If wanting to do a lot of service spoils our health how to stay balanced?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you So if we want to do a lot of service but our work is also demanding And then trying to do a lot affects our health What to do? The desire to do more and more for Krishna is a very auspicious desire And that will help us connect more and more with Krishna At the same time we have to recognise that It is Krishna who gives us the abilities to do things Whatever I am doing service, whatever I am doing My abilities are Krishna’s abilities And this is not so difficult to understand Because we understand that abilities are there But we also have to understand that our situations are also Krishna’s arrangements So our situations are also Krishna’s arrangements So sometimes we may be put in a situation Where our capacity to do things may be relatively speaking restricted So we work in that situation Surrender means to do what we can With what we have right now So the problem comes when If we do excessively and our health gets spoiled What we need to think about is that It’s better to burn longer than brighter You don’t want to serve Krishna but you want to serve Krishna lifelong And there is a letter of Prabhupada where he tells the devotee that If you don’t take care of your health now In the future even if you are very enthusiastic you will not be able to serve Krishna So in a sense we often have a very fragmented conception of service Doing this is service But actually devotion is a matter of attitude So A, I am doing my job also in a mood of service to Krishna That is also service Similarly if I am taking care of my body Also I see that this is a tool given by Krishna to me That is also service One way, of course when we are young and energetic it’s difficult to think of it that way But one way to think of it is that Actually if somehow our body falls sick Then what to speak of we doing service, others will have to serve us So sometimes that may just be the situation But why do we want to invite that kind of situation So I feel that the sense of achievement that we want I want to do something special, that is good That’s not bad But it has to be seen in the perspective of developing a holistic relationship with Krishna So my relationship with Krishna is not just in terms of achievements that I do But that is important My relationship with Krishna is also in terms of how I relate with Krishna Through various aspects of my life One of the differences between a Kanishka Adhikari and a Madhyama Adhikari Kanishka Adhikari can see Krishna only in the deities But Madhyama Adhikari understands that my relationship with Krishna is shaped by how I relate with everyone I worship the deities, I have different devotees I am kind to the innocent and then I keep a distance from the atheistic All these three modes of interaction also affect my relationship with Krishna Similarly, if I understand how I relate with my body also affects my relationship with Krishna So that expansive vision, in our case it may not be the deities In our case it may be this particular service I want to achieve, I want to distribute books, I want to do this So we see our relationship with Krishna only with respect to that But that is almost like a Kanishka mentality It’s good we are connecting with Krishna But when we see our relationship with Krishna holistically So sometimes some devotees do a lot of service But in doing that service they sort of step over other’s toes They hurt others, they injure others, alienate others Then that won’t be so pleasing to Krishna So if you get that inclusive understanding of Bhakti Then you see that there is a conversation of Prabhupada One devotee asked Prabhupada that It is said that when we take prasadam, you see there are germs in our body Do you also get prasadam? So Prabhupada said yes When you take prasad, you are doing social service But then Prabhupada said that is not the only way to do social service So the point is that we serve Krishna in different ways And yes we may be inspired to do one thing But that should not be the only thing Like I told about in the class about cancerous growth Not necessarily equal, we may be inspired to do one more Which is fine But that one service should not be at the expense of other Like I talked about cancerous growth So where one causes damage of other It is possible somebody is a body builder And their physical muscles may be more developed than their intellect Somebody is more intellectual, their intellectual side may be more developed than physical So it is not that every aspect of the body has to be equally developed Some services may be more important for us and we will do them more But the development of one should not be at the destruction of the other, damage to other So the development of the physical muscles should not be at the expense of the shunting of the brain It means that the brain may not be developed as much as the body But that’s fine