Can we pray to Krishna for removing obstacles in our material life?
Thank you can we pray to Krishna say if our throat is spoiled and the kirtan festival is there that is my throat behaving or any material situation that is there which is obstructing us in some way can we pray for the removal of that certainly praying is a way we come closer to Krishna and if praying basically is a way we share our heart with Krishna and if something is burning our heart something is taking a big place in our heart and sharing that with Krishna is the way we give him a place in our heart we want to become pure devotees we cannot become pure devotees without becoming devotees so I want to purely connect with Krishna but before that I have to connect with Krishna so sometimes the emphasis on pure devotion may be so much oh this is material this is material this is material I should not pray to Krishna for this but then we are living in the material world so most of our concerns are related material things only and the material things affect our spiritual life also so praying to Krishna for something material is not wrong I would say that in bhakti and in karmakand or in material religiosity and spiritual religion prayer itself has two different conceptions if you see in karmakand prayer is primarily seen as a tool to get God to do something for us but if we see in bhakti vandanam prayer is seen as a limb of devotional service so now if I like shravanam kirtanam vishnu spharanam paada sevanam archanam vandanam so now if I am hearing about Krishna or if I'm chanting Krishna's name if I'm doing duty worship now is there some specific result I expect from that no Bhagavatam says that create a bhagvatya dha tan manya dita muttama these increase our attraction to Krishna so we hear chanting and all these activities for connecting with Krishna for developing our relationship with Krishna for becoming more attracted to him so similarly vandanam also we can see as an activity for connecting with Krishna so praying may have a particular request but we don't make that request the center point of the prayer we don't define the success of the prayer based on whether that request is fulfilled or not because sometimes some devotees say that if I pray to Krishna and that thing doesn't happen then I'll my faith in prayer will go down my faith in Krishna may also go down so better I'll not pray to Krishna no that's a disorder in this area praying is connecting with Krishna so Prabhupada says in I think the fourth third canto purport karnamuni section that a devotee desires to see the lord but a devotee doesn't demand to see the lord so desiring to have darshan of the lord that is but not demanding is also bhakti that's our that's our subordination surrender the same principle can be applied to all aspects of our life we desire but we don't demand we are individuals and individuals mean we will have our individual desires so having a particular desire you know let my this health improve or let my throat improve or let my job situation improve let me get a better job over here or whatever these things can pray for them but we don't make our bhakti conditional to them only after this happens then i'll be able to practice bhakti yes i'll be able to practice bhakti there better at that time but even now i'll continue practicing bhakti and if that happens i'll be able to do it better so that way we don't have to deny our human concerns a place in our relationship with krishna but we don't reduce our relationship with krishna to only addressing our human concerns to krishna for material things should not become a habit well i would say it's not so much that should not become a habit it is that that habit should not predominate our relationship with krishna because at a level material things you know if i am going for a program and i'm getting late then i say pray to krishna krishna please let me get let me reach the program on time now okay that's fine but you know if that is the only time i'm praying to krishna it's like you know the like sometimes the child is staying child is staying somewhere in a hostel and the only time the child causes us to ask for money they don't ask how you are what are you doing and nothing can i get please send me some money please send me some money then that will create a bad taste in the relationship so if there are some practical material concerns we want to pray to krishna that's okay but the important thing is we have practices of bhakti going on respective of and they are the defining aspects of our relationship with krishna.