If someone is spiritually unreceptive does the sincerity of our prayers determine whether they become receptive?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so if somebody we want to help someone spiritually how sincerely we pray to them does that make a difference yes definitely see there are two things over here our sincerity in praying is how we are showing our concern for that person and Krishna sees that and based on that Krishna increases facility and opportunity for them to take up bhakti so by our sincere prayers we increase the facility and opportunity for them to take up bhakti at the same time it is their free will and by their free will they may choose not to take it up so the point why I am bringing this up is that by our sincerity we can increase the chances of their taking up bhakti but it is not that if somebody doesn’t take up bhakti that means our prayers were not sincere we should never take up anyone’s not practicing bhakti as a personal failure you know parents parents especially if they are spiritually minded they invest their life and soul in trying to help their children grow up spiritually but at the same time the child is a soul separate soul and if the parents have done their part and the child doesn’t take up spirituality there is not a failure for the parents they are separate souls in the sacred book it is said that the greatest devotee of Lord Chaitanya his son did not follow bhakti spirituality he became an impersonalist is that a failure of Advaita Acharya? No, son is a separate soul in himself so we should definitely strive to help others in all ways that we can including by our prayers but say somebody is trying to help someone and they are not able to help that person that person doesn’t become transformed nobody should make them feel guilty that you were bad because of which that happened is it clear what I am trying to say? our sincerity facilitates but it is our sincere prayers, our sincere attempts they facilitate but it is they who have to make the choice Krishna will never force the choice on them even if we pray, no matter how much we pray Krishna is never going to take away their free will so it is by their free will they have to choose so basically we can do only three things for other people we can share knowledge we can set example and we can provide facilities ultimately for us to influence anyone else there are only these three ways we provide them the knowledge, why this is good, why this is bad we share the knowledge, along with that sometimes we tell them something is good to do but their circumstances may not allow them to do it, so we provide them facilities so if somebody is a recovering alcoholic, we understand alcoholism is bad but if they are staying in a circle of people who are alcoholics for them to do it up is difficult, so providing facility means helping them maybe shift to some other social circle or whatever provide facility and then set an example means we ourselves, as we say, walk our talk so if you are doing these three things then we have done our part and then it is between that person and Krishna they may take it up immediately, they may take it up later also that’s between them and Krishna, but we have done our part and we will grow spiritually by that thank you