Does devotional life begin only when material life is finished?
Hare Krishna. Question from Stokakrishna Prabhu.
Does devotional life begin only when material life is finished? What does this mean? And how does this apply in our day-to-day life? Answer, the word material can have multiple meanings. And material as a, if the word material is used to refer to embodied existence, then if this world, if in this context it refers to embodied existence, then we are going to be in the material world. Does it mean that as long as we are in the material world, we can never practice devotional life? No.
Krishna does use the word bhakti-yoga for practice. He says, माम्चे योगे भिचारेन भक्ति योगेन सेवते सगुणान समतीत्य यैतान ब्रह्मभुयाय कल्पते In 14.26 in the Bhagavad Gita, he states that those who practice bhakti diligently, they can transcend the three modes. Now, what does this mean? Krishna is saying that people may be under the three modes but still they can practice bhakti diligently and by such diligent practice of bhakti, they will transcend the modes.
So, here if Krishna, if we apply this particular statement that devotional life begins only when material life has ended, then there is no possibility of transcending the modes or ending material existence because bhakti is not just at the end of our material existence, bhakti is also the means to end our material existence. Bhakti is the means to go beyond our beyond the conditionings which have been created by the modes. Yes, we could say that parabhakti, pure devotional service begins when material life has ended.
So, for example, now this is also pointed to in the Bhagavad Gita when Krishna says that ब्रह्मभूत प्रसन्नात्मा नशोचितिन कांचिति समह सर्वेषि भूतेषु मध भक्तिम् लभतेपराम In 18.54 in the Bhagavad Gita he says that ब्रह्मभूत प्रसन्नात्मा that the person who is situated in the Brahman platform that person is free from all cravings, that person is actually devoted to sees all living beings equally, samah sarveshu bhuteshu and then मध भक्तिम् लभतेपराम such a person attains my pure devotional service. So yes, we could say pure devotional service begins when we have become free from all material conditionings but we should not think that what we practice before pure devotional service is of no use. That is also devotional service and bhakti is if nothing else it is a pragmatic activity Pragmatic means that we need to practice bhakti at whatever level we can So in the 12th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita Krishna talks about various levels at which bhakti can be practiced.
In 12.8 he says that always think of me. In 12.9 he says if you can't always think of me then strive to fix your consciousness of me by practicing sadhana bhakti. In 12.10 he says if you can't even do that then work for me.
In 12.11 he says that if you can't work for me then just give up the fruits of your work for a good cause and gradually by this you will attain me. So Krishna is giving a ladder of mercy which is descending downward, downward, downward and through it all he is giving us the opportunity to rise upward, upward, upward from wherever we are. So yes, pure spiritual existence begins when we are free from all material desires and all selfish motivations.
But we see that we does not mean that we neglect our material responsibilities, neglect our material obligations. Prabhupada himself he would take due attention, care of his body. He would take massage every day for a fairly generous amount of time.
He would go for a morning walk every day. He would take food at regulated timings and he would sleep less but he would be, it was not that he was torturing his body by sleeping less. Whatever was needed for taking care of his body, the body was a machine and he did take care of that.
So we shouldn't think that spiritual becoming serious about spiritual life means neglecting or rejecting our material responsibilities. So there is material desires and there are material responsibilities. So eating can be because of material desires and because of that we may eat a hundred things which are not necessarily good for our health and not good for our consciousness.
But eating itself is an activity which is important for our body and to the extent we do it properly with due thought and attention, to that extent the body will be better equipped as a machine for us to do what we want to do with this bodily machine. To serve Krishna properly. So it is not that real spiritual life begins only when we are finished with all eating.
When we stop all eating then our spiritual life will begin. No, that is a wrong understanding. The whole culture of bhakti is a culture of service and serving nice prasad and honoring nice prasad that is actually very important aspect of bhakti.
So we shouldn't neglect this aspect. And to make such neglect as a philosophical principle is a colossal misunderstanding of what bhakti is. Bhakti begins when we imbue all our activities with a mood of service.
And yes, there are some activities which are direct service to Krishna, some activities which are indirect service to Krishna. So sense gratificatory activities are against the principle of service to Krishna and that's why we want to minimize and gradually eliminate them. But we have various roles, we have various relationships, we have various responsibilities and to become negligent or insensitive in those relationships in the name of becoming spiritual is to simply misunderstand what is spiritual.
To actually imbue those relationships and responsibilities with a mood of service to Krishna and to try to think of how I can bring people who are involved in these relationships closer to Krishna that is a more complete and inclusive understanding of bhakti. Thank you. Is the meaning of dharma.