How can we stay enthusiastic in a service where results take a long time to come?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So if we are instructed to do a service in which results take a long time to come and we face a lot of negativity and obstacles, then how can we persevere? So actually, you can broadly classify whatever devotional engagements are into three categories.
Some things which give us strength. Some things which are okay, we just do it because we are told to do it. And some things which take strength.
There are devotional engagements also like that. Like people also, you know. Some people, when we associate with them, we get strength.
Some people, you know, we lose strength in associating with them. Then we require so much tolerance, so much humility, so much self-restraint in every word that we speak we have to have with them. That’s how people are.
So that’s how life is. So if there is some service which is important for us, which we have been told to do, which takes a lot of strength, then we need to also have some other engagement that gives us strength. And if this service is, we may not give up the service, but if the service is becoming so consuming that it takes away the time for the other thing, then we may have to decrease the pace of this.
So decreasing the pace should be okay. If you say, I will not do it, then maybe the devotees will be a little concerned. You say, you know, I cannot sustain it with this pace.
But they will understand. So we have to find out what is it that gives us strength. And we need to do that.
Make sure that sometimes in the eagerness to get results in a service that is difficult for us, we let it take away the time from the service which gives us strength. But that makes things more difficult. Because then here the results are not coming.
Difficulties are coming. And that is a channel of strength. We also decrease our connection with that.
So one thing is within bhakti, we have to make sure that the deadlines are actually live lines. There are some deadlines that are inflexible. Say like if we have Janmashtami festival.
We cannot change the date of Janmashtami. That festival we have to arrange at that time. But there are our own projects that are there.
It’s good to have deadlines. But we have to ultimately make sure that everything is anukul to bhakti. So the deadline should intensify my devotion.
If the deadline is distracting me from devotion. See, sometimes if I am given something to carry, you know, say there is some important thing which I have to carry to some other place, some other devotee. And I love that devotee and I want to do something for him.
I’ll eagerly carry. But something else I am told to do, I don’t like to do it. It’s a heavy burden.
That thing will slow me down. So I don’t feel like doing it at that time. So, you know, sometimes deadlines can stimulate us.
Sometimes deadlines can burden us. So we have to set deadlines so that we can be stimulated. See, basically, I have found that in my life, all the books I have written, it is only when I had deadlines.
So I have a lot of rajoguna in me. And I find that without targets, things won’t happen. But then, sometimes the targets just become overwhelming.
So we need to adjust. Okay, I had said it. I told what devotee here said that I want to write this book by this month end.
And I went and asked him after I have finished the book. Only done half of it. But he had said it is, I had set it to completed by this month.
And he said, I set the target, I changed the target. And he is a very senior devotee, very responsible, very committed, but very nonchalantly he said that. I was very impressed by that perspective.
So sometimes we may have publicly announced some things, and it may be that we are going to do this by this time, and it’s not happening. We might feel it’s a loss of face or what will people think. But that’s okay.
We have to, we should be, deadlines can be flexible. Especially in projects which are long term. It’s good to have deadlines, but it’s not necessary.
You see, again, it’s that deadlines are good. But again, attachment to deadlines is not good. So if I find that this deadline is becoming a competitor to Krishna rather than a facilitator to Krishna.
This deadline should stimulate me to do more and more service to Krishna. But this deadline itself is burdening me so much that I’m only thinking of the deadline and not thinking about Krishna, and I’m feeling drained because of that. Then we can readjust.
It might require some things to be done, but it’s okay. So we keep that purpose, then you can move on.