Is ISKCON’s initial portrayal of the purificatory potency of bhakti unrealistic?

Transcript

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Thank you So sometimes initially we give overly optimistic presentation of bhakti that in just one life we will become purified and we will attain Krishna But then over a period of 10-15 years when we still keep facing severe trials and also our material attachments start resurfacing the devotees feel that they were not even warned about what this was going to come up and they feel unprepared to deal with it Yeah, I agree We, as compared to most other religious organizations we have quite high demands for practice in terms of chanting 2 hours, following 4 regs and having so many other devotional activities So when the price is high one of the strongest motivations for paying that price is the prize that we are going to get is what we are going to achieve P-R-I-C-E prize and P-R-I-Z-E prize So often that goal is talked about in quite vivid terms and especially it is contrasted with the miserable nature of this material world So what happens is that the process necessary for lifelong practice is not talked about What happens is, we say that this world is a place of misery and the solution is get out of this world But getting out of this world it is going to take a lifetime of practice sometimes many lifetimes of practice and we don’t prepare devotees to face the challenges that they are going to go through during that time So we have in our first generation had an over emphasis on renunciation and rejection of the world and in the second generation we are coming towards greater balance where most of the devotees are householders and they are learning at an individual level with some guidance from the community about how to balance the material and the spiritual So to a large extent the way our movement started was amidst a spiritual emergency Prabhupada had a very short time left with him in his life and also the people whom he got in the initial stages of his movement were also exceptional that exceptional can be in a positive sense that they took up the mission very seriously but exceptional in the sense that the way they lived is not the way most people are likely to be able to live they are moving into a monastery and is giving up everything and many of them, what to speak of next generation even they themselves find it difficult to continue it that way lifelong So to some extent what we practiced in the early days and what is considered the standard is devotion in the mode of passion where we think passion means we want intense work and immediate results so we are devotees sometimes are ready to do incredible austerities but then they expect results and when they don’t come they get frustrated I did so much but devotion in the mode of goodness means that we have to recognize that we are here for the long haul and we need to function in a way that we can function sustainably throughout our lifetime so for example surrender was thought of as just give up all your desires and do what your authorities tell you to do that is surrender but that we can do but the standard nature of the method of surrender as taught in the Bhagavad Gita is Krishna tells Arjuna surrender according to your nature to Krishna Arjuna wants to be a Brahmana Brahmana is higher than Kshatriya in social hierarchy but Krishna tells Arjuna you are not a Brahmana you act as Kshatriya but don’t act as a whimsical Kshatriya act as a surrendered Kshatriya work for me so the recognition that devotees if they are to sustain themselves in the practice of bhakti they have to find something which is natural to them and they don’t work for their nature they don’t work against their nature they work with their nature for Krishna so I think that is one of the most important things which is not adequately emphasized that we have to find how I can practice bhakti not just today but lifelong so in what pace, in what service with what kind of environment all that is something which we have to deeply think about pray, seek guidance and then decide so our movement is slowly moving from devotion in the mode of passion towards devotion in the mode of goodness ultimately of course devotion is in the transcendence but we ourselves are not in transcendence so we may practice it in different ways so I do see a greater cautioning against extreme adoption of any practices and recognition of the reality of material things material nature and learning to find our way within the reality of material nature whether that be a sick body whether that be hostile weather or whether that be a service incompatible with our nature so that I feel is the single most important thing that if devotees understand that I am here to practice bhakti lifelong and I have to find out how I can practice bhakti lifelong so to some extent as our movement is becoming more and more congregation based movement we have to encourage devotees to take responsibility for their spiritual advancement often it was taught that just follow the instruction of your spiritual master and you will make spiritual advancement you don’t have to do anything else but the spiritual master is not accessible most of the time and local authorities they may not be inspiring or sometimes our local authorities also keep changing we ourselves may travel from one place to another so then whose instruction do we follow so in the Bhagavatam, the 11th canto there is a verse that ultimately we have to become our own gurus and Jiva Goswami says this is not in defiance of the guru whom we have got initiation from but it is in service to that guru that means we use our intelligence which is equipped by our guru and then we learn to serve Krishna accordingly so this whole idea of taking individual responsibility for our spiritual advancement and thereby finding the individual pace at which we can advance the individual service that can help us to function harmoniously all this is something which we need to work on and there is also some kind of conflict going on in our movement where we can say that some devotees feel that everything that was the way Prabhupada established in the movement everything should be kept literally as it is but even that is utopian because Prabhupada did not do one thing all over the world in the western world Prabhupada had devotees moving to the temple but in India Prabhupada encouraged life membership life members were people who did not even chant Hare Krishna regularly did not even follow the four regulatory principles just they contributed to the temple and Prabhupada allowed them to be at that level, get connected with Krishna consciousness movement and gradually move towards Krishna so even if you say we should just do what Prabhupada did Prabhupada did different things at different places so what aspect of what Prabhupada did so overall we have to take responsibility for our spiritual advancement and rather than talking about being you know say being over optimistic or becoming pessimistic we have to become more realistic so yes our goal is glorious and generally the way I see it is if I start feeling proud of what I have achieved I look ahead to see how far I need to go but if I start feeling discouraged I am not advancing at all then I look back to see how far I have come and we do see that we have come substantial distance the way we were living earlier and the way we are living now there is a huge difference that does indicate that we are advancing so if we have this understanding that we both we see the process working in our lives but the process may not work as dramatically in a transformational way after 10 years as it worked in the first 1 or 2 years when many of our habits got over we got over many of our gross habits so then we can see that the transformation will happen but it will be much more gradual incremental and internal then we can move onwards so broadly three things functioning more in the mode of goodness rather than passion intense work and intense unsustainable work with immediate unrealistic expectations of results and more finding our own nature and then taking responsibility to find our nature and to serve according to our nature and appreciating the changes that bhakti has brought in our life at the same time appreciating that we still have a long way to go and accordingly either making us we don’t become proud but we don’t become discouraged also so we do need some realistic guidance for how we can advance and yeah it’s coming I would say that as compared to even 10-15 years ago what was considered mainstream in our movement now what is considered mainstream the sense of balance and sustained long term practice is coming so it will we are moving towards that