​How can we turn on our inner compass while living in the world?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So how can we turn on the compass in our own daily lives when we have family responsibilities? How can we move closer to the Lord? Actually, there are in our life, we can look at, we can sometimes separate our life as material and spiritual.
This is my material life, this is my spiritual life, but that is a sometimes an inadequate separation. Because for a devotee, we could put it more appropriately, there are directly devotional activities and there are indirectly devotional activities. So for example, when we come to temple, when we have a spiritual program like this, when we worship the deities, this is directly devotional activities.
And we should see that when we are not in the temple, are not directly doing devotional activities, still we can carry the mood of devotion, carry the mood of service with us wherever we are going. By your work, worship and medicine. So if we look at our life, there are devotional activities and there are indirectly devotional activities.
Or the rest of the activities we can classify into three. There are pro-devotional, there are non-devotional, there are anti-devotional. So there are many sinful, unrighteous, immoral activities, they are anti-devotional.
Those we should gradually give them up. But most of our activities which may be pro-devotional, which may be non-devotional, but they are not anti-devotional. We can infuse a mood of devotion, that means when we say, you don’t see this as my child, you see that this is actually God’s child who has been interested in my care.
We don’t see this as my family member, these are actually, they’re all a part of one family of God and they are all together in that relationship. And by serving, by taking care of them, actually I’m not just doing my duty to them, I am doing my duty towards the Supreme Lord. So to the extent we do the directly devotional activities seriously, to the extent we, when we have an opportunity to directly connect with the Lord, to the extent we do those activities well, to that extent we will be able to get the intelligence about how to do the other activities in devotion.
So it is not that Krishna wants to make the path to him difficult. He wants to see how much we want to be guided. So when the guidance is clear, at that time if you accept the guidance, and okay, when we are supposed to hear Katha, if at that time, you know, we are doing other things, we were checking our mobile, when we are doing other things, we’re just waiting for things to get over, we are wondering this problem, that problem.
At that time, when we can focus on the Lord, if we don’t focus on the Lord, then later on, it will be basically showing, I’m not interested. Then Krishna says, as all people surrender to me, I reward accordingly. So he will also, if he says you’re not interested, I’ll not interfere.
He will not give us guidance. But when the guidance is clear, at that time we accept the guidance, we try to connect ourselves with Krishna intensely. Then at other times, Krishna will guide us from within.
Okay, this is what I should be doing. This is what I should not be doing. Basically, we all have a Viveka Buddhi within us.
Viveka Buddhi is conscience. And that Viveka Buddhi, if you are exposed too much to materialistic things, it becomes deadened. Just like a knife may get rusted, like that, when we are just continuously exposed to materialistic things, in those materialistic values, deaden our Viveka, our conscience, our Viveka Buddhi.
But when we expose ourselves to Krishna regularly, then our Viveka Buddhi becomes clear. And then we understand, this is what I should do, this is what I should not do. So by doing directly devotional activities, by understanding the philosophy thereof, we can get the intelligence, this is what I should be doing, this is what I should not be doing.
And if you’re making major decisions in our life, at that time, we can also take, we can consult some senior devotees, those who are balanced their material and spiritual lives well, we can take their guidance about how to go ahead. And broadly speaking, as devotees, if we have some time regularly for our spiritual activities, then gradually the spirituality will infuse our consciousness. And that’s how we can, it’s like first we think, okay, there is a temple, this is my home.
And God exists in the temple. But then gradually we start, oh, I should make my home also into a temple. I can bring, I can have an altar in my home, and I can worship the altar, and not that the altar is in a corner.
I say that this actually, this home belongs to God. And I am a servant over here. I say the first stage, that there is a temple, at least I should go to the temple.
If I don’t go to the temple, then there’s no connection. But then I make my home into a temple. And then further as we move onwards, we make our heart into a temple.
God is not just present in the temple, in the altar, actually, I try to invoke his presence in our heart. And this is a progression. As we keep doing, the external activity is more and more devotion, in Krishna’s internal presence becomes more and more manifest within us.