If we don’t speak about high standards won’t low standards become the standard

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So if we don’t speak the highest standard itself then people just stay where they are and think it is alright Those who are following higher standards feel that it is unnecessary So doesn’t that lead to dilution? Yes That’s possible And Shri Prabhupada’s books do talk about the standards Prabhupada is quite consistent in his critique of sense gratification in his books And so when people are reading Prabhupada’s books and encouraging them to read Prabhupada’s books they will get that message So So dilution of the practice is one danger which we have to guard against But there is the other danger that we just there is simply a pretense that we are all at the standard and nobody is actually there and there is a lot of alienation And as a result there are many devotees in the western world who especially devotees who have been there for 20-30 years they often go and have psychological sessions Why? Because they just can’t honestly open their hearts to devotees Because one of the principles of bhakti is And if I know that other person is going to judge and condemn me, I cannot open my heart So they have to go and open their hearts to some non-devotee One of the operating principles of psychology is that you have to have unconditional positive attitude towards of course they do not have a personal relationship but unconditional affirmative attitude We are not going to judge You have your conscience and you evaluate whether what you are doing is right or wrong So people feel hurt One senior Prabhupada disciple I met, you know, he has a pet It’s a dog Then we came close, so I asked him Why do you need a dog? So he said I need at least one person in my life who will love me non-judgmentally So We talk about coming close to each other having good devotee association It’s not just in classes It’s through heart to heart discussion And if we do not acknowledge that these standards are lofty and they may not be realistic for us There is not an acknowledgement of that Then there is a lot of superficiality and even hypocrisy in our practice as well as in our relationships Everybody is pretending that everything is nice but everybody is struggling internally and nobody, they could have helped each other but they are not ready to help each other So that is also a danger and that also has to be guarded against So we will have to present the philosophy and we present it in a way that is I would say according to our realisation So You know Somebody asked me about sex and lust and control I usually say that I am not at a I am not sitting at a high level and saying that this is how you have to control I am also fighting this war, I am also a warrior And there are certain weapons which have worked for me So I will try to share those weapons But tomorrow, if I stop using these weapons, tomorrow if there is an attack you know, I may also fall So then if we say that this is a war which I am also fighting and that is actually Shastra also, what is it, 3rd Canto says that except for Narayan and Narayan Rukhi, nobody is free from lust So then if we are if we, there is humility and honesty when we speak then that won’t lead to any mission So we have to speak according to our realisation otherwise it just comes off as too artificial too judgmental, too over the top So some of us may have that inspiration to focus on the higher standards and we are also trying to follow higher standards and we focus on ensuring that there is a connection with the standards and some of us are more concerned with the origins and connecting with the origins because what is applicable for the audience, what is relevant for the audience So if we consider tradition, that is in the past our origins, that is in the current So the living teacher has to have, be a link who connects with the tradition as well as with the audience and so the fidelity, faithfulness is what connects us with the tradition the sensitivity is what connects us with the audience Now in general, some teachers, for them the connection with the tradition is most important So for some teachers, the connection with the audience is more important and in our movement, we have broadly both kinds of teachers and things balance out So sometimes some teachers may be going too much on the side of connecting with the audience but if that goes too extreme then we just become a part of the contemporary culture because there is no connection with the tradition If there is only connection with the tradition there is no connection with the audience then the tradition becomes a museum exhibit because nobody is practicing it nobody can practice it it just remains impractical which is not how people lived in the past So we have to find out where we can practice bhakti best what level of connectedness with the tradition what level of connectedness with the audience and overall in our movement there are teachers who are on both sides and it balances out