If someone likes to practice bhakti in solitary devotional activities will they advance more slowly?

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so if somebody is of a nature where they like solitude more and they can practice bhakti more in activities which involve solitude such as the chanting or the writing and not so much in activities that involve coming together such as festivals then isn’t that for that devotee the path of spiritual advancement will be longer no not longer it will be different so all of us we are given a standard process of bhakti along with that standard process for every one of us we have to individualize I was just in Alachua Alachua is the place in America where we have the largest devotee community many retired Prabhupada disciples are staying there so I met one devotee Prabhupada disciple Nishan Prabhu so I had read about him and a particular incident with Prabhupada which he had which inspired me and he told me the same incident again when I met him this was when Prabhupada had come to London and in London at that time London was the western was the European headquarters of the Krishna consciousness movement and devotees from Germany, from France, from Portugal all of them especially they had come and they were reporting to Prabhupada what is happening here and then Nishan Prabhu was thinking everybody has something to do for Sri Prabhupada but I don’t have anything to do so he went to Prabhupada and asked him Prabhupada please give me something to do Prabhupada said what do you want to do for Krishna? Prabhupada whatever you tell me I will do Prabhupada again asked what do you want to do for Krishna? Prabhupada was testing my surrenders no Prabhupada whatever you want whatever you say I will do Prabhupada said understand our philosophy our philosophy is to find out what we want to do and then to do it for Krishna now this is often this may seem to be radically at variation from the normal conception of bhakti that we may do normal conception is just follow the instruction of the spiritual master whatever you are told to do you do that that is also very important through that we learn submission we learn obedience, we learn humility and we should do that at the same time whether it is our spiritual master or whether it is our counselor, mentor they are not necessarily going to be there with us throughout our life to tell us do this, do this equally as important as submission to authority and following instructions that much important is also taking initiative in our life taking initiative and finding out how I can serve Krishna so if tomorrow for whatever reason I am put in a place where there is no one to tell me how to serve Krishna still I should be able to engage myself in service and I should be able to keep moving towards Krishna so both are important so in general we all get strength through association now what kind of association that is that will vary from person to person so if we all have to take initiative to find out how we can be engaged in Krishna’s service and even if that is different from others that is fine so Ishaan Prabhu he thought what can I do for Krishna he said Prabhupada I have to think about this and he came back after couple of days he said from my childhood I used to like to do some kind of pottery, clay work, artistry so he said we have these Mridangas maybe I can make some Mridangas with some western material so when we get the Mridangas from India often while bringing along they break so I will make the Mridangas with some unbreakable material and Prabhupada said Prabhupada said very good he said your god brothers are very passionate so make the Mridangas such that even if they throw it down it will not break so Prabhupada he felt lavishly encouraged by Prabhupada and then he started this whole field of making many of the traditional items with more sturdy materials even if they are not contemporary materials so the point is that there is abundant room for taking initiative and when we do this we have to take care of two things first is we shouldn’t criticize others now say if I like to write that gives me strength that is my only problem but those who don’t write we may write and we may become very introspective and by that introspection we grow in our bodies now others may not be like that we should not label others who are not as introspective as us as superficial beings they may be serious in their own way so we don’t have to criticize others if they are not doing what we are doing and even if they are not appreciating what we are doing please understand that we have different ways in which we are growing in bhakti and sometimes devotees just don’t understand what we are doing but then because association of devotees is important we also have to find out some social circle where what we feel inspired to do others will also do like that so there are definitely many devotees who are trying to write and there are forums we have ISKCON website where one can publish we have Bhakti World magazine I am one of the editors and we are always looking for good writers and nowadays with the whole blogosphere exploding the need for writing and writers has become very very prominent so it’s a very valuable service and if we find some social circle where we are appreciated where this particular service is appreciated then that will be where we get our encouragement from and that’s what we should cherish so we don’t have to necessarily feel disheartened because we have a particular nature so we can decide at our level if there is a festival every week I cannot have that much what is the word they use for people who are introverts they have limited social stamina you just can’t mix with too many people so if I find with my social stamina I can come for a festival once a month and that also if you don’t feel like doing it still you should do it as it is so others may feel delighted they want to come everyday you may just come once a month but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are more serious devotees and we are less serious it also doesn’t mean that we are more serious and they are less serious so to understand we are all different and we have to chart within the broad framework of bhakti that Prabhupada Narachan has given us we have to chart our way towards Krishna and find out others who also are similarly minded and when we do that we will be able to move forward in our spiritual life