How to avoid relaxing into worldly enjoyment after doing our service wholeheartedly?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
After we do ourselves wholeheartedly, does it feel that, you know, now I want to the remaining time I have that I’ll use for my enjoyment or relaxation. See, relaxation itself is not necessarily a bad thing.
Krishna says, recreation also is a part of life. Devotees try to spiritualize their recreation as much as possible. So, the important thing is that we see that my body, my mind, they are tools which I want to use for saroot.
And they also just like any tool, it needs polishing, it needs some work on it to keep it sharp, like if I’m using an axe to cut, I may need to sharpen it periodically. So, it’s not that bhakti means you just have to rush from one thing to another to another. See, whatever we are doing, we are constructively engaged.
And rather than rigidly differentiating that, you know, this is service to Krishna, this is ratification, we can see from the ultimate perspective whether it is taking us closer to Krishna or whether it is helping us to have a frame of consciousness where we can go closer to Krishna. Then relaxation is also a part of, is a human need. But how we seek relaxation, that will vary from person to person.
So, depending, if somebody is Sattva Guna, they will seek relaxation through reading. Somebody is Rajoguna, they may watch some movies. Somebody is Tamoguna, they may drink.
They are all seeking relaxation, but in very different ways. So, devotees seek relaxation in a way which are as devotional as possible, as at least sattvic as possible. So, relaxation is just a need of the human body and mind.
We are not meant to deny that. But we do it in a Krishna conscious way. Srila Prabhupada would go for walks every day.
Srila Prabhupada would take massage every day. So, that is perfectly fine. But he would do it with Krishna consciousness.
So, we shouldn’t associate Krishna consciousness only with external forms of services. There are other activities which also need for rejuvenating our body. If we can do them also with the intention of service to Krishna, then we will be able to discriminate.
This is something which I which is not really helpful to my consciousness. This is something which is relaxing me but is also helpful for my consciousness. So, that way we can find out and we can adjust accordingly.
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