How can we deal with material desires in bhakti?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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thank you.
So you said that just by filling our consciousness with Krishna, material desires will go away, so doesn’t the same apply to emotions also in the material world, resentment, first of all the process of bhakti means that whatever Krishna has given us, we use in service, so whatever Krishna has given us, we use in service, now if Krishna has given us intelligence to analyze, we also need to use that intelligence in Krishna’s service, so quite often even for dealing with material desires, first of all it is, sometimes the word material desires can become a very ill-inclusive thing, now after all we have to eat, now he is eating a material desire, if there is a joke in the class and if I laugh, is that material pleasure or before laughing if I start thinking, am I laughing for Krishna’s pleasure or my pleasure, it becomes paranoid, so we should focus primarily on the fact that we stay connected with Krishna and we stay close towards Krishna and we don’t need many material things for functioning in this world, even for serving Krishna, so now the desire for those things, is it a material desire, at one level if I need a good job so that I can be stable financially, is that a material desire, well yes you can say it is a material desire but then I need that for serving Krishna, if it is not there then my service to Krishna will be interrupted, so you know we shouldn’t become too paranoid, we shouldn’t become too anti material desires, we should be pro Krishna, pro service to Krishna and whatever is required for service to Krishna we do that, so sometimes we, some of us may need more material things so that we can serve Krishna, some of us may need less material things, just like food, some people have less appetite, some people have a lot of appetite, when the Pandavas, they would have, whatever food they would get, they would divide it into two parts and one part would be divided into five parts, four would go to the four Pandavas, one would be taken by Draupadi and the remaining one full half was taken by Bhima, so Bhima was Drukodara, Drukodara now, in today’s world, if somebody eats a lot, we just call them as, we just refer to them by negative name, but actually there is a positive name celebrating how much Bhima would eat, it’s called Drukodara, that is his name, so that’s his body, it was like that, so just as different people based on their body may have different appetites, different people may have different level of how much material things they need for peaceful service, the important thing is that the material things don’t become a competitor to Krishna, if it’s too little, then we are craving so much for it, if I have very little food, I’m thinking when will I get food, when will I get food, when will I get food, then I can’t think of Krishna, if I have too much food, then also I can’t think of Krishna, that’s why Krishna says Yuktahara, it’s regulated, so rather than focusing on whether something is material or spiritual, you can focus on whether I’m serving Krishna or not, and we shouldn’t make our service to Krishna conditional to any material thing, that means Krishna, if I don’t get this job, I’m not going to serve, if this relationship doesn’t work out, I’m not going to serve, we can’t blackmail Krishna like that, so whatever happens in the material level, we keep serving Krishna, but we do have needs at the material level, which need to be fulfilled, and if they are not fulfilled, it will create trouble, so trying to get those needs fulfilled, that is just a part of living material in this world, but we shouldn’t let that fulfilment or non-fulfillment become a precondition for our practice of service, that’s with respect to material desires, so rather than focusing on indulging in material desires or giving up material desires, we focus on service to Krishna, and I just think in such a way that whatever we need for serving Krishna peacefully we get that, but we don’t make our service to Krishna conditional to our getting or not getting that.