Are devotees living in farm communities better situated than those living in cities?

Answer Podcast

So, our devotees who are staying in farm communities, more directly involved in living more pious lives than those who are living in cities, yes, certainly life in villages or rural settings is more harmonious with nature, is closer to is closer to the way traditionally devotees have lived.
So, in that sense, spiritual advancement may be easier over there. But, you know, what is easier and what is difficult is relative. Like some people may say that brahmacharya ashram is better than vahastha ashram for spiritual advancement.
Now, in one sense it is true that you can have more time, more facility, more opportunity for practicing bhakti. But, it is not necessarily true for everyone. In fact, it is not true for most people.
Most people need vahastha ashram to practice bhakti. Similarly, most of us, we have grown up in an urban setting. And although in principle a rural setting may be more conducive for bhakti, if you are habituated to the utilities and comforts of urban life, sometimes living without them becomes a far greater physical and mental struggle than whatever spiritual opportunity might be there.
Life may be simpler over there in some sense, but that simplicity may itself lead to some difficulty. So, we have to see, first of all, how best we can practice bhakti. Some devotees may be inspired to live in farm communities and if they can, that’s wonderful, but bhakti is ahaitukhi apratihata.
Prabhupada translates ahaitukhi apratihata in terms of our performance. He says that our performance of bhakti should be uninterrupted and should be unmotivated. Krishna Chakravarti Thakur translates the same ahaitukhi apratihata from the other side.
He says bhakti cannot be interrupted by anything material. Not that we should not let our bhakti be interrupted, but bhakti in principle cannot be interrupted by anything material. So, bhakti, which ashram we are living in, it’s immaterial from the point of view of bhakti, because bhakti cannot be interrupted by any ashram.
Similarly, whether we are living in cities or in villages, that is also a material situation. Bhakti cannot be interrupted by that. Yes, definitely, in a city there are more distractions, but along with that, distractions are not just external.
If something is very difficult for us physically to do, we are not habituated to doing that, then that may create more difficulties. That’s the first point. Something may be good, but that doesn’t mean that it’s universally good for everyone.
And in a particular social circumstance, it may not be good for most people also for practicing bhakti, although it may be very good for some people even today. Second is that ours is a preaching mission and certainly if we have farm communities that demonstrate eco-friendly spiritual living, they can also preach, but even those communities for those communities to attract others, to see what they are doing, they need to be connected with others who are living in the mainstream society. So, see, I once gave a Bhagavatam class in Pune, I was talking about the confrontation or penetration.
Two modes of sharing Krishna consciousness. In the initial days of our movement, the whole idea was that the mainstream culture is demoniac, the mainstream culture is terrible and we are going to offer an alternative culture. So, we are confronting the mainstream culture and we are going to show how our culture is superior, how we have a superior alternative.
So, even till around 1970, till 1980, more than 95% of ISKCON devotees were staying inside the temples. But, once book distribution ran into problems, various things happened and the number of devotees, now, more than 95% of devotees stay outside the temples. So, now, these devotees are staying outside, they naturally, they are not really, they cannot confront the mainstream culture.
They have to penetrate into that culture. And then they have to present, they have to practice bhakti and present bhakti accordingly. So, if we still stick, if our whole movement sticks to the confrontational model, then most devotees will find it very difficult to practice bhakti.
And, in one sense, when Prabhupada preached for the first time in 1960-1970s, that was the time of the counter culture. So, people were looking for alternatives to the mainstream culture. Now, people are not looking like that.
So, you know, if we are doing something which seems utterly strange, impractical, impossible for people, then people will just neglect us. But, if people see that we, we are living like them, but we are living different from them. We are living in the same society, pursuing similar success in material life, but still we have something more in our life.
And that can attract them. So, unless we, unless we have examples of people living in mainstream society, but with values different from the mainstream society, we will not spread much. So, if you see, it’s like, earlier the idea of Krishna Consciousness was, it’s like, this is our devotee society and there is a big valley in between and then there is a non-devoted demoniac society.
But now, it’s more the understanding is, yes, there is a devotee society and there are concentric circles. Different devotees will have different levels of seriousness. And it’s not that, say, those devotees who are not following very high standards of bhakti, it’s not that they are not devotees.
They are also devotees, but they are practicing at a different level. And, so, it’s more like concentric circles. It’s not that we want one circle of devotees and the whole world as enemy of the devotees.
No, we want one circle who are dedicated devotees and they are concentric circles. They all, many circles have appreciation for devotees, but they practice at different levels. So, for that, devotees, for that kind of outreach to happen, there have to be devotees in the mainstream society also.
So, we can preach effectively only when we have this. And in one sense, if we see that, Prabhupada was asked, where should our temples be? What is the best place for the temples? So, Prabhupada said, the temple is like a hospital. The best location for the hospital is where there are the most sickness.
So, cities are the most contaminated, that is why there are temples should be. So, when the temples are there, there have to be communities around it, there have to be devotees nearby, congregation devotees. So, in that sense, both from the point of individual habit and individual culture, individual upbringing, and also in the point of view of institutional outreach, the devotees who are living in cities are playing a very important role.
And one problem with this is that it’s easy, because modern society is so fast-paced, so materialistic, so distracted, it’s easy to get frustrated with that. And if you get frustrated with that, the grass always seems greener on the other side. In fact, you know, grass always seems greener on every side, except the side I am on.
If you feel strongly inspired to be a part of harm community, that is fine. But if that is not there, then unnecessarily feeling bad that I am here and not there, this is where I am, let me practice whatever way best I can. We can actually do a lot.
But most of the places where Krishna Conscious Movement has spread strongly is in many of the cities. That’s where there are young, intelligent people, dedicated people. In India, Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta also now more and more.
In the cities, Bhakti is spreading. Bhakti cannot be interrupted by anything material, including the urbanization of society.