If one devotee serves Krishna as a brahmachari and another, as a grihastha, who is better?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So if somebody is a brahmachari serving Krishna in the temple and somebody is working outside and through science technology contributing to social well-being. Both of them are similar devotees. Both are serving Krishna.
So who is better? See, who is better is a wrong question to ask. The right question is, what is better for me? We cannot make an absolute decision for everyone. Different people are different.
The shoe that fits one leg, bites another leg. Because different shoes are of different sizes. So we can’t make an absolute principle about, some people may be more inspired in the renounced order and they may contribute to society more through the renounced order.
Some may contribute more through the engaged order. So rather than trying to make a make a universal assessment for what is an essentially an individual decision. Now we should focus on what is the best for me.
And this whole attitude of who is better that is actually, that leads to an unnecessarily competitive mentality where what we need is a cooperative mentality. So the renounced order and the householder order, all of them are actually serving Krishna. And the way they serve Krishna that is different.
So we could say that they are basically, if we consider continuing the hospital metaphor which I had used earlier in the class, these are basically two different departments in the hospital. So both of them are not only taking the treatment themselves, but both of them are also in their own ways sharing the treatment with others. So based on firstly our own inclinations, what is our temperament, what is our nature, what is our inspiration, we can observe and we can decide.
Objectively speaking if we see that both orders are important. In the renounced order, relatively speaking one can share Krishna’s knowledge directly more. One has more time, more facility and more of a more of a overall opportunity to study scripture deeply and share the scripture wisdom deeply.
So if that is what is one’s inspiration primarily, to directly serve Krishna more and more, then the renounced order is what may be the best suited for a person. But if one’s inspiration is more to serve Krishna by, not just by directly engaging in devotional activities, but also engaging in the world more, then that inclination will be better suited to be engaged in the grahastha life. So in the Krishna consciousness movement, there are two forces which are working and one is the Vedic or you could say the Vedic social model and there is the bhakti model.
So in the Vedic social model or Vedic cultural model if you say, the renounced order is considered higher than the householder order. So the renounced order is, because they renounce the world, they sacrifice that for God’s sake, they are considered higher. So grahastha in that sense, all the respect and honor sannyasis and brahmacharis for that matter.
But in the bhakti hierarchy, in the bhakti perspective, what matters is not one’s external order, what matters is one’s inner devotion. And we see this in the Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, when he went to South India, he met Ramanandaraya and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu heard from Ramanandaraya. So bhakti can actually invert the hierarchy.
In both ways, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a sannyasi and Ramanandaraya was a grahastha. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was a brahmana and Ramanandaraya was from a lower family, a shudra family. But still Chaitanya Mahaprabhu heard from Ramanandaraya.
So where bhakti is there, bhakti can invert the normal hierarchy. So once we try to get into which is better or which is higher, yes, from the cultural perspective, the noun’s order is higher. But we are not just a cultural organization.
Bhakti, Prabhupada gave us bhakti as a primary legacy and bhakti can invert the normal hierarchy also. So that’s why I said don’t get into this whole complex of which is better or who is better, focus on what is better for me. And we can talk with senior brahmacharis to understand more about brahmachari life.
We can talk with senior grahasthas to understand more about grahastha life. And also we need to, if we are talking also, we need to find out mature brahmacharis and mature grahasthas. Because otherwise brahmacharis will criticize the grahasthas and grahasthas will criticize the brahmacharis.
And that leads to unnecessary bad blood. And if we are ourselves having to take this decision, and the most important thing is don’t spend too much time worrying about this decision. Because otherwise it will become paralysis by analysis.
Should I do this? Should I do this? Should I do this? No. Our first purpose is to serve Krishna sincerely. If we are doing our sadhana nicely, if we are doing our seva nicely, if we are doing our responsibility nicely, then by that we show Krishna that I want to be connected with him.
And then Krishna will guide us how we can be best connected with him. If you serve me diligently, Krishna will say, I will give you the intelligence about how to come to me. So, don’t make a hasty decision based on just others’ pressurization.
And don’t try to make a universal assessment of what is right or wrong. But focus on trying to get a mature understanding and on trying to connect with Krishna wholeheartedly, yourself. And then Krishna will guide how best we can serve him.
Does it answer your question? Thank you. Any other questions? Hare Krishna.