Is praying for the removal of our material desires a selfish prayer?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
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Thank you Krishna.
So Prahlad Maharaj asks I think that prayer is in the 5th canto, not the 7th, 5th canto where he says you know that please oh lord appear in my heart and rip apart my material desires so how do we understand this prayer yes actually the question is that Prahlad Maharaj is asking for the lord to appear in the heart and remove the material desires so he is basically here stating that he is asking the lord for something I think for himself please remove my desires he is so what is your question why is he asking like this ok why is he asking that the material desires be removed material desires are obstacles in the path of bhakti so he is asking for them to be removed so that he can serve Krishna better so his devotees as I said that if the desires are there in our heart now if you want to see Prahlad Maharaj as a pure devotee he has no desires then we see that as he is just setting an example for us but even if he is setting an example what we see is that there are desires within our heart and we want to get rid of them so that is something which is because it is uncool to bhakti it is also limbo bhakti so when we say that oh lord please free me from lust please free me from greed please free me from anger if you are asking it so that I can portray to the world how self controlled I am how pure I am then that is not favorable but if you are thinking that ok when I want to serve Krishna the lust, the anger, the greed they interrupt me in my service they obstruct my service therefore I want to be free from these so that I can serve you better so then that is very much favorable so that means we are identifying the obstacles that this is the obstacle for my practice of bhakti and I am praying to Krishna to remove that even in astrology that principle is there that at one level it is said you can just depend on Krishna, pray to Krishna and Krishna takes care of things but if you can’t do that there are too many problems in our life and then some astrologer tells you you have this issue or that is the issue then it is said that rather than going to a mundane astrologer who will tell us to do some worship of the devatas some devotee astrologer may tell us to worship some specific manifestations of the lord for dealing with specific issues that is also within the limbo of bhakti we see from 12.8 to 12 in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna gives various levels always think of me if you can’t think of me then strive to think of me if you can’t do that then just just work for me if you can’t work for me, give in charity to me like that he gives various levels so the highest level we could say is just Krishna I want to just sing your glories, I want to absorb myself in you but these are the obstacles for me in doing that so please remove these obstacles. There is also a prayer within the realm of advanced devotion. Does that address your question?