Taking responsibility for our spiritual advancement

[House Program at Los Angeles, USA]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
thank all of you for coming here today and I will speak on the topic of taking responsibility for our spiritual advancement once there was a group of white frogs who were scorching in the heat and they were on the banks of a pond and two of them decided to jump into the pond so how many frogs remain on the bank sorry others will follow any other answers three two of them decided they did not jump so all five still remain so the decision alone is not enough decision has to be translated into action many times in our spiritual life we may decide to do something or any aspect of our life for example we decide to do something but the decision alone is not enough decision has to be followed by action so in our spiritual life we go through various phases one is first is usually we become introduced to the philosophy at that time we have some questions we get introduced to the culture we get introduced to the association of devotees and we may have some questions so as our questions get clarified then we start the process of bhakti and then we come to a particular standard in the process of bhakti and then afterwards it is a tendency of the mind to always take the path of least resistance and the path of least resistance often means that the mind is always looking for the easy way out so when we start practising bhakti often we hear about how Krishna manifests in our life through the spiritual master and the spiritual master manifests through senior devotees and that by following them if you want to follow Krishna you follow the spiritual master if you want to follow the spiritual master you follow the senior devotees and that way we think that when I am following them then I am well situated I am groomed that is definitely true you need to follow the spiritual master you need to follow senior devotees at the same time our spiritual advancement is our responsibility it is not Krishna’s responsibility it is not the spiritual master’s responsibility it is their responsibility no doubt also but that way Krishna has been there in our heart lifetime after lifetime spiritual master is not just a person spiritual master is also a person and that spiritual master can guide us could have guided us in a previous life also so what is missing for our spiritual growth for our spiritual advancement for our spiritual liberation is actually our taking initiative our taking responsibility our holding on to the process of bhakti whole heartedly to the extent we do that to that extent the mercy is available to that extent the growth is actually awaiting us so when we are starting the process of bhakti initially we may have ok I have to do this I have to do this why should I do this we ask some questions we learn some get some answers and we start moving on broadly speaking we may come to spiritual life for three distinct sets of reasons it can be social cultural and intellectual social means like friends we find some of our some of the people who are practising bhakti they are nice people or some of our friends start practising bhakti some of our family members start practising bhakti and then because they are doing it we want their company we like the company of spiritually minded people so social grouping social bonding is a natural human need and among the various spiritual paths which is karma yoga, jnana yoga, ashtanga yoga, bhakti yoga it is bhakti yoga that facilitates the social aspect a lot because in ashtanga yoga, jnana yoga actually we renounce the world we go to the forest there is not much we can do at the social level actually the only society is that we should be out of society go out in the jungle he is telling this for the ashtanga yogis now in the verses of bhakti yoga in 10.9 my devotees they come together and they delight in discussing about me bhakti is actually about a community it is about a society so the social reason might be why we start practising bhakti and sometimes if we cannot socially bond with people say if there are teenagers in the community there is one teenager only and everybody else is an adult it is difficult for somebody who is of a particular age group to actually connect with people from another age group so there is a community there are other children over there they can play with them they can practise bhakti with them the teenagers can practise bhakti together in this way we all need a society and when we come to Krishna for social purposes it is fine whichever way we start practising bhakti that is fine otherwise some of us may come for cultural purposes cultural means that especially for many Indians who come out of India either it is America or UK or even the middle east what happens is the outside culture is so different from our culture that we want a cultural home for ourselves and then we find that ok the association of devotees is a nice place where I can be culturally comfortable I feel at home in it and the cultural means like the serene atmosphere of a temple like to see the deities like to participate in kirtans like to sit and take prasadam like to be in the sanctified atmosphere around a spiritual place the cultural aspect is also very important and especially among the many organisations from India that organisations based on Indian Indian culture, Indian tradition that are there Prabhupada actually preserved most of the cultural aspects of Krishna consciousness even in America and that’s why for many Indians this becomes a cultural home away from the national home and then they come over here when we come for the culture that is very good at the same time there is another aspect to bhakti which is very important that is the intellectual aspect so Krishnaswami is saying don’t think this is philosophy therefore I am not interested in philosophy I am a devotee, I am interested only in devotion don’t think like this by the understanding of philosophy by this our consciousness will be fixed on Krishna what happens essentially is that when we practise bhakti, when we understand the philosophy we understand that actually there are many attractive things in this world but all of them are only sparks of Krishna’s attractiveness and whatever pleasure they can produce the pleasure that Krishna can provide that is actually the supreme pleasure and therefore we feel inspired to connect with Krishna and thus the world offers us so many allurements which attract us and distract us you distract us from Krishna now our mind functions on a basic psychological principle the principle is whatever gets our attention gets us whatever gets our attention gets us if you consider any person who falls into anything undesired it all begins with first it gets their attention we will be studying for an important interview and then maybe studying on a computer and suddenly some notification pops up if it gets our attention maybe I should not maybe I should not as soon as it gets our attention slowly but surely it starts getting us so now what it is that is worthy of our giving our attention to it that is something which you can understand through philosophy if your philosophical understanding is not clear then what happens is that whatever sounds the most attractive whatever sounds the loudest whatever prompts us the most forcefully that catches our attention sometimes if you see the Indian parliament it is like a shouting match sometimes this party has been shouting that has been shouting and sometimes even the debates that are there between people they are supposed to be discussions they are basically shouting matches and whoever shouts the loudest that person gets to have a say but in real life actually rightness and wrongness who is right and who is wrong that is not determined by one’s shouting power how loudly one can shout somebody is speaking very loudly but they are speaking nonsense somebody is speaking very softly but they are speaking the most meaningful thing so unfortunately within us in our mind there are different voices and sometimes depending on circumstances certain voices become very loud do this, watch this, touch this, get this eat this, go there and when the voice starts coming voice starts becoming so loud now in real life we can easily understand just because some person has the loudest voice that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the truest but internally whenever a voice starts speaking loudly we say ok, I should do this just because some desire some inclination some thoughts are pounding loudly in our mind does not necessarily mean that it is the right one but that is what happens to us when philosophy is not clear then whichever voice pops up in the mind that gets our attention and then gets us and in that way we get distracted away from Krishna actually all the things that distract us from Krishna potentially if you understand whatever is attractive within them actually that attractiveness is coming from Krishna and let me redirect my attraction towards him consider it that way and the very thing that is distracting us can reattract us towards Krishna so for us in the practise of Bhakti the Siddhanta is important Jiva Goswami in his Sandarbhas very intricate philosophical he says that for the pure devotees it is their love for Krishna which keeps them in Bhakti so they practise Bhakti but for us sadhakas he says it is not priti but it is buddhi that keeps us in Bhakti to the extent our intelligence is strong to that extent we will be able to practise Bhakti otherwise we will not be able to practise Bhakti now the intellectual aspect of Krishna consciousness is something which is often downplayed Krishna Prabhupada wrote so many books Krishna Prabhupada created a culture of education a culture of systematic understanding and by that people become intellectually convinced and then they become steady then the level of commitment goes up so when we are practising Bhakti we may settle at a social level, at a cultural level now whichever level we settle at we are practising Bhakti that is good at the same time from where we are we need to move forward and if we depend ok maybe somebody will give me instruction I should do like this and then I will do it if nobody is giving me instruction then let me just do whatever I want to do normally what happens is when we leave when we let the mind do whatever it wants to do it chooses the path of least resistance so we just do the barest minimum and we leave it at that so Prabhupada himself is an excellent example of how to take responsibility in Krishna’s machine his spiritual master gave him instruction to speak in the western world but his spiritual master in a practical sense Prabhupada did not get any facilities from his spiritual master but what did he do? he used his intelligence, he used his resourcefulness he used his determination which continued even after many many frustrations many many failures again and again and sometimes Prabhupada was empowered he was an empowered Acharya yes Prabhupada was empowered no doubt but what does empowerment mean? empowerment does not mean that Prabhupada faced no obstacles empowerment is not absence of obstacles empowerment is perseverance even in the face of obstacles now if you have seen these old old renditions of Ramayana or Mahabharata, the TV serial that came very old fashioned special effects so Ram will be shooting an arrow from here and Ravana will be shooting an arrow from here and both those arrows collide and whichever arrow is stronger, that arrow remains, other arrow disappears so and then the whole arrow disappears, they are shocked, they shoot another arrow again that arrow also disappears so now similarly what it means is that for most of us we have some determination but when the obstacle comes, then our determination disappears I can’t do this but empowered Acharya means obstacles will come but actually in the face of the obstacle the determination doesn’t disappear, rather in the face of the determination the obstacle disappears and that’s how the devotee perseveres Satatam kirtayanto mam etantasya duravrataha namah shantasya mam bhaktya nitya yukta upasya in 9.14 the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says that Satatam kirtayanto mam, devotees always glorify me etantasya duravrataha with great determination they practise bhakti great determination they practise bhakti and they march ahead so this determination is something which is what we need to go from where we are in our spiritual life towards Krishna.
Krishna Prabhupada made things very simple actually when he was talking about bhakti once somebody asked him in a lecture he says people what is Krishna consciousness and Prabhupada could have given many different answers and he could have said somebody always chanting Krishna Hare Krishna that is Krishna conscious somebody remembering Krishna’s past and present that is Krishna conscious and Prabhupada could have given all those answers and they were true. Prabhupada said if we come to a temple, if we look at the deities and if we feel that the deities are saying to me what are you doing for me then we are Krishna conscious means Krishna consciousness is actually essence is service Krishna has a mission in this world that is to help as many souls as possible to come close to him to come to him eventually and we are meant to assist in that mission. To the extent we assist in Krishna’s mission to that extent we are actually moving closer and closer to him if we don’t make conscious plans to serve Krishna then maya will unconsciously make plans for us to serve her this will come up, that will come up, that will come up and we will get distracted so of course we have a lot of material responsibilities we have our material ambitions and this will take time no doubt at the same time our spiritual side is also our important side in fact we are at our core source so our spiritual side is vitally important and we need to give it attention to the extent we take initiative in our spiritual life just like I will conclude with two examples and then we can have question answers that first is suppose we are working in a company then now we do whatever job our boss tells us to do but at the same time we understand that my growth in my company it depends on me if I do the job which I am told that’s what I need to do but along with that I also have to see what are the future, what skills can I learn if I genuinely get a raise or I get promoted what can I do, what kind of work can I do what can I learn, what can I become better at by which I can grow in my career so now in a company doing what the boss tells us to do is important but if we want to grow in our career then we also have to take initiative, what am I good at, what are my strengths and we take responsibility for the growth of our career so bhakti is not about giving up ambition it’s about spiritualising ambition so Arjuna when he went to the archery went to Drona’s academy nobody told him you have to become the best archer this is my dharma I am a warrior, my dharma is to fight I have to become the best archer we took the initiative, we practised Ayurveda just as we endeavour in our material life, we take initiative we make plans, similarly for our spiritual life also it is for us, whatever services we are told to do we do them in Krishna’s service but along with that whenever we are serving Krishna we observe what is it that I feel inspired to do what is it that I am good at what is it that I feel comfortable doing and then we try to do that more otherwise we take the initiative and find out a way in which we can stay connected with Krishna find out a way in which we feel inspired in Krishna’s service when we take the initiative like this then Krishna becomes very pleased with us because we are not just gliding along, we are not taking the path of least resistance we are actually putting our effort putting our intelligence, putting our endeavour in trying to open the doors to Krishna and the second metaphor is of our Bhakti as our capital suppose we go to a stock exchange and we invest our money over there now people go to a stock exchange so that they can increase whatever capital they have but it is not that automatically in the stock exchange the capital will increase in the stock exchange also person has to be intelligent where am I putting my money the stock will raise, the stock money will go down stock exchange is meant for people to increase their money but the money will not increase automatically increasing of the money will happen by the intelligent investment of the capital similarly if we consider that we all have some capital of Bhakti with us may be it is from our culture, upbringing whatever past life we have some capital of Bhakti and when we come to Krishna’s movement that is for increasing our Bhakti but within the association of devotees it is not that every devotee is equally inspired it is not that associating with any and every devotee will inspire us within the association of devotees we need to see where am I investing my time, where am I investing my intelligence where am I investing my devotion how will my Bhakti capital increase that is up to us, sometimes in the association of devotees we may come and there are some devotees who are just always critical this is wrong, that is wrong, this person did like that, that person did like that now if we do that then we are coming in the association of devotees but we are not remembering Krishna we are remembering people’s faults not Krishna conscious and people who are like that if we associate with them then our Bhakti may actually go down because even when we come in front of devotees come with devotees who are serious we will not be able to remember Krishna what fault does this person have that way even in the association of devotees it is not automatically guaranteed that our Bhakti will go we have to invest properly so if we come in the association we can easily make out which devotees are really serious we spend some time with them, what they talk about, what their vision is what their aspiration is, what it is their priority by that we can make out which devotees are serious now other devotees we don’t have to judge and condemn them saying they are not a serious person, not like that but we have to understand that I have come here for a particular purpose and I need to make sure that I keep my purpose focused just like students in college some students ideally speaking in a college are meant to come there for study but many students come there and study is the last thing on their minds they are there for socialising for romanticising having romance and so many other things there for them study is something last moment before the exam I will do something and I will clear now somebody might squeeze through one exam like that they will not benefit much from being in an educational institution so similarly just as some people may come in a college but forget the mode of studying similarly in the association of devotees we may come but we may forget the goal that I am going to go towards Krishna and Krishna’s moment is actually like Krishna what does that mean? as all people surrender to me I reward accordingly that means whatever is our desire Krishna will reciprocate accordingly if we come to Krishna’s moment for fault finding we will learn newer and newer ways of finding faults you can see this fault also you can see this fault also if you come to Krishna’s moment for failed prescription you can get that also you just learn a little verses appear to have a little knowledge you will start respecting us and you will become very proud if you want controversy Krishna’s moment will give us abandoned controversies so many controversies now if we come to Krishna’s moment for Krishna we will get Krishna also whether we will get Krishna or not that depends on our desire so I said earlier that we may come for social, intellectual, cultural purposes they are all good but the social, intellectual, cultural is all meant to lead us towards Krishna that all branches of knowledge their ultimate purpose is to glorify Krishna their ultimate purpose is to take us towards Krishna and if we don’t go towards Krishna then we are missing out on the purpose so therefore if we keep that purpose in mind that keeping that purpose in mind is the essence of taking responsibility in our spiritual life taking responsibility means I have come here to go closer to Krishna and it is my responsibility to do that do whatever it takes to go towards Krishna if you do this there is certain amount of struggle there is certain amount of overcoming of resistance which is like a battle but bhakti is such a wonderful process that even the fighting is joyful the fruit of the fighting is joyful of course but even the fighting is joyful initially there is a little struggle we have to overcome the lethargy but after we got through the lethargy there is joy even in the effort to absorb ourselves in Krishna in the effort to commit ourselves to Krishna’s cause even in the effort to serve Krishna there is effort but there is joy there is fulfilment and there is fulfilment like nothing else in the world sukha tarama param naja tu jaane hari charana smarana amrutena tulyam Kulasekar Maharaj says that in the service of Krishna there is joy that is there there is nothing in the world that can compare with it such as the joy of Krishna consciousness and it is not just for the pure devotees it is definitely for them but along with that even in our practise of bhakti we can attain similar joy just a serious study so I will summarise spoke about what is the topic yeah taking responsibility for our spiritual advancement so I discussed about how when we come to spiritual life there are various factors that impel us to come towards it what are the three different factors social, cultural, intellectual social means we just like to be among good people the people with whom we are, they start practising bhakti so we start practising bhakti we are all social people and we need some social circles similarly cultural means that we like the atmosphere of a temple, we like truth terms we like deities and we feel that this is a place where I can culturally comfortable that is why it impels us to come towards Krishna and intellectually some of us may study the philosophy it makes so much sense and because of that we may come towards Krishna and whichever way we come towards Krishna start practising bhakti that is very good because we are on the journey towards Krishna the important thing however is that we move from where we are studying onwards so the mind often takes up the path of least resistance that means whatever we are doing the mind says just don’t take too much trouble just glide along the path of least resistance to avoid that we need to push ourselves and I discuss especially about the intellectual aspect that while we are social, cultural for those purposes we are practising bhakti ultimately we are still in the material world and in the material world there are many distractions if our intelligence is not sharp then we will get distracted whatever gets our attention gets us that is the psychological principle by which our mind works and so we may get this looks so nice this looks so promising, this looks so great and we get distracted this distraction can happen in materialistic life when we go away from Krishna bhakti entirely so if this is the circle of Krishna bhakti we may go out of Krishna bhakti entirely but what can also happen in the circle of Krishna bhakti we are as far away from Krishna as possible within that circle I am externally acting like a devotee but there is very little devotional in my disposition, very little devotional in my action and I am distracted actually so to avoid that we need philosophical understanding what will keep us in bhakti at the sadhata stage is our buddhi and then I discussed about avoiding distraction and focussing in our bhakti that two examples, one was of a person in a job, he says they know that growing in my career is my responsibility my boss will tell me do this, do that, I will do it but along with that how should my growth chart, that is my responsibility like that for a devotee also our spiritual advancement is our responsibility, we definitely follow whatever instructions spiritual masters and devotees give us but along with that you observe, how can I engage myself now what can I do, this is something which I like to do this is something which I am good at Krishna consciousness means to think Krishna is asking us, what are you doing for me we have something to offer to Krishna and what is our institute offering as individual parts of Krishna, as human parts of Krishna that we need to discuss and then I will give another example of the stock exchange, the purpose of investing money in stock exchange is to increase the money but don’t increase automatically, if you are careless it may increase also similarly we have certain stock of bhakti we come in the association of devotees to increase it but we associate carelessly with critical devotees fall finding mentality may cause our bhakti to go away bhakti to decrease but if you are associating devotees or purposeful I have come here for Krishna and there may be other things also but I am not interested in them, I am focused on Krishna then we move steadily towards Krishna and resisting the distractions requires fighting but because we are focussing on Krishna although the fighting initially is a struggle but the fighting leads to actually bliss, it leads to great joy and the more we become purified the less becomes the fighting the greater becomes the absorption and the greater and greater becomes the joy, in this way we can steadily march towards Krishna, as Krishna says bhakti becomes joy thank you very much does anyone have any questions or comments thank you very much for the wonderful lecture so I have one question implementing all these things for ourselves it’s ok but when we go outside somebody is not intellectually they may be good at heart they wanted to do service but philosophically they know basic things but they have limited quota of their brain or I don’t know what to say but they are not interested in going deep not deep even, just going further so they are not feeling ok so I personally sometimes feel it always dwells at my plate maybe they are sincere by their heart and Krishna is not feeling the intelligence love and devotion but another perspective I feel because they don’t know deeply philosophy behind that maybe their attention or focus can change from that path so some people either because they have limited intelligence or for some other reason they are not very philosophical they have some devotion so how should we see such people is it that because their heart has devotion so whether they have philosophical interest or not it doesn’t matter in general the basic principle when we are practising bhakti is that whatever is favourable we accept, what is unfavourable we avoid so with respect to ourselves first of all we need to decide if for me I find we may initially find philosophy boring also but actually if we get into the philosophy we find it increases my conviction it helps me to focus sometimes if we are doing japa before doing our chanting, before doing our meditation just hear a little bit about the glories of the holy name immediately it is the same Krishna manifesting now let me focus on Krishna so we can see our practise becomes more determined by understanding therefore for our sake we should try to understand now as far as others are concerned the first thing is that we have to get them connected with Krishna if Krishna is here, they are here somehow or the other they have to get connected with Krishna and then that connection can be expanded so if they have some love and devotion then engage them accordingly maybe they can do some service for the deities maybe they can participate in kirtans get them engaged in some service now as the connection with Krishna becomes established the nature of Krishna connection is that if we keep serving Krishna, that Krishna connection will expand initially I may come to the temple only to do a darshan if I keep doing that gradually I am thinking about who are these people who are worshipping me whenever I come to the darshan I see that this class is going on what is there in this class so the nature of Krishna connection is once the connection is established it will expand so we focus on wherever people are at engage them along with that we give them philosophy as per their interest so it’s not for us to judge whether a person’s devotion is so great that they don’t need the intelligence of a person we are sadhakas, they are sadhakas we don’t have to judge them at the same time if we are introducing them to Krishna bhakti it is our responsibility to guide them and therefore we can encourage them to the best of our capacity we can present Krishna consciousness in an interesting way when we give them classes by the devotees whose way of thinking we are presenting we think they will connect with but sometimes they will just not be interested so we just engage them the way that is practical for them and we wait their practise of bhakti is not just between us and them their practise of bhakti is between them and Krishna and if we provide them whatever facility we can then they will come towards Krishna through their own gradual spiritual evolution so one more practical thing we can see is that we can look at their overall life if that person is very shrewd and intelligent and analytical in the rest of their life and they show no philosophy of inclination then that means something is missing maybe this person is just not interested right now in general also these people are not very very intellectual simple hearted kind of person in all aspects of their life that means this may not be much of a need for them so we have to we can’t project what is our need on others once I was giving a class I told that when we go into the deities we can recite some verses and reciting those verses we will be able to connect with Krishna Krishna is there and thoughts about Krishna will go so I said that personally for me unless I recite a verse I just don’t connect with the deities that handles whatever little devotion I have after a couple of days a devotee came to me and said to me I tried to memorise verses and speak in front of the deities just recollecting that verse causes me so much tension that whatever bhakti I feel it goes away so it’s good to memorise verses but for somebody else that may not be the primary way they connect with Krishna so what applies the shoe that fits one leg bites another leg so like that we can’t stereotype that this is what everyone needs everybody needs to have some basic intellectual understanding but that basic level itself may vary based on the person’s own nature and intellectual capacity does that answer your question any other questions thank you for the wonderful lecture I think it’s very helpful for me and I think generally when I first got introduced I felt enthusiastic I felt like there was a lot of philosophy and as time goes by it seems like everything that you do is very enjoyable but you lack that enthusiasm at least I lack that enthusiasm so as you rightly said that we must not go into Krishna consciousness just because it feels good we should put a step forward and take a path of more resistance so my question is how do we judge what is that resistance that we should take so do we force more resistance to ourselves or do we take that from what others are doing so if I said that we should not we should avoid some of the resistance and move onwards force ourselves against the resistance and move on so where should we apply that force yes if we are given a particular service which requires some amount of difficulty then definitely we should take that initiative and try to do that service at the same time sometimes the whole devotee community may be so big and we may not have a particular scenario then we also go through different phases in our spiritual life sometimes when I feel I have been around for so long and I have not even read the Bhagavatam once we focus on the study of Shastra sometimes we feel I want to do some practical service I want to distribute books or I want to help some other people come close to Krishna I will learn some philosophy and try to give some classes whatever it may be so the purpose of serving Krishna remains steady the form of serving Krishna may change and that form can be determined either based on what instruction we have been given by seniors or it may depend on our inspirations so it’s not that our inspiration always stays the same today I am very inspired to study Shastra but after one month I feel completely drained I don’t feel like doing it yes we should not just be fickle and keep changing things based on the mind but at the same time the mind is what we have to live with we can’t just constantly be fighting against the mind to some extent the mind also has to cooperate the mind is basically like a horse the horse we sometimes resist and the horse rider has to force the horse to move in the right direction but at the same time if the horse is constantly resisting the horse rider cannot really move ultimately the horse rider and the horse have to become friends they have to work together so like that if we find that we are trying to do we decided to do one thing but we have no inspiration in that then we can’t just push ourselves infinitely then what we should do is we should have some regulation now I am going to study Shastra so I decide for one month I am going to focus on Shastra now after one month if I feel I don’t feel so inspired I don’t feel at all inspired then we may decide to change something we may decide ok I will not study Shastra I will study with someone else maybe I will regularly discuss with someone that might bring some enlivenment in my study of Shastra if that doesn’t happen maybe we hear some Narayan Jay chanting of the holy names chanting is not important I have to chant nicely we may feel inspired to focus on that it’s good to focus on that but we don’t change our priorities simply based on the whim of the mind we make a plan we may decide whatever I start now for one month at least I will do it so then if I have to change something after one month I will change it again because our mind also needs variety if we make only a single focus the mind may just become too resistant so the key principle when we are dealing with the mind is that we just have to be open to whatever works the mind doesn’t work according to formula no formula works for the mind we may say that chant Hare Krishna the mind will become calm sometimes we are chanting Hare Krishna what is happening our mouth is chanting Hare Krishna but our mind is chanting that fool that fool I am going to get back our mind is going on revenge fantasies at that time so now I am chanting chanting chanting but the mind is chanting something else at that time you just have to calm down take a few deep breaths whatever it takes to deal with the mind so we definitely have to overcome the resistance we have to fight against the resistance but which specific fight we do the standard example in scripture is Ganga moves towards the ocean let my consciousness move towards you Ganga-Vaghu-Mangal-Vati-Kunti-Maharishi 1.842 so if there is a boulder in between sometimes the Ganga may go above it sometimes it may go below it, sometimes it may go right, sometimes it may go left sometimes it may just erode it and go through it so somehow or other the Ganga will move on the principle is it should move on how specifically it will move on that will depend so like that we should know that we have to fight against the resistance but which form we take for fighting against the resistance which form of resistance we fight against that will vary my question was actually along the same lines but at the same time in our day to day practise we try to chant around and we try to associate with devotees we try to do some service at the temple or read some portion sometimes what happens is we try to engage in multiple different things and then our quality goes down we are not focussing too much or doing our own very seriously so in that situation what should we do should we try to get more and more service or try to sit back and focus on one or two things sometimes we may get too many services and maybe our sadhana chanting goes down so should we try to do all the services that we get or should we just try to focus on one or two so the easiest way to make ourselves unhappy is to try to please everyone shortest cut we can’t please everyone in life even the devotee community can’t please everyone so sometimes we just have to say no we have to say no politely we have to explain why we have to say no so it’s not that we have to do every service that comes our way but if some senior devotees are telling us especially those devotees who are in a position of guiding us who are important for our spiritual understanding and spiritual advancement they give us some service we definitely do it but we also should know that we have limitations and they also understand that we have limitations so we can tell them I am getting these 5 things to do now I can only do what we should do they will tell us this is good for you, you can do that so generally speaking we do want to focus on our sadhana but quite often it is that when we have a lot of time for sadhana when we have a lot of time for serenading or chanting finally the mind will start wandering at that time so it’s good to have a little pressure most of us know about this concept of comfort zone, stress zone and panic zone so like that if I can lift 10 kg weight and if I keep lifting 5 kg weight most of them are never going to improve but if I can lift 10 kg weight and if I can lift 30 kg weight I will be crushed so if I can lift 10 kg then I can try to lift 11 kg, 12 kg, 7 kg so like that similarly when we are doing services we do want to expand our services but we have to be realistic about how much we can do so if we are in the comfort zone we will not grow if we are in the stress zone we will collapse sorry if we are in the panic zone we will collapse but we can be in the stress zone what the stress zone is we ourselves can learn from experience sometimes we may go into the comfort zone sometimes we may go into the panic zone it’s too much I can’t do this we will come back gradually we learn from experience as long as our intent is to serve Krishna then Krishna will guide us towards how to do it practically does that answer your question? I have a question so on the way to connect Krishna how a devotee or sadhgaya can come to know that the way I am going is correct as discussed there are many descriptions like I am going to my home and I know that I have to go to Venice then Washington so like on the way to Krishna how I come to know the way I am going is correct and I have not gone the wrong way I have not been distracted if we are going towards Krishna how can we know we are on the right way there are 9 stages of bhakti described in the Bhakti Samrasindhu so these are all stages which are like landmarks in the inner journey and the more we understand these landmarks the more we can see where we are and the same whatever analysis is given in Bhakti Samrasindhu that is elaborated by Sri Vishwanathji and there also we can read we also want to hear some talks by some devotees on those topics because that makes things easier for us to understand at the same time the important thing is not to get too caught in too many intricacies the principle of Krishna consciousness is very simple that the soul is joyful the soul is presently covered by impurities because of those impurities we are not able to release our joyfulness if we connect with Krishna Krishna is all pure and all pure Krishna the contact with him purifies us of our conditionings and to the extent we become purified of our conditionings to the extent we start feeling joyful it’s like if we are eating food if we are being nourished nobody has to tell us this food will nourish you we can experience it, we eat it appropriately adequately when ours is experienced so like that the practise of Bhakti is such that by the connection with Krishna Bhakti is the experience of Krishna and by the experience of Krishna we become so purified that we don’t crave for other things we still do our responsibilities but we are not craving for things so if we start experiencing contentment internally our craving goes down that itself is a sign that we are getting connected with Krishna and we are going towards Krishna