If bhakti means to give up all designations then how do we see our duties to our country?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Then, I am an Indian. It means that I am not an Indian. But how do I reconcile this with discharging responsibility as an Indian? There are essentially two different aspects to our being.
There is the material aspect and there is the spiritual aspect. So, we are at our core, souls. And the souls are present in particular bodies.
So, the duty at the level of the soul is called Paradharma. And the duty at the level of the body is called as Apparadharma. So, now, Apparadharma is not as important as the Paradharma.
But that does not mean that the Apparadharma is unimportant. Apparadharma is also important. But when compared to Paradharma, it is not that important.
So, our duty as souls is to love and serve Krishna. And to do whatever, to practice the process of Sadhana Bhakti, by which we can learn to love and serve Krishna. But along with that, while we are living in the world, we also have different duties.
We have duty to our family members. We may have duty in society. We may have duty in our country.
We may have duty as human beings. So, these duties are also to be performed. Now, to what extent a devotee may perform these duties, that will vary according to time, place, circumstance.
So, there are some basic level of duties, which all citizens are expected to perform. And the citizens should perform those. As devotees also, citizens should perform, devotee citizens should perform those diligently.
Now, beyond that, there are certain causes associated with the nation. Now, devotees need not become campaigners for such causes, unless they themselves feel inspired to do so, and see the spiritual potential in such things. So, not every devotee has to completely neglect any nationalistic cause, nor does the devotee have to become a campaigner for the nationalistic cause.
The important thing is to have a sense of balance, recognizing that we have to focus on going towards Krishna, and becoming dedicated to Krishna. So, to the extent we do that, to that extent we learn to serve, we can move towards Krishna steadily, and achieve fulfillment in our lives. So, we do our worldly responsibilities at the same time, we also focus on doing our transcendental responsibilities, and with the practical intelligence we can learn to balance both.
Thank you.