Does doing good make the heart into a temple?
Your person has no malice in their heart and is doing good. Does that make the heart in a temple or something additional needs to be done? See there are three different things.
There is papa, there is punya, and there is bhakti. So papa and punya is what we talk about. Wrong actions and right actions.
But bhakti is not just right actions. Because often when we think about what is wrong and right, we think of it all in terms of the body. So for example, if somebody is hungry, we offer them some food.
That is a good action. If somebody is hungry, we should offer help if we can. So that is good.
But at the same time, the body and the soul are different. And we at our core are souls. So doing good activities at the level of the body, it helps the body but it automatically does not help the soul.
So the soul needs to be awakened by a distinct set of activities. And when we are doing good activities, at that time is our heart a temple? Our heart has more potential to become a temple than if we are doing bad activities. But just the good activities themselves don't make it into a temple because temple means there is a presence of the lord in our heart.
And that presence has to be invoked. So when we do bad activities of bhakti, when we chant the holy names, when we associate with devotees, when we hear the katha of the lord, that is the time when the lord's presence becomes manifest. So certainly, living a good life is much much better than living a bad life.
At the same time, the good and the bad, they can both well be there with the misconception that I am the body. One problem is when we are doing good activities is that at the material level, even the good is not going to stay good for very long. That means I may want to help someone else but they are going to grow old, they are going to get diseased, they are going to die.
We are also going to grow old, get diseased and die. So materially, whatever we do for them, that is not going to have lasting benefit. That does not mean that we should not do that good.
It means that we should also look for something that is good at a lasting level. So the body is temporary, the soul is eternal. Vishal Prabhupada would give the example that suppose there is a very wealthy billionaire and his son has left home and his son is lost on the streets and then that billionaire's friend comes and sees along.
Oh, this billionaire is lost, he has left his father's home and he is hungry, he is sick, he is homeless, he is on the streets. So then he says please take this food. He says please take this food.
That is good. But the best thing for that son is not just to be provided food, not just to be provided clothing, not just to be provided medicines, it is to be taken back to his father's home. The son goes back to the father's home, then all the food, clothing, medicine, everything will be provided automatically.
The father is resourceful enough to provide that. The problem is, yes that presently he doesn't have those things and those things have to be provided. But more importantly, he is in that situation of not having those things because he is away from his father.
So like that we are all souls. As souls we are all parts of God and the Lord is Lakshmipati. So we are all his children.
And in this world when we are there, we are away from the Lord. And we may have various problems which are serious problems. We have problems, others have problems.
And as much as possible we can try to help others by doing good. But if somebody does the good for that lost child of giving him food and goes away and somebody else does the good of clarifying whatever misconceptions. Why are you staying away from your father? Your father is so good.
Go back with him. You will be much much happier. And whatever misconceptions are keeping that son away from the father, we remove those misconceptions.
And the son becomes ready to go back to the father. Then that is also a much more valuable service. So like that, if we think of bhakti as simply a show, you just go to a temple, you just do some bhajan, do some kirtan.
We think of it just as some pious cultural activity. Then we may think, oh feeding the poor is much better. We may think actually doing something practical in this world is much better.
But if we understand that this is not just a pious cultural activity, it is a spiritually awakening activity. It is an activity which will awaken our dormant love for the Supreme Lord. And that's how the lost child will become reunited with the father.
Then we see that there is bad, there is good, there is papa, there is punya and there is bhakti. So to the extent we do bhakti, to that extent the Lord's presence becomes manifest in our heart. And when the Lord's presence manifests in our heart, we also do good at that time.
But we do good with a spiritual understanding. And that good goes beyond the material good and bad. Because that is not just, so it's one kind of our friend may say I'll just give you some food, that lost child.
Another says that I'll give you food and I will take you back to your father also. That is the complete good that we can do for others. Does that answer your question? Thank you.