If devotees are becoming lethargic in professional life should we encourage them to aim high?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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sometimes devotees become very negative and apathetic about their careers and they just they so therefore if we speak in order to encourage them to emphasize on the zeal required for practicing for succeeding in professional life then that if you aim high and even if you not get to the mountain to the sky you will get to the tree tops so this kind of encouraging devotees if you do there are other devotees who oppose saying that ultimately things are destined you know not everybody is going to achieve so how do we balance the how do we have balanced approach that doesn’t make devotees underperform in their professional life right answer there are three different things here first is that whether the Krishna consciousness movement is giving spiritual knowledge or that is giving all around knowledge in the Shrimad Bhagavatam it talks about many subjects but it is primarily spoken to help people to help a person who is already accepted that he is going to die to prepare for death whether Shukadeva Goswami would have spoken the exact same message at the time when Parikshit Maharaj is going to be coronated as the king he would have spoken the message of devotion to the lord only but with that emphasis of continuously of renouncing the world of seeing everything as entanglement that is something the essential principles apply all the time but there is a contextual application in the Bhagavad Gita nowhere in the Bhagavad Gita does Krishna encourage renunciation in fact Krishna is actually constantly saying engagement engagement why? because the context is that Arjuna should act responsibly so we have to see generally the mainstream forums of our moment that is the places where we are focusing on the temple classes the temple classes and things like that there are places where we can just focus on pure devotion but apart from the temple classes like the Bhagavatam class or Sunday Peace class apart from that if there are some special seminars where you want to speak some other things that is fine at that time so it is more a matter of context now as far as devotees becoming lethargic I would say that there has to be some forum where devotees can also be encouraged at a material level if they need that encouragement but whether that should be in the temple context directly that is something which has to be I would say our moment is not yet ready for that so maybe there could be some forums which are associated with temple but they are not directly temple maybe some self-help coaching institute or something like that where these principles can be emphasized more in a way that so it is called as primarily giving us spiritual knowledge and helping us for spiritual growth so Prabhupada’s idea Prabhupada’s focus was that people they often are workaholics materialistic people so that you should work and progress materially that message people are getting from many many sources so at least somewhere else there is a message that don’t be so mad about work focus on the other side of life also so that is the overall thrust of Prabhupada’s presentation now it is true that devotees can go to the extremes as it has happened sometimes some devotees just they focus on renunciation so much that they demonize grahasthashtra and our movement has now learnt to balance and the grahasthashtra is also very important and it is also where most people are going to be there is no need to demonize that is also a dharmic ashram where people can go towards it so that balance is coming gradually so similarly between just resignation to destiny and between taking up of initiative there is a balance so in general in the Bhagavatam at Prabhupada’s teachings there has been emphasis on don’t endeavor too much in your material life but the fact is that I think with the example of Arjuna he did not become a champion simply by practicing all day and all night that’s one of the reasons why he got the name gudakesha so there is that aspect also but when the mainstream presentation is in a particular way and if you are going to give a different tag then you have to be sensitive to people so the way I would present this is that instead of talking in terms of achievement because that sounds too mundane I talk in terms of contribution I say that you know as devotees our goal should be to offer ourselves to Krishna and offer ourselves doesn’t mean only our soul to Krishna Krishna has given us our body Krishna has given us our mind and Krishna has given us certain talents so these talents also need to be offered and just as if we have money and if we don’t give the money to Krishna that is we could be giving more service by giving more charity so like that if I have talents and those talents could be used for making contributions and if I don’t do that then I am not doing that which I could be doing and I often say that the bridge between talent and achievement is commitment without that commitment talent will not translate into achievement Arjuna’s example is that he is committed to becoming an expert archer so as devotees we can say that if we are professionals we may not want to become big for our own sake we may want to also we may just have superficial covering of pure devotion but we also have our ambitions but if a devotee becomes influential in society then that devotee is influential position will also have a positive create a positive perception about devotion that oh devotees do so well also so a student is a very good student and that student says I chant Hare Krishna other people may inspire so if a person is in top position in a company and then that person encourages other to come to temple people will take it more seriously so we can see our aiming to do our best in material life as a way of contributing to our devotional outreach not in a direct way by preaching but by creating a positive impression about devotees so if we can represent our working hard and doing and aiming high as a service that these are the talents we have been given we have to do justice to those talents we have to make the contribution that we are meant to make and that is also a contribution to the overall changing of the perception of devotion so devotion is not just about coming to the temple and chatting and doing bhakti it is also about how we act in the world so now Bhaktivinoda Thakur said that he longs for the day when the high court judges would have tilak on their court what does it mean? one possibility could be that we have a devotee government and that government of course devotes only as judges the other possibility is that he is also saying that the judges the devotees become so competent even at the even at the mundane activity of administration court of judging that materialistic people recognize their competence and make devotees as high court judges so Bhaktivinoda Thakur was an example of that he was a great devotee but his material was very responsible and competent so his example we can quote so when we want to present conceptions that are somewhat different from what is the main emphasis then we have to be sensitive and we have to try to find examples from within the tradition and use terminology that is consistent with the terminology that is used within the tradition to make sure that we don’t raise people’s concerns we shouldn’t feel that we are speaking something else only so yes our movement does need at one level the emphasis on the positive we also should work hard don’t just be lazy don’t just be apathetic and there also we can balance yes we should work hard but not so hard that we neglect our bhakti so it’s like the way I would put it is the time when you are doing your bhakti be whole hearted the time when you are doing your job at that time also be whole hearted so it’s not that you have to be half hearted at that time and just get along with the basic minimum if somebody is very inspired to do bhakti and then they are you know they are just doing the bare minimum in their material life and they are doing a lot in their spiritual life that is fine but sometimes some people don’t do much in their spiritual life and they don’t do much in their material life also and then they feel actually they are not really satisfied by that so that if the philosophy becomes a rationalization for our lethargy then it becomes a problem there can be devotees who are very dedicated and they just want to do so much service that they feel their material life is not important that is somebody that we respect them for their devotion but for somebody who is not that way then there is no need to that means somebody who is very detached from material life that person is focusing very seriously in bhakti somebody who has become detached from material life but is not really serious in spiritual life that may well be tamoguna so then relatively speaking rajoguna is better than tamoguna you have a desire to work hard you have a desire to achieve then do that in your material life and try to do something for Krishna so you know we want people to so the emphasis on don’t overwork that is meant to raise people from rajoguna to sattoguna but sometimes some devotees misunderstand that they go from rajoguna to tamoguna and we want to avoid that so we present it properly then actually we can contribute to giving a more holistic understanding of bhakti as direct devotional activities which we do for Krishna where also we work hard and direct devotional activities where we do in our worldly profession also and there also we can want to do wonderful things but not for our own ego not for our own gratification but as a contribution for Krishna’s cause indirectly