How can we avoid discouragement when our sincere service is repeatedly frustrated?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So sometimes we have some devotional desires and we are doing it for Krishna. So we understand sometimes they will be fulfilled, sometimes they will not be fulfilled. But if repeatedly our devotional desires to do something practical for Krishna’s service are frustrated, then we may start feeling that better not get involved in any of these things.
I’ll just focus on chanting, connecting with Krishna and not do anything practical. So how should we respond in such situations? There are three things I will say. First is that it is not always that even when we are serving Krishna, our desire will be fulfilled.
We see that example in the life of Srila Prabhupada itself. From 1922 when he met Srila Prabhupada, when he met Prakrishnan Sri also Srila Prabhupada. So from that time onwards till almost 1966, Prabhupada had no significant success.
All his desires were devotional. He wanted to start a magazine, he wanted to start an organization, he wanted to inspire people to start practicing bhakti, he wanted to work with his god brothers, he wanted to start a business so that he could give money to his spiritual master mission. None of them worked.
The only thing that worked was he published his Bhagavatam and then several prominent people along with the Prime Minister of India at that time appreciated it. So even Prabhupada faced so many frustration of his desires. So if it can happen to a devotee who can be more exalted than Srila Prabhupada, it can happen to him, it can happen to us also.
So we should, first thing I am talking about this is to say that we shouldn’t think that this is either a failure of the process of devotional service or it is a failure of even my devotional service. It is not that bhakti yoga doesn’t work or it is not that even bhakti yoga doesn’t work for me. It may happen like this for anyone, even for the most exalted devotee.
Having said that, the second point is that we need to practically deal with it. Now Prabhupada also we saw that when one thing didn’t work, he kept trying something else, kept trying something else, kept trying something else. So just as the Bhagavatam says about Kunti Maharani, 1.8.42 it is said, it says the Ganga flows towards the ocean always, let my consciousness flow towards you.
So if there is an obstacle, sometimes the water goes below it, round it, left, right, above it or sometimes just keeps going, going, going, erodes and then goes on. So like that we have to find a way to keep moving towards Krishna. And if one service doesn’t work out, then another.
If this doesn’t work out, another. If this doesn’t work out, another. So empowerment doesn’t mean absence of obstacles.
Empowerment means perseverance amidst obstacles. So the obstacles come but they don’t stop us. We keep moving despite the obstacles.
Somehow or other we keep moving. So the spirit of a devotee is that whether the results come or not, Krishna is seeing my endeavour. And my endeavours, they bring the result of purification for me.
If the endeavours lead to a tangible result in the world, then they bring the result of contribution in this world. So the endeavour itself brings purification. And when the endeavour gives a result in this world, that amounts to a contribution in the world.
But the result for myself is there, it always happens. If we start a program and very few people come for the program. If we are going and speaking about Krishna, we are getting purified with it.
So in that sense, we shouldn’t think that our service is going in vain. The result at the external level may not be manifesting, but at the internal level it is manifesting. Purification is happening.
But just like Prabhupada, his goal was not simply purification. It was also contribution. If Prabhupada’s goal had only been purification, he could have been happily chanting Hare Krishna in Vrindavan.
He wanted to contribute in this world. That’s why he took so much risk and travelled all over the world. Similarly, at one level, we are satisfied because we are getting purified.
So if we just have an external vision of things, then we think, what did I get? I worked so hard, I got nothing. We got purified. But because we want to follow Sri Prabhupada’s footsteps, we want to contribute.
So we have to adjust. This didn’t work, let me try this. And the last point I’ll make is that we all go through phases in our spiritual life.
So sometimes if we made 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 frustrations, at that time we just feel, I just want to focus on connecting with Krishna. It’s perfectly fine. That’s what we may need at that time.
But we don’t have to make that as a lifelong resolution. That this phase in my life, this is what I need. So next six months, next one year, next two years, whatever it is, I’m just going to focus on connecting with Krishna.
And when we connect with Krishna deeply, Krishna will guide us from within. That Krishna will give us the intelligence of how we can come to Him. So all of us have been given a particular set of abilities.
And we also have a certain set of limitations. Sometimes we may be pursuing projects, pursuing services, which are, which are, we are pursuing them because that is what is glamorized in the community, in the devotee community. We should be doing this, we should be doing that, we should be doing that.
But we may just not have the particular abilities for doing that. That doesn’t mean we can’t do anything. We can do something, something else, which is more according to our nature, according to our set of abilities.
So when we connect deeply with Krishna, we stop seeing ourselves through the mirror of the world. We start seeing ourselves as we are, as Krishna has made us. And then we can start saying, okay, this is, see, basically, when we are going to do a service, guna karma vibhagasya Krishna says, call it guna and karma.
The way I understand guna and karma is that what we are, what we feel comfortable doing, that is guna. I have the quality for doing something if I feel comfortable doing it. And karma means what I am competent in doing.
So if we can find a service, which has new things, I feel comfortable doing it, and I am competent in doing it. I may not be very competent now, but if I keep doing it, I improve and I become more and more competent. Then we can just keep doing that service lifelong.
The results will come sooner or later. But if we are comfortable doing that service, if we are competent at it, then we will be much more satisfied. Then what we would be, if we are doing some other service, which is glamorized, which is successful, in which we are successful also, but we are not comfortable doing it, we are not competent at it.
So we all have to act according to our nature. So the more we, understanding our nature takes time, and sometimes the rebuttals, or not the rebuttals, the reversals that we get in life, in our services, they force us to go inwards and examine what is it that Krishna wants us to offer to him. And when we go inwards, understand who we actually are, what our strengths are, what our inspirations are, and then we bring that out.
Then eventually, by Krishna’s grace, the results will manifest when we are doing that which we are meant to do. So going through phases where we feel, I just don’t want to do anything, I want to connect with Krishna, that is good. But we don’t have to make it a lifelong commitment.
We can say, this is what I need right now. And we stay open to Krishna. Krishna, you guide me how you want me to serve.
If you want me to serve you simply by chanting, I’m ready to do that. But if you want me to do something else, please guide me how I should do it. And we have that openness.
We have the determination to serve and openness about how I serve. Then we find that Krishna will guide us towards a service that will bring both internal satisfaction and that will lead to outer contribution. Does it answer the question?