How important is apara dharma for devotees?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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Is it that when we practice bhakti aparadhanam we are going to liberate us and aparadhanam we are not going to feel much happiness so how important is it to aparadhanam? what does Krishna say about this? the thing is aparadhanam and paradhanam they are not necessarily entirely unconnected if we are the family where some of our family members are devotees may become devotees then the way we relate with them there is a place where aparadhanam and paradhanam are going to intersect so similarly if you are working in a corporate environment the way you behave because if you are not doing your job responsibly and then after that you invite people you say I will become like you, I don’t want to come so I will become irresponsible I don’t want to come forward then we are actually doing this service so first of all to think that Prabhupada writes in 7th chapter that the jurisdiction of Krishna consciousness extends everywhere that means it is not that our family responsibilities are our professional responsibilities, they have nothing to do with Krishna they do affect our direction so that’s why we talk about the analysis of the difference between paradhanam and aparadhanam for one main purpose that is to not mistakenly equate the two and think that doing the aparadhanam itself is enough I don’t have to do the paradhanam so if someone says that that actually one part of paradhanam is that we should give charity to Krishna so one time a devotee, I was at a program so the congregation was actually my house to temple, all my family members are devotees so we said we should give some donation to Krishna but all my money is going to Krishna only already so why should I give any donation no, that is fine the problem with this reasoning is that yes, all our family members should be devotees but do we see them as devotees first or do we see them as family members first do we remember Krishna first we do, even if our family is fully devotees, we do meet in a temple where the devotees worship Krishna so we cannot confusingly equate aparadhanam and paradhanam for that purpose, we separate yes, this is my aparadhanam and this is my paradhanam and therefore I should give adequate time adequate attention to the paradhanam activities, but after the separation we don’t have to constantly keep analysing if a mother is taking care of her child am I doing it, is this my material duty or is it my spiritual duty we don’t have to worry about that Raupa told her that children born in the Krishnamarshi movement, they are actually Vaikuntha children special souls, Krishna has sent in our family so once we are doing our responsibilities we should make time for direct spiritual activities, but after that whatever we need to do, we need to do it wholeheartedly if we are half-hearted about doing things, we are supposed to not do them well and because many of the responsibilities are in our aparadhanam, they have to be done anyway, so that we have to spend more time on doing it, after this so we needn’t have a fragmented vision where we think that Krishna is served only in the temple and only directly worships him no, Krishna is served in our home Krishna is served in our profession also but, if I don’t serve Krishna directly by going to the temple, by directly associating with devotees, my service attitude my devotional consciousness will not last therefore I have to do directly paradhanam activities, but aparadhanam activities, if they are not done well, they can create tremendous disruption around you know, and then that disruption will affect our will terribly affect our paradhanam activities so, for example if some devotee does not follow the state laws and the devotee gets caught or gets into legal trouble, then legal trouble is such that, what do we say I am doing everything for Krishna, there is a mundane morality in me, I don’t care for it but no, we can’t do that because mundane morality is also important Sanatana Goswami was a Mahabhagavya but when he was serving our lawabu Sathya, when the lawabu comes to his house, you get an overall restriction, because he was his boss and we have to do our moral duties also responsibly we may say that this will not give me much happiness, ok, agreed it may not give much happiness, but not doing it will cause a lot of trouble so, at least from that perspective we don’t have to unnecessarily complicate our activities, so one extreme is where we keep expanding our material activities more and more, that we should not do, but whatever needs to be done, we need to do it together, and you can see Swakarmanatam Abhyarja Siddham Krishna says, by your work you shall make it, so if we have that if by direct Paradharan activities we develop a worshipful mood and afterwards when we do the Paradharan activities we can carry that mood of worship mood of devotional service into those activities and do those activities also for Krishna ok, yeah