Can we get tangible results in bhakti as we get in our worldly relationships?
Okay so in worldly relationships whether they be marital relationships or humanitarian relationship or whatever we can see some tangible result which gives us some satisfaction but in Krishna bhakti it's a very gradual process so when we don't get the tangible result how can we avoid the temptation to do something to seek something else which will give us tangible results it is not that bhakti doesn't give us tangible results it is just that we have to be clear of how we understand tangible if I think the tangible result should be that I should be able to see Krishna then that is going to take a long time we have many many lifetimes in the material world and therefore it will take time for us to become purified to the level where we come to see Krishna but if you want to see tangible result in terms of our own purification we have seen that ourselves we may have had many bad habits which we were able to give up by the practice of bhakti and actually in the initial years of our life the tangible results are much easier to see because there are tangible changes that happen we give up this habit we give up that habit but after a few years of the practice of bhakti it becomes a little more difficult because then we feel that oh same lust is there same greed is there same anger is there it may not be there in gross way that we were earlier but still it is there it's troubling me and it seems to just go on and on it doesn't seem to go away so that's why at this stage when our at a gross level transformation has happened at a subtle level transformation is going to take time that's why we need some service which gives us a tangible sense of contribution the best such service is outreach we try to share Krishna's message with others and then we see how people's lives are transformed we see sometimes people's lives getting transformed right in front of our eyes and we just speak some little bit about me or Krishna initially they are hostile they are not interested but they start practicing and then we see them transform transform doesn't mean that somebody starts wearing dhoti kurta but we see transform means we see that the quality of their life improves we see that actually they are benefited they give up bad habits they start living more productive positive lives so they actually become more responsible and they contribute better even in this moment and we see that that gives you a lot of conviction for me personally before I was introduced to bhakti I was associated with social service organization where I used to go and I had a lot of faith in the power of education so I used to teach I used to go to slums near my college and I used to teach English history maths the slum children and I was getting some fulfillment by that but then I found that the parents the fathers of these families they were all drunkards there's domestic violence in their houses and at that time when the children got a little close and started telling the stories to me I felt that you know when there's such a big problem in their house you know what is how much is this going to really help so I was a part of our organization at that time and we decided to also diversify into countering alcoholism so we started conducting we started getting experts to conduct the seminars we started conducting de-addiction campaigns and one of my friends he went to a village nearby he used to go there and he got the almost the whole village to become a drive to give alcohol and we said that was a big achievement for us but then after that the local municipality elections came and the local political candidate he came with two truckloads of free alcohol for all those who would vote for him and not only those people who had given up alcohol they too had drank but even their children drank and then that was shattering for us and personally I felt really that how am I really helping people so one thing is today we talk about education opens more doors for us if a person is not educated they can only get low-paying jobs if they have good education they can get high-paying jobs yes, that's true education opens doors for us but more than opening doors what we, what people also need is is the self-mastery by which they can walk through the doors I was recently in IIT and in IIT alcoholism and drug addiction is a big problem so many of the students are quoting that I was in IIT Kharagpur just talking with the one of the professors over there she's telling that's a major issue they're brilliant students and because of their brilliance even when they take drugs they take alcohol still they are able to perform but relatively speaking if they are not doing those things they would be able to perform so much better and some of them just get so terribly addicted that they ruin their lives so I would say that just we need to holistically see how we can benefit people so over the years I've seen man, I've as I travel all over the world see many people who were who were into alcohol into bad habits they've just given it up and their lives have become better so we can see ourselves that our attempts to share Krishna message can bring tangible benefits even in this world and we do need to see that tangible benefit may not be just all of us may not always be able to directly sharing Krishna consciousness but there will be other services that we do but we need to see people being transformed and we need to feel that we are contributing to that transformation if we don't get that sense of contribution and sense of making a change then we will start falling for lower tastes I won't do this I won't do this we will we need basically when we talk about lower tastes that is anti-devotional sensual tastes the higher taste the pure higher spirit the pure higher taste is just the taste of hearing and chanting out Krishna but along with that they are getting the higher taste that also comes by doing higher activities in this world so when we do some practical services and we see people being benefited we feel that we are doing something worthwhile so in our life we will do various activities but there should be some service which gives us a sense of tangible contribution and that will ensure that will keep us inspired in our practices.