How can we help reluctant people to become spiritually elevated?

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Transcript

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they will come so how can we help people to become elevated spiritually there are in general in the advancement of a person there are three factors involved there is that person’s own free will second is Krishna’s mercy and third is the association the devotees so all three play an important role ultimately Prabhupada was asked how much can we push people sometimes some people say please come for a program so how much can we push people so there are different examples different points to understand this I don’t know if it happens in America but in India often when a driver wants to drive a car the car doesn’t start only so then maybe some helpful people come around and they push the car from outside push it, happens here also? no the problem is we can’t find people to push here so some people come along and push normally speaking the person inside is also trying to try turning the engine and moving the steering wheel and trying to make the car move and from outside also people are pushing and cooperatively they get the car to move but suppose from outside people are pushing the car and inside this person has gone to sleep then the people outside will say why should we keep pushing or worse still the people outside are pushing and inside the person is pressing the brake all the energy will be wasted so there are sometimes people who are not ready to take up Krishna Krishna Bhakti so if they are like in a situation where they are gone to sleep while we are pushing their car or while they are pressing the brake then we can’t help them you see even Srila Prabhupada he shared Krishna consciousness for almost 40 years in India there is not much result why? because people were not really interested so that free will of the soul is the ultimate decider in whether the person will take up or not and if we have invited people we have done what we can to inspire them to take up Krishna Bhakti and they are not taking up then we needn’t spend too much of our time and energy on them we don’t have to become judgmental and think that they are demoniac, they are sinful, they are fallen no, you need to understand that different people are at different stages in their spiritual evolution and we cannot push them faster than they want to be pushed so what we can do is leave them with positive impression of devotees in Krishna that means they may not be ready to take up Krishna Bhakti right now, but if they at least feel yeah, these devotees are good people they have chanted the holy name they have heard Kirtan, they have seen the deities that creates a spiritual impression which will not go away that will bring them closer to Krishna sooner or later so eventually when there is existential question in their life say they face some reversal, some loss then they will at that time start thinking and they will know, oh, I should come to Krishna so we, if we should not push people so much that they get alienated if we inspire them, there is a little pushing that is fine, but if they are not taking up then we should just leave them with a positive impression of devotees have pleasant interactions invite them once in a while for Janmashtami and leave it at that we shouldn’t have bitter feelings because they did not become devotees because they have their free will so that is with respect to their attitude second is with respect to Krishna’s mercy Krishna’s mercy is always available for everyone but that mercy is not always accessible for everyone, there is something which is available and there is another thing which is accessible like sometimes there may be a gadget in which there might be some feature but unless we understand how that feature is to be used we can’t access it so like that, Krishna’s mercy is always available for everyone but it is not always accessible for everyone so what it means is that it is there are the glory of Krishna the sweetness of remembrance of Krishna the security of the shelter of Krishna all these these become felt as needed and cherished by a soul when there are the right circumstances as long as the soul is too infatuated by material things Krishna’s mercy is available but the soul doesn’t explore itself so that means Krishna is always waiting for us but we may not yet be ready for him so when we say Krishna is not accessible that means we don’t seek to access Krishna I have a gadget but I don’t explore the feature only it’s not that Krishna is depriving me but I am not exploring and thirdly is the association of devotees Vishwanath Chakravarthy in his Madhurya Kadambini it is a book which describes the genesis of pure love for Krishna in that book he describes that Shraddha faith can be of two types one is Swabhaviki and the other is Balena Utpadita Swabhaviki is natural faith so natural faith he explains is that which has come from our previous lives we have done some punya we have done some bhakti in the past because of which we are naturally attracted towards Krishna that is Swabhaviki Shraddha and the other is Balena Utpadita Balena Utpadita means if somebody associates with very powerful devotees and then by their inspiration, by their persuasion by their example faith awakens such an intelligent person is doing this there must be some sense in this so for most of us our Shraddha is usually not Swabhaviki for few of us we might have been seekers going out in search for God for most of us we didn’t go out in search for God actually God’s devotees came out in search for us so it is more of Balena Utpadita so when we associate with devotees and then if we see inspiring devotees if we see that they are dedicated, they are caring, they are committed then we feel inspired to take up bhakti so that’s why this third factor the kind of devotee association that is provided that is, that shapes a lot whether a person will take to Krishna Bhakti or not now when we say devotee association is not like one homogeneous chutney that you can feed everyone what I mean is that all devotee association is not the same and within devotee association there is variety so when we are trying to facilitate people to come towards Krishna different people are of different natures and we can observe what is it that may attract this person to Krishna some people like music then we can give them musical kirtans then we can maybe connect them with devotees who are using music in Krishna’s service that may inspire them some others may be more logical and interested in reasoning and systematic explanation then often if we just invite them to routine programs you are all sentimental you don’t really go into things are not logical they may feel so then we may introduce them to some devotee association where things are logically systematically explained some people may like more the cultural aspect they want to come for festivals they not only want to come for festivals they want to do seva in festivals and they like that if you tell them sit and hear for class they will come up with a hundred excuses but if you tell them seva they will do it so what is important for us is that when we are trying to facilitate others to come towards Krishna not only do we provide them association but we provide them association that inspires that is like minded so that is actually our responsibility because sometimes we may some people are very sensitive see when Srila Prabhupada preached first in America at that time he was preaching to hippies and the hippies they were all in a rebellious mood they had rejected mainstream culture they had rejected American politics, American American culture, American religion American education they were rebellious and when Prabhupada came along and told them he gave them philosophical justification for their rebellion they already believed everything is rotten and Prabhupada told them philosophically why everyone is fools and rascals so you know that matched but today if we start using fools and rascals people are very sensitive and sometimes what happens that same mode of presentation may alienate people so actually speaking we have to present nowadays people are very sensitive and they may have certain past belief systems then if we are insensitive in our presentation we alienate them so we have to be careful when we are trying to help people to come close to Krishna to make sure that what will attract them to Krishna is the feature of Krishna consciousness that we present to them and by that we can facilitate them coming towards Krishna so basically their free will is important and sometimes if they are just not ready like a person not trying to turn on the car then we just leave them with positive impressions about Bhakti so that eventually when their search begins they will come towards Krishna otherwise along with that we can try to make sure that Krishna becomes accessible to them in a way that is intelligible and relishable for them then we are doing our part so it is if people don’t know then that is our problem our mood should be if people don’t know about Krishna that is our problem if people don’t take up Krishna Bhakti that is their problem we have done our part and we cannot do anything more than providing the information and providing them facilitation for coming towards Krishna so if after doing our best people are not taking towards Krishna then better that we look for other people Prabhupada did the same thing when he found Indians were not taking up he came to America and eventually after that Indians also took up so we should focus on trying to interest people as much as possible but if people are not very interested then we should look for interested people there are two ways of teaching one is to make people interested in Krishna Bhakti and the other is to look for interested people there are also maybe small number small but significant number of people who are looking for answers in life such people can immediately take up Bhakti so we have to intelligently channelize our efforts not being neglectful of anyone but at the same time not spending disproportionate efforts on some people who are not interested and thereby neglecting others who may be interested thank you any other questions?