If one wants to become a brahmachari how can one develop the courage to give up everything and fear of failure?

Transcript

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Question. If someone wants to join Brahmachari ashram, there are two main obstacles. One is the courage that is required to break free from everything in the world and devote oneself to Krishna and the fear that one may not be able to continue because of whatever reasons.
So, how does one develop the courage and overcome that fear? Answer. Brahmachari ashram is primarily a means for increasing our service to Krishna. So, it is not that Brahmachari ashram is our goal.
Our goal is to serve Krishna and Brahmachari ashram is a means for that goal. So, if we focus on serving Krishna and we feel satisfied in serving Krishna, naturally we want to do it more and more. And then Brahmachari ashram is the natural logical step to do that more.
Of course, it is a big step. It is in many ways, it can be a giant step for people. But we don’t have to see it as a radical discontinuity from what we have been doing earlier.
Because that makes it seem like I am on one mountain, that is another mountain. I have to jump from one mountain to another. It is not like that.
There is a bridge which we are already crossing. We are just taking a long leap on the same bridge. And we will keep going on the same bridge even if we don’t take the leap of Brahmachari.
Because the bridge is not Brahmachari. The bridge is Bhakti. And we have already started going on that bridge.
So, we are going from the one mountain of material existence to the other mountain of spiritual existence. And the bridge of Bhakti is taking us across. So, if we have, basically spiritual life means, there are four aspects.
There is Seva, there is Siddhanta, there is Sangha and there is Sadhana. We have to have some steady service. Our Sadhana should be strong.
Then our philosophical understanding should be solid. So that we don’t get swayed by sentiments. And we need to have association of people who we like and who inspire us.
So now, even if only one of these is there, we can go on in spiritual life. Because one itself can give us adequate strength to go on. But if all four are there, then nothing like it.
So, most of us individually will find that one or two among these give us a lot of strength. Others also are important. And we will do those other things also because they lead to purification.
But they may not give us so much inspiration. So, if we find out which among these are our strength. And we find that this is what I can continue doing.
It’s not that once we see even Brahmacharya life as a continuation of the process of Bhakti that we are practicing. Not a discontinuous leap. Then essentially in Bhakti we are doing these four things.
We are associating with devotees. We are studying the philosophy. We are chanting and doing sadhana.
We are rendering service. And that is what we will do in a more intense and focused way in Brahmacharya life. And if we get satisfaction in doing even one of these things well.
Then that satisfaction can enable us to go on lifelong. So, more than saying it in terms of courage or fear. We can see it more in terms of say attraction and commitment.
Do I feel attracted to any of these things more than other things in my life? So, for a devotee to take the decision of becoming a Brahmacharya. The answer has to be yes for at least one of these things. It’s not that I may love my sadhana.
But at least I recognize its importance. Its importance adequately enough by which I know that this is what is the most important thing and I want to do it. So, that’s why I am talking about attraction is more in terms of our likings.
And commitment is more in terms of our understandings. So, based on our attraction and our commitment to even one of these things. We will be able to muster the courage and overcome the fear.
It is just like when we choose any particular profession. You know sometimes some people in the middle of their life. They may decide to change their career.
Till they are 35, 40. They may choose one career and they feel that it is not compatible to them. Now there are some troublesome changes that they go through.
But they manage to shift to another career and often they are happier by that. So, in a sense what we are doing when we have become brahmachari is we are sort of changing our career. We are pursuing a particular career chart and we pursue something else.
So, it requires, just as changing a career requires courage. There is a fear that has to be overcome. But when we understand the basic principles then it becomes a calculated risk, not a leap in the dark.
And regarding the fear, we also need to assess this realistically and take required precautions. That means if we already have a good job, we have proper qualifications, we have good job experience and we have a reasonable amount of experience to go on in a career. Then, even if somehow somebody doesn’t succeed in brahmachari life and that person can always return back to the career.
Or they may find some other career as a result of our brahmachari practices. For me personally, I discovered myself as a writer after I became a devotee. Otherwise, I was an engineer.
And that’s what my education was, that’s what my profession was, a software engineer. But then, I am much much happier as a writer than I would have been as an engineer. I doubt whether I would have discovered my writing skills if I had continued in my material career.
So, in a sense, for me, my brahmachari life has enabled me to discover myself materially also, not just spiritually. To understand what is my inclination. And that can happen to many of us.
So, we need to basically see these four factors. And if we can feel that my attraction and commitment to even one of these is strong enough for me to sort of turn away from everything else, then we can march on steadily. And it’s nothing disastrous or disgraceful if we can’t continue it.
There is some extent that says, if some brahmacharis are not able to continue, then they feel, what will other people think about me. But generally speaking, the devotional culture is such that we see each other primarily as devotees and later on as brahmacharis and rahastas. Only if we ourselves have earlier adopted a more self-righteous, superior sort of attitude towards others because of our ashram, and then later on we are unable to continue the ashram, then we may face some reactions to that.
But in general, that is not a major issue. And I know many brahmacharis who were for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, and they are well situated in their careers and in their families now, for whatever reason they couldn’t continue. So, it’s neither disgraceful nor disastrous.
Not disgraceful from the social point of view, not disastrous from the financial or the professional point of view. Life goes on. And they are grateful for that.
Most of the devotees who left brahmachari ashram, they are grateful for the time that they spent in brahmachari life because that gave them a very strong and deep-rooted foundation for their spiritual life. And of course, in general, when we want to take the step of joining, it is a radical step. And we shouldn’t take that with a half-hearted conviction.
Let me try it out. There can be something transitional which we can try out. That means, say, we stay in the temple or near the temple somewhere.
If we have a facility like a base, where we have a spiritual program, and where we do basically all the four things. Maybe not full-time, but we stay in the association of devotees. We study the philosophy regularly.
We have classes. We read books. Then we render some solid services.
And then we do the sadhana properly in the morning. So, if we do this, then we will find that we will ourselves be able to make out whether I want to continue with this life, this kind of lifestyle for my life, or whether this is just something which is a good experience, but I don’t want to live like this throughout my life. So, we will learn that.
So, it’s good rather than taking brahmachari life on a trial basis. Generally, if you want to become brahmachari, it’s good to start off with the conviction, this is the way I want to live lifelong. And to make stimulating decisions, it’s better to get some experience, not by taking a break from a job completely.
Many temples have something like a VTA, where devotees can live in the temple and experience the temple environment. And that gives us a fairly good idea of where we will be in the long run, whether we are suited for that or not. But basically, one of the most important things is that indecision over the ashram can paralyze us mentally.
Should I do this? Should I do that? Rather than thinking of this ashram or that ashram, we focus primarily on the fundamentals of bhakti. And see whether we feel attracted enough to do them full time in the brahmachari life or slightly differently in the grahamstha life.