them the spiritual message in an appealing way and facilitate them in practicing that message and then how much they practice we have to give them freedom, if we try to impose they go away and often they become anti so that is something which is very undesirable rather than having few people who become very rigidly practitioners and many who become hostile to us, we need to recognize that we will have a core group of serious practitioners and there we will have many other groups of people who will be favorable to us and practicing at various degrees Prabhupada did say that one moon is better than a thousand stars but that does not mean that the star’s light has to be shut down, the stars are also giving light and the star’s light also has to be acknowledged, similarly people who are very committed and they are going to be the core members but that does not mean everyone else has to be trivialized or demonized as non devotees there can be devotees who are not necessarily sadhakas according to a particular interpretation of sadhana or particular standard of sadhana there can be bhaktas who may not be sadhakas and we have to appreciate their bhakti and we have to facilitate their bhakti according to what they can accept, so we don’t antagonize people who can’t follow particular standards but rather facilitate them to follow at whatever level they can and we give them spiritual knowledge that by which they can move onwards in their bhakti he has well-wishers to have opportunity abundant opportunity, in fact we see Prabhupada himself, he had the standard of four regular principles and sixteen rounds for initiation but when he came to India and this was very easily accepted by his western audience because they had especially the hippies, they had rejected mainstream culture at that time and they wanted something which was revolutionary but when Prabhupada came to India India was a pious country but not many Indians were ready for this level of commitment and what did Prabhupada do you know he offered them a very broad circle which was life membership, life membership means literally no commitment in terms of practice but a connection a connection in terms of people feel that I am a life member of his they give some financial contribution, they come to the temple sometime so our so Prabhupada himself has set a very good example of offering connection without demanding excessively high commitment, we give people opportunities to connect with them at various levels according to what is comfortable for them and we encourage them to have higher and higher level of commitment but we don’t make the connection, make the availability of the connection conditional to a particular level of commitment now we provide them the facility to practice bhakti at whatever level they are and that way they will comfortably come, they will slowly but steadily come towards Krishna those who want to come rapidly for them all facility is there but those who can’t come that rapidly they should not be alienated by being branded as non devotees, they are also devotees they are also bhaktas but they may not be sadhakas and we need to facilitate them practice at whatever level it is