How can I protect my NRI-nephew from being carried away by materialism?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
You see, if you have nephews who are becoming too materialistic because of the culture, how can we help them? We all have a certain circle of influence.
And we have a much bigger circle of concern. So, certain things may just not be in our circle of influence. So, first of all, you have to recognize that, can I actually do anything practical in this situation? If we cannot, then we have to recognize our limitation and then focus on what we can do.
So, if you’re geographically so far away, usually we can basically influence other people only in one of three ways. We can set an example. We can provide knowledge.
And we can create facilities. It means if somebody wants to go on a journey, we can set an example. Say, if you want somebody to go to Vrindavan, you can set an example.
I go to Vrindavan every year. That’s an example. Oh, every year you go? Okay, fine.
Then provide knowledge. What is there in Vrindavan? Then give some facility. There’s a group of people of your age going.
You can go with them. But you cannot literally pack them in a suitcase and take them to Vrindavan. So, like that, we can see among these three things what can we do.
So, if there is some local group of devotee kids over there, you can try to find that in that area. Connect them with them. Nowadays, a lot of things happen online also.
Although social media can be a bit of a distraction, but there are many people who get spiritually connected through the social media also, according to the Pure Research Foundation. It’s a research organization in America which focuses primarily on religious organizations. And they found in the age group of 20 to 40, almost 30 to 50% of people who joined Christianity in the last 10 years, they all came through online outreach, through social media.
There’s a substantial amount of people coming to spirituality also through this. So, we can find out if there are some online groups through which they can be enrolled. And whenever we find some nuggets of wisdom which we feel they can relate with, just giving them books, they’re unlikely to read them.
But if we ourselves find some nuggets of wisdom, at this point it’s very insightful, we share it with them. So, within our limitations, we try to offer them whatever resources we can so that they can make healthy choices. And of course, beyond that, we can pray to Krishna.
Krishna is in their heart and Krishna will guide them. And sometimes some people have to take their time to learn. So, trying to legislate someone too much, even if they’re going to make wrong choices, then they may not do the wrong thing at that time, but they will develop a wrong attitude towards us.
They’ll resent it and eventually when they get freedom, they’ll just rebel completely. Sometimes some people have to learn through experience. So, even if we tell somebody to do something and they don’t do it, don’t make it a personal rejection.
I told you, why did you do it? Don’t make that as a personal rejection. Understand that they have to go through that phase. So, if after they go through it, they bear the consequences and then they realize, you know, I was wrong.
At that time, we shouldn’t be gloating in English. See, I told you. Then it will become a very big ego issue for them.
Then they will not come. But if you’re available for them. See, we open the door for them and invite them to walk through.
If they don’t walk through, it’s not that we slam the door in their face. We keep the door open and whenever they want to connect, they can connect with that.