How can we avoid feeling insecure if our service is not recognized?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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the way. Okay. Thank you.
Any other questions? Yes, sir. Actually, just as in material society, certain careers may be glamorized. Say in India, engineering and medicine are glamorized.
Everybody wants to go in, whether they are interested in it, they are competent, not at all. They are just pushed into it. So like that in bhakti also, certain services get glamorized.
And everybody feels I have to do this service. So maybe in the early years of our movement, it was book distribution. Now it may be preaching in terms of speaking, or it might be in terms of kirtans.
Kirtani is also quite glamorized. So there are certain services that are glamorized. Book distribution is of course still now also glamorized.
But we may rush towards doing that service. Because that is what we think is a successful devotee. Or that is what we think is the ideal devotee.
But one of the things which, especially, I have almost 20 years in India, I didn’t travel outside India. And now I’ve been traveling across for several years. So one of the things I understood is that Krishna consciousness is far bigger than our conceptions of Krishna consciousness.
So there are thousands and thousands of ways in which somebody can be deeply Krishna conscious, and I may have no inkling of it. So we don’t have, so generally if we go by external stereotypes, this is what a devotee, this is how I should be. So then we actually may leave ourselves behind in the sense that we may start doing something which is alien to our nature.
But if we understand that ultimately I have to offer myself to Krishna. I cannot offer someone else to Krishna. It is I, it is my heart, it is my body, it is my mind.
This is the resource which I am to offer to Krishna. So how best can I do that? And if we accept ourselves, then we can actually offer ourselves. If we are resenting ourselves, thinking I should be like this, I should be like that, I should be like that, then it becomes very difficult for us to do what we are meant to do.
Now some of us, Krishna may want us to have a very visible, much praised and recognized service for him. Some of us, Krishna may want us to do a smaller service. We have the story in the Ramayana of how Hanuman was there and a squirrel was there.
From Hanuman’s perspective, both of them were equally valued. Although from a practical perspective, Hanuman was contributing much more. But from the personal, relational perspective, Lord Rama was appreciating both.
So we need to learn to accept ourselves. If Krishna had wanted us to be someone else, he would have made someone else. So Krishna has made me, me and Krishna has made you, you.
So we don’t have to become someone else to become a devotee. We have to become the best that we can be and be a devotee. Thank you.
So there’s nothing as discouraging in our spiritual life as being with people who can’t even understand our success. Not necessarily in an egoistic sense, but it’s just, they just don’t appreciate it at all. It can be, it is incredibly painful, incredibly discouraging.
When I started writing, in India, the leading newspaper is Times of India. And Times of India was the first paper to start a spiritual column. They called it the Speaking Tree.
And when I would read that even 25-30 years ago, before I was introduced to bhakti, I used to dream one day I’ll write for this. And then I started writing as a brahmachari. And then after a few years of writing, I submitted some articles to Speaking Tree.
And once an article got published, suddenly a dream come true for me. I was so happy. Now, when I came and told other brahmachari friends, oh, my article got published in Speaking Tree.
And one of them, they all looked at me, and a strange one of them said, how does a tree speak? So now most of them, they’re not even reading newspapers at all. They had no understanding. I said, what is going on over here? But then soon after that, His Holiness Jaya Devdutt Maharaj came there to Pune.
And then I was translating his classes into Hindi. Then I was talking with him after that. And I told him, Maharaj, I’m writing, and I’ve got some articles published.
He says, well, show it to me. Then I showed it to him, and he was so happy, lavishly appreciative. And then I asked him, Maharaj, how can I improve my writing? So he gave me a long list of books.
This was maybe 2002, something like early days. That time, we didn’t have much internet in India. There was no Amazon.
So I said, these are all Western authors. How will I get them? So then, after a few months later, Govind Prabhu called me from Mumbai. And he said, I was in America.
I met Jaya Devdutt Maharaj, and he has sent some books on writing for you. So Maharaj went to America. He remembered that I needed the books, and he sent them.
So I felt so validated by that. I felt so valued by that. So as rightly said, we need someone who will appreciate what we are doing, even if it’s one or two people, even if we meet them occasionally.
But otherwise, it’s extremely painful. It’s extremely discouraging. And it can be totally alienating also.
We just, I don’t belong here. So we all, just because we have Krishna in common, doesn’t necessarily mean we will immediately feel a sense of commonality. Yes, that is there.
But if, say, we are all alone on a flight, and we meet some devotee, it’s so nice, we can talk something with them. But at the functional level, Krishna is a transcendental commonality. But we need some other commonality which also