In today’s competitive society, how can we practice simple living & high thinking?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
today and regarding the question of in today’s competitive society how can we gradually move towards simple living and high thinking actually what will be simple living will be different for different people if we read the Mahabharata or the Ramayana and if we look at the life of the Kshatriyas, the kings were living in opulence so they would ride on elephants and they had big palaces so was that simple living for them? actually simple living doesn’t necessarily have to mean poverty simple living essentially means that that that kind of living which gives us time for high thinking so the purpose is not simple living alone there are monkeys which live in the forests they may seem to live simply but they don’t do any high thinking now we see the kings they lived in tremendous opulence but still they had very respectful disposition towards the sages and they were very receptive to spiritual knowledge and they were eager to learn spiritual knowledge and establish spiritual culture in their kingdoms so as devotees how can we move towards simple living and high thinking the more we focus on trying to cultivate high thinking simple living will follow automatically that means the more we try to hear about Krishna, speak about Krishna and infuse spiritual thoughts within our mind then the dependence that we feel, the need that we feel for material things will decrease so often we see that devotees even if they are in competitive demanding professions that is the way most of the world is and even if we are in that situation then we can try to arrange things in such a way that at least we have time for practicing basic spiritual life and then over a period of time we can try to take up jobs which are less demanding maybe if in the initial years of our life we work harder and then we have adequate savings then later on maybe we can take less demanding jobs where we can devote more time for our spiritual purposes so essentially bhakti is a process of not just giving up the undesirable but it is more of accepting the desirable so that means if we try to find out what it is in devotions that attracts us and then do it more and more then by that we will ourselves feel attracted to do this more and more and then the other things which we can cut down will cut down and we will also find out creatively what are the other things that I can cut down in my life and over a period of time when Krishna sees our sincerity he will also reveal to us with intelligence how we can cut down things but along with that we shouldn’t necessarily think that having a demanding life or demanding profession is incompatible with bhakti because the principle of bhakti is to be engaged so even if there is a demanding profession if it is keeping is engaged if somebody has a lot of passion and that person is told oh you just take a simple profession and no need to work so hard no need to rise so much to the eclipse of power then that person may feel demotivated about that so what happens is when the passion is there we can either direct that passion towards Krishna by taking up challenging services for Krishna or if that is not that is not our we don’t feel so inspired to do that then whatever profession we are doing we can do that profession with the passion that we have but after that whatever results we are having we can share those results with Krishna that can be in the form of charity which we give for Krishna’s cause that can be in the form of using the influence the contacts the position that we have we have acquired we can use that in Krishna’s service so the important point is that in bhakti we don’t have to artificially force ourselves to say no of course there are certain regulative principles that we follow there are certain things which are sinful we definitely give up if you want to become serious devotees but beyond that as far as the profession is concerned we focus more on trying to do positive devotional activities get a taste in those activities and then as the taste in those activities increases our engagement in material things can proportionately decrease without a feeling of inordinate loss oh I have to give this up I have to give that up I have to give that up that inordinate feeling of loss and discontentment because of giving up material things should not will not be there if we are absorbing ourselves in Krishna and I have found something which can absorb ourselves in Krishna and even when we are engaged a lot in demanding material professions we can try to find out how we can spiritualize that that means we discussed about by our work worship so we can give the fruits of the work to Krishna the fruits can be in terms of finances it can be in terms of position it can be in terms of influence thank you