Is it ok to be attracted more to the cultural aspects of KC than its philosophical aspect?

Transcript

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Question Is it okay to be attracted more to the cultural aspect of Krishna consciousness than its philosophical aspect Answer Yes definitely it’s okay Rupa Goswami explains that yena kena prakarena manna Krishna nivesayit somehow or the other we have to fix our mind on Krishna so at our level somehow or the other means that whatever feature of Krishna consciousness attracts us we use it for fixing our mind on Krishna and moving closer to him so the philosophy is very important so that we understand why we are doing what we are doing in terms of having a basic intellectual foundation for our various choices but beyond that the technicalities of the philosophy are not something that everybody has to understand we have to know that even in the Vedic culture when the Vedic culture was there at that time it is primarily the brahminical people who knew the technicalities of the philosophy and at that time even books were written primarily for the brahmanas and that’s why we don’t that’s why often if you read the previous Acharya’s books they don’t talk too much about personal application, practical application because that is something which is talked about in the oral tradition and the focus of the books was to write for other scholars so that it would create an intellectual it would have a solid intellectual and scriptural foundation for the tradition’s teachings so yes broadly speaking whatever we find attractive in Krishna Consciousness we use it to connect with Krishna and some devotees will be more intellectually oriented than others and they can make the intellectual study of Krishna Consciousness as their prominent activity if not their exclusive activity even brahmanas it was not just study was their exclusive activity there was pathan-pathan that is studying scripture and teaching scripture but along with that yajan-yajan doing yajna was there and doing yajna for themselves doing yajna for others was there and daan-parigraha was also there giving charity, accepting charity so the brahmanas also had they participated in certain cultural activities aspects also but their primary focus was in scriptural study similarly those devotees who are more brahmanically inclined they can focus more on intellectual aspects study the philosophy in greater depth and detail and that is not something which everybody has to do but at the same time we shouldn’t entirely neglect philosophy so hearing the bhagavatam is an important aspect of devotional service and hearing bhagavatam basically doesn’t mean only hearing the past times bhagavatam as past times bhagavatam as philosophy also five potent forms of devotional service so we should give some basic amount of time for studying the scripture and we have a clear understanding of the philosophical aspects of Krishna consciousness but beyond that the philosophical foundations of Krishna consciousness but beyond that we can be free to choose whatever it is that attracts us to Krishna the most and utilize that some devotees may like cooking, some may like music, some may like more of serving the deities some may like distribution, whatever activities are there, we can do those activities at an individual level and become inspired in Krishna consciousness so to summarize whatever we are attracted to we can do it and even though those who are brahmanically inclined and they have intellectual aspect they should also have some connection with the culture but one should not in the name of being attracted to the cultural aspect neglect the philosophical aspects entirely we can do it as a part of our basic sadhana and we can whatever we individually feel inspired to do the remaining devotional time we can devote to that