​If devotees don’t do a service because they don’t feel inspired, are they being offensive?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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doesn’t do service because they don’t feel inspired to do it or they don’t do it because they don’t like it is that offensive? I feel the word offensive is too offensive. It’s like you know sometimes what happens anything that I don’t like I call it offensive.
It shouldn’t become like that. Offense is a very serious thing. Usually I would my understanding is that serious offenses are those which are done with malicious intention.
Now somebody is doing wonderful service and I want to pull them down for some reason and that which is done with malicious intention that is offensive. So if someone is not doing a particular service because they are not inspired to do it. Now quite often it is good to have some education for people about the importance of the service also.
Whereas in general for us also if you are doing a particular service the nature of the mind is that its inspiration goes down over a period of time. So if I read something about my service read some say like if I am doing management, read instructions about management or basically read things which help me to see that service and spiritual light that often inspires people. Sometimes we just something we know is very important we tell people we should do this but you know they don’t have our background or understanding.
They don’t realize how important it is. So if we explain to them also by telling people how important it is then that can inspire them to become a little serious. So along with giving service we can also see it as our responsibility to give people education about the importance of the service.
That’s from our perspective. But sometimes there are people who are not inspired by a particular service and then we just can hope that they can become inspired in some other service. It’s not offensive because we all have our natures.
So there is always the individual’s perspective and there is the institution’s perspective. In the institution’s perspective I have to get these things done. And whoever is available they should be doing these things.
That’s the institution’s perspective. But the individual’s perspective is that this is my inspiration. This is my area of talent.
This is my area of interest. If we see Varanashram as a system, we sometimes get too caught in Varanashram in terms of the four Varanas. That’s okay.
But the principle underlying the four Varanas is that people are engaged according to their natures. I put it this way that in material world everyone has problems. The expertise of Varanashram is that it allocates to people the kind of problems that they will like to solve.
So if I am a brahminical person and somebody comes and tells me we have to raise 10 million dollars for building a big temple. After you build the temple also you want to chant Hare Krishna and study scripture only? Do the same thing now. Why do you want to build a big temple? On the other hand if I am a Vaishya I have a Vaishya mentality Vaishya heart, nature.
Somebody tells me in the Bhagavatam there is a verse which talks about how Krishna is the source of Vishnu. Can you find that verse for me? There are so many thousands of verses in Bhagavatam. How do I find it? Don’t quote the verse.
Just make the point. Who is going to notice it? So on the other hand if I tell a brahmana can you find the verse? Yes, I got some challenge, some excitement. I look through the reference and I will find the verse.
So on the other hand if I tell a Vaishya Oh come on, we want to raise funds Yes, now I got something to do. Otherwise just chant and dance and hear classes there is nothing practical to do. I will go and raise funds.
I will get money. So basically different people have different natures. And as managers our long term goal should be that we engage people in a way that they are inspired to serve Krishna.
So that even if there is no one to manage them even if there is no one to oversee them still they will continue their service lifelong. So that is from the long term perspective for the growth of the individual. If they find a service that they are inspired for they just go on lifelong.
At the same time from the individual’s perspective, the individual should think that actually yes, I have my nature and this is what I would like to do. But if this is what is required, I will do it. But if we are expected to do something which is not really our nature, as our major service, as our only service then that is an unreasonable demand from the individual.
So occasionally telling people to do something that they don’t like to do that is okay and then people should also be doing it. But on a regular basis we need to find out people who are interested in these services. Or it’s not just, again I would say even what we talk about nature is also not so clear because people also don’t know what their nature is.
Sometimes if we just inspire people by telling them about the importance of a particular service, initially they may not have interest and eventually they may develop interest also. So basically it has to be a cooperation between the between the givers of service and the receivers of service. By which, rather than being judgmental that this is offensive or this is irresponsible, we basically try to engage people in a way that they feel inspired to serve.
At the same time, we also educate them in the mood of surrender by which if they are required occasionally to do services that they don’t like to do, they should be ready to do that. Does that answer your question?