How can we preach with sincere devotees who are desensitized to newcomers’ sensitivities?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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Some devotees are sincerely trying to share but they are desensitized and so they fry out people but they don’t even understand what is going wrong. How do we work with them? In our life, we are often put in a situation where we have to work with difficult people. So, sometimes we may direct if we find that a particular endeavor is not working and we don’t have the scope to change that, then we all have to choose our battles.
So, we decide, okay, at this particular time, since the outreach is not working, maybe I’ll focus more on English, let me try to study better, let me try to understand myself better. There’s no point in putting all our energy in what is a lost cause. Because sometimes what happens is, if we try to reach out to a large number of people, then all those people get fried out and we become more and more discouraged.
So, we have to be intelligent in investing our energy. So, there are times in the Bible, I think there’s a verse, there’s a time to sow and a time to reap. There’s a time to rejoice and a time to cry.
There’s a time to fight, a time to heal. So, in our life also, there are different times. Sometimes when the externals are not favorable for outreach, then we may just do whatever is basic required and not put our full heart over there.
Because sometimes the more emotionally invested we are in something, the more emotionally wounded we become when that thing doesn’t work out. So, if we have seen and we are convinced that this is not going to work out, then either we start something separately, but if we don’t have the opportunity to start something separately, then we don’t put in our heart over there at that time. We just choose our battles.
That is the time to develop ourselves in other areas. Krishna will provide arrangements in future where we will be able to reach out to people better on our terms or on terms that we feel are understandable. I know many devotees when I travel that the devotees preach but they are so they conduct programs in their homes but they are actually afraid to take people to the temples because they feel there they will get fried out.
So then what they are doing is, they are cultivating people themselves and they selectively expose them to the temples. And that’s not wrong as long as the intention is to connect people with Krishna and raise them towards Krishna. That’s perfectly fine.
Especially in the formative years, we do need that caution, that protection. Just like when the child grows up, the child becomes a teenager or a youth, the child is going to choose one’s own association and the parents can’t control that. But just because the parents can’t control the children when they are going to grow up, that doesn’t mean the parents don’t try to control or train or discipline the children when they are young.
They have to do that. So similarly in the earlier stages, protecting devotees from unwarranted influences, that’s not wrong. But then we have to also equip them with the tools to think.
And if we don’t have all that facility right now, we just do some other services. And there are some devotees unfortunately, what happens is that once they become convinced about a particular way of thinking, then it becomes like a self reinforcing bias. So, they preach and nobody comes.
And then that simply convinces them, this is Kali Yuga and nobody is going to come. And then somebody else preaches and people come, then from their bias they pursue that this person must be watering something down. That’s why people are coming.
So then they, it’s very difficult to communicate with such people. So, sometimes they just become self righteous in their in their isolation. You know, I am the pure follower and everybody else is watering down.
If that happens, then we just have to keep a distance and continue our service. And when we get more opportunity, then we do wholehearted service. So, Sri Prabhupada was also like that.
When he, we say that his first, the first volume of Hilayamrat is called Lifetime in Preparation. Prabhupada tried to work with his God brothers, but somehow they did not share his zeal for for spreading the mission. And Prabhupada just did what he could at that time and eventually when he got the scope, he did much more.
So, we just bide our time and choose our battles. Thank you.