How can we be devotionally conscious when working with materialistic people in a hospital?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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You asked this question about If we are in the hospital working Our consciousness tends to become like That of the other people over there How can we keep spiritual consciousness? There are Three different things There is intention Action And Fruit So our connection with Krishna When we are working When we are into the work In the process, in the action It is not so easy to remember Krishna I would say for example What to speak of somebody working in a hospital Even when I am giving a class How much am I really remembering Krishna at that time? If I am giving a scientific class Talking about science of spirituality Analyzing the existence of the soul It is not necessary that I will be remembering Krishna at that time It is not that The soul is connected with Krishna in one sense But I am talking about scientific experiments Scientific research So Even in activities which are Much more directly connected with Krishna We may not be Remembering Krishna While doing that activity Because often to do an activity you have to become absorbed in it So I would say while doing the activity Our focus should be just on doing it the best The best that we can So If I am answering a question I am trying to understand the body language What is their level? Where are they coming from? And we have to do that So I think it is not that Being Krishna conscious means Having like a split consciousness Where half of it is we are working And half of it is background thinking of Krishna It is not like that We focus completely on Krishna at that time And we work to the best of our capacity But it is primarily in intention In intention Our goal is to serve Krishna Our life is meant for serving him So when Arjuna was fighting the war It was not that he was consciously thinking of Krishna He was thinking about how to defeat this enemy How to counter this arrow How to do this So he is completely absorbed in that But he was fighting that war for Krishna’s sake So if the intention of our life is spiritual Then Then all the activities Become spiritualized by their intentions Even if there is not much Direct Krishna consciousness While doing that activity And Then there is also the Result It is one thing to say that I am doing this for Krishna But it is not just a feeling Part of the result We use the result in Krishna’s service So we spiritualize our home Our home becomes like a temple We use the resources That we earn and contribute them For Krishna’s cause So the idea of giving Lakshmi to Krishna is Not just the principle of giving money The point is that We want Krishna to come in our heart And Right now many material things are there in our heart So what happens is Money is one prominent thing in our heart So if we can’t give our heart to Krishna We give what is in our heart to Krishna And then that place That place Krishna gets in our heart Prabhupada gives the example that if you give books free to people Then people will take it cheaply But if people spend some money They will read the book So it is not so much The act of giving Itself, it is the act of connecting The heart through the process of giving That’s important And this is with respect to the action itself Along with that We can say that If we are Giving adequate time for our spiritual practices Whether it is hearing, chanting Associating with devotees Then gradually Krishna starts Permeating our consciousness So then Initially say if you give A talk for the first time Like when I gave the first public speaking I was very self conscious How do I look, how am I pronouncing, what are people thinking about me But now I have given thousands of talks Now Whether I am in America or India or England It doesn’t matter I just focus on the subject So when we are new at doing something The awareness of the external Is a lot more When we become Habituated to doing something Then like you are driving Once you are used to driving You can talk also to other people So like that As we are practicing bhakti more and more Krishna Becomes a part of our consciousness And what we are doing Specifically, we are aware of it When we are driving we are aware Krishna becomes more and more In the foreground of our consciousness So that will happen Just by the practice of bhakti more and more So It may not happen immediately But if we are practicing year after year More and more Krishna Will be in the background So at least now if we have some time We are connecting with Krishna daily He stays in the background And then over a period of time What is the background comes in the foreground And the specific activity we are doing That goes in the background It’s aware but that’s not the primary thing And along with that we can try to Especially if there are some ways In which we can spiritualize Or have spiritual reflections For some activities Say for example If you are treating patients Now there are some patients We might just see once or twice There are some patients we might interact more regularly So whatever it is There are some words in the Bhagavad Gita Which talk about how we see all living beings As spiritual beings So we can think of it that way Ultimately this is a soul Who also belongs to Krishna Krishna has put me under his care Put him under my care So now this may not be like a regular reflection But it is something which you could You may not be able to always remember it But some reflections Which are Which you have some realization of Sometimes say Somebody is very sick and they are about to die It’s almost by miracle they survive In the medical field also it sometimes happens So then that can be If you write that down And keep that in your mind that actually I can see in the healing of people And in all this I can see God in action So if you have that awareness Then even in the I would say that Because what happens in the medical field All fields it is true but in the medical field There is something in our control and something not in our control So you could Spiritualize that Things which are not in our control I saw a very nice quote In a religious hospital We treat, he heals You must be knowing that Something like that So you could have some meditation like that Which you can revisit