I feel that without association I can continue bhakti. Please explain why association is essential.

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
with Krishna.
Thank you. Question I feel without association I can continue bhakti answer yes one may be able to continue bhakti without association question will be what is the quality of bhakti and what will be the duration of such bhakti and ultimately it is far more fundamental question what is the meaning of bhakti let’s look at these three questions first is what will be the quality and the longevity of the bhakti Srila Skaviraj Goswami gives the example that association of devotees is like my walking stick without a walking stick also a person may who has some problem with locomotion may be able to walk but when I used to walk with walking stick I realized there are two problems first is that my walking becomes much slower and secondly is that I am always in the risk of slipping losing my balance or falling in some other way steady effect of the stick is not there so the stick has a steadying and accelerating effect which is unavailable for one who refuses to use the stick when the stick is needed similarly association of devotees steadies and accelerates our bhakti means when we see other devotees practicing seriously enthusiastically that inspires us to accelerate our practice of bhakti also and when we see other devotees practicing seriously bhakti and especially if we start going in the wrong direction then other devotees can steady us when we are about to deviate and fall or slip so bhakti will be much safer and swifter when it is done in the association of devotees and beyond that at a more fundamental level the essence of bhakti is relationships and Krishna is related not just with one devotee in the spiritual world he is related with a whole network of innumerable devotees and when we go back to the spiritual world we will have a relationship with Krishna no doubt but our relationship will not be only with Krishna it will be with Krishna and with other devotees also therefore when we practice bhakti our sadhya, our goal is to enter into a community of devotees so if we think that we can practice bhakti without the community of devotees then we are not understanding our sadhya at all if we are showing Krishna by our actions that we don’t want the community of devotees then how are we going to convince Krishna that we want to belong to the community of devotees in the spiritual world actually speaking we may say that the devotees around me are neophyte I am advanced and I want to belong to a community of advanced devotees not a community of young juvenile devotees but in the devotee circle there are all kinds of relationships there are horizontal upward and downwards, horizontal with equals upward with seniors and downward with juniors and all these relationships nourish us in their own way and association of devotees provides us an opportunity not only to steady and accelerate our bhakti but also provides an opportunity to serve Krishna in many ways that is not possible otherwise so the basic point of bhakti is that we have to develop a relationship with Krishna and because Krishna is related to so many other living beings in fact all other living beings all the living devotees in the spiritual world at least when we are in the spiritual world then we will have to develop those relationships so our staying in the material world in the association of devotees is in many ways a preparation a training ground an apprenticeship for our eventual return to the spiritual world so in this way in terms of steadiness, swiftness and the ultimate goal bhakti is essentially done in the association of devotees and if sometimes because of unabordable circumstances we can’t stay in the association then also wherever we are we will have to create some kind of association otherwise our bhakti will mostly be mental, psychological and to some extent imaginary because we will not really be relating with other people who are part of Krishna so when we don’t have association we have to create association by sharing Krishna consciousness with others and inspiring others to also become devotees and thereby living in the association of devotees so now different devotees depending on their individual nature need their own space and that arrangement can be made and one can select kind of association that is suitable for one’s own psychophysical nature and one’s own relation of how one wants to serve Krishna psychophysical nature is material in which you serve Krishna will be spiritual so we can certainly select the kind of association that we would like to be in and we may become friends with devotees who are in different places but we also need association of devotees where we are right now and the important point is that without association we can very easily be dragged into Maya because when we are not associating with devotees we are anyway associating with our mind and when our mind starts dragging us down we will not be able to know when the mind has pulled us down because nobody else will be there to tell us and our mind will be new to us and will think this is the right thing to do enjoyable thing to do therefore we need association of devotees for our own survival for our own success and also for benefiting others by our practice of devotional life so certainly we may have had some bad experiences with certain kind of devotional association that’s why we think that better that our practice of being outside association if that has happened we should not extrapolate from our limited bad experiences and assume that all kind of devotional association is going to be bad rather we can explore more and find the association that is that we find compatible with ourselves and bond with those devotees that is when we abandon the present association but we also look for association that is more inspiring and more nourishing for us so that is our responsibility that is also our opportunity seeking the kind of association that nourishes but in principle our bhakti done without association will be superficial and chocolate, thank you