​How can we increase our austerities as did Dhruva?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
the desire will go strong. Okay. Thank you.
Yes. I want to do more in the service. Now, if we try to improve everything, it will become such an unbearable burden that we will not even maintain what we are doing.
Just the burden will crush us. So, we may have to choose. This is the battle which is the most important problem.
This is the battle which I will fight. And what that battle will be, that is up to the individual. Once you have followed the basic standards of bhakti, then which particular aspect of bhakti to intensify further.
Some devotees may get a lot of strength by chanting. Some others may get by shastric study. Some others may get by being with devotees and counselling them and guiding them, whatever.
Different devotees may get that in different ways. So, the point is that we cannot keep stretching ourselves infinitely. The body and mind are made in a particular way.
They are machines. And machines cannot be stretched beyond a particular limit. So, there is, I was in Australia last year.
So, I met Guru Jan Prabhu. This year also I met him. So, we are continuing the same discussion more or less.
So, Guru Jan Prabhu told me that he is an introvert. I am also an introvert. So, introvert means people, it is not that they do not like to meet people.
They cannot meet too many people. Social stamina gets exhausted. So, I told him that is it that, Guru Jan Prabhu for those of you who do not know, he is a very senior spiritual master in our movement.
He has written classic commentaries on the, a very nice commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. He has written a commentary on the Bhagavatam also. So, I asked him that is it that as we advance more and more, we transcend our nature? So, is it that say if a devotee is introvert, by practicing bhakti for 40 years, is it an introvert who become extrovert? So, he told me actually, in youth, you have the passion to fight against your nature.
As you grow older, you lose that passion. So, that means actually for a devotee, as he becomes stabilized, initially what happens in the passion is when rajoguna is there, we want to achieve something. And whatever it takes to achieve, I will do it.
Whatever level of difficulty it is, it does not matter. Somehow or the other, I will do it. But after some time, when you start practicing, you start realizing, okay, some sort of struggle, some sort of agitation, that is not worth it.
I go through so much trouble and what is the end result of it? If this battle is not really worth fighting for. So, we all gradually learn which battles are worth fighting for us. Now, I am not talking here in terms of defying anyone s instruction.
We are talking about a situation where we have allocated some services, and we are doing those services. But in terms of our own individual growth, what do we do? What do we focus on? So, we find that certain battles, fighting them is not just worth it for us. And some other battles we find that is really worth it.
So, in a sense, he says, what I understood from his talk was that we, as we become purified, as we keep practicing bhakti, it is not that we reject our nature, but rather, we connect more and more with Krishna through our nature. So, we understand that I am different from my nature. But at the same time, this is the nature that I have.
So, I use it to connect with Krishna more and more. And so, you could say it is like, it is austerity within one s comfort zone. What that means is that somebody is a Brahmin, that person likes to study.
And on average, they study for four hours. But someday they do not, now they study for eight hours. That is austerity within their comfort zone.
So, we all, now, when I am using the word comfort zone, I am not using it in a negative sense that of complacency and lethargy, but simply in the sense that that is something which you are comfortable with. So, for example, now we are sitting for class, say I am sitting to give class and you are sitting to hear class. Now, if I say that, you know, I will sit in a position that is very uncomfortable for me.
Now, if I sit in maybe I can tolerate the pain, but that will simply be distracting. Now, within whatever situation we are, we try to sit as comfortably as possible, so that we can focus on something else, so that we can focus on the discussion of the philosophy that is going on. Something similar.
So, our nature becomes like the natural launching pad for taking our consciousness towards Krishna. So, if we observe ourselves, by observing ourselves, we learn that, okay, these activities give me spiritual strength. After doing the activities, I feel stronger, I feel stronger, I feel happier, I feel pure.
And then those are the activities which we focus on. So, if we, one of the easiest ways to make oneself very insecure in bhakti is to associate with those whose standards are different from ours. So, for example, if somebody is full into distribution, and we do not distribute books, we associate with them constantly, I am doing nothing.
I am doing nothing and the mind is so cunning that from you are doing nothing, the mind says you are nothing. So, that is why Rupa Goswami says that, that we have to have like-minded devotee association. So, that way, what is our nature, we learn gradually by the practice of bhakti, and nature does not necessarily have to be Brahman, Satya, Vaishnavita, it can just be, this is what I naturally feel comfortable with.
And within that we can become more austere, within that we can become more focused. So, that is how in maximum understanding, we can raise our standards of practicing bhakti. We cannot just conform to some external standard and try to just rise higher, higher, higher.
That external standard is important for some basic practices, so that we are doing that. But beyond that, when it is up to individual practice, Prabhupada also writes an introduction that once one has come to the mode of goodness, then how to advance further is revealed from within. Does that answer the question? Thank you.