Is the love of a mother for her baby Maya?

I have heard that all relationships other than our relationship with Krishna are Maya.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HuivfrifiI

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna Question I have heard that according to our philosophy that all relationships except our relationship with Krishna are Maya then is a mother’s love for her child also Maya and should mother not love her child and should the child not love her mother her or his mother but then if they don’t love each other how will the child survive how will the child grow and it seems very harsh and harsh and cruel to say that this love between a mother and a child is Maya answer Vishal Prabhupada writes in the in his book about the Ajamil pastime the second chance in one of the lectures he says the love between a mother and a child is natural and necessary but it is not spiritual so now this is a very important statement to understand basically I am paraphrasing now natural that means we shouldn’t think it is unnatural or it is in that sense it is something wrong and is it unnecessary as you mentioned rightly that here the infant would not survive without the mother’s love and it’s necessary but the point is it is not spiritual not in and of itself spiritual spiritual means that which is connected with the soul so it often is not connected with the soul and now coming to the specific point about whether it is Maya we have to understand that often we classify things as material as spiritual and material and then we think everything is connected with Krishna whatever is connected with Krishna is spiritual everything else is material and material means illusion and therefore we should give it up actually this is an inadequate classification it is a valid qualification but it is not a complete classification things can be classified as spiritual and material but within material there is there is aparadharma and there is adharma so the spiritual activity the relationship with Krishna are called as paradharma and the and the material activities that are in harmony with morality and scripture are called as aparadharma and then there is adharma adharma is irreligiosity it is immorality so now we should not think that aparadharma and adharma are one and the same not at all actually there is a huge difference between them and adharma has to be given up but aparadharma is not to be given up it is to be dovetailed and it has to be also done competently responsibly now we see that in the bhagavatam there is there is anything let’s take a general relationship Rantideva and Shibi are kings who are taking care of the citizens and not just human non-human citizens also and they are ready to sacrifice for that and the citizens are not really coming to them asking to inquire about God and what they are giving to them is food or some relief from danger that there is nothing directly spiritual in that but they are doing that and they are glorified for doing that because they sacrifice enormously while doing that so now their consciousness is devotional but the activity that they are doing is not necessarily directly devotional it is just a material activity in the sense that there is nothing explicitly connected with the soul in that but they are glorified because they are having such a sacrificing spirit and their spirit of sacrifice is in the mood of service to the Lord so they are doing aparadharma but they are infusing it with the mood of paradharma and in that way it becomes not just acceptable it becomes glorious so glorious that it finds a place a prominent place a place of pride in the Amalapurana in the Srimad Bhagavatam similarly we see the love between Dhruva and his mother now his mother she she loves her son and what does she do she takes care of him as much as possible for her and beyond that when it is not possible for her to take care when he is hurt so much and she realizes that she can’t help what does she do she guides him to Vishnu to the Supreme Lord now it is not that at that time only she told her about Vishnu she was a devotee of Vishnu and she had told him about him earlier also and at that particular time she told him to go and seek him and then now Dhruva Maharaj went according to his mother’s instruction then afterwards he came back and he actually took care of his mother not just during her life but even at the end of his life when he was to go back to Goddard he according to his desire his request he was so concerned that how can I go back to Goddard without my mother who actually showed me the path back to Goddard and his mother was also going back so now here there are let’s try to understand this past time from philosophical perspective now so we have a vertical relationship with Krishna that is our most important relationship and that relationship is our only eternal relationship of course with other people also we can have relationship at the spiritual level which may be eternal but at present we do not have so much of a spiritual relationship that is our so our relationship with Krishna is a primary eternal relationship now that is a vertical relationship along with that we have horizontal relationships with other human beings other people around us and these relationships are also important now bhakti is not just an individual activity it is also social activity wherein we try to we actually practice bhakti with other people so now we could say that does that refer only to devotees who come together and sit and chant and dance and sing and hear about Krishna yes it refers to devotees there the horizontal relationships are also increasing our connection in the vertical relationship but it also refers to our family relationships you know whether we want it or not when we start practicing devotional service then at that time we become in one sense representatives of Krishna for others now our family members may or may not become connected with Krishna for example when a mother is taking care of the child the infant may or may not become a devotee of Krishna but what does how should the mother see the mother sees that this child has actually been sent by Krishna to me and it is Krishna’s child under my care and let me do my duty towards this child as a form of service to Krishna so now actually what to speak of mother even sometimes the spiritual master may not be able to succeed in taking the soul towards Krishna some devotees may get initiated and even after that they may leave the path to Krishna so now the spiritual masters think oh these souls may leave the path so let me not bother about them then the spiritual teachers will also be failing in their duty so we need to so mothers they should think at this point of view yes affection for the child is natural it is essential and then let me spiritualize it so it is as you rightly said it’s very harsh to consider this to be Maya Maya is that which takes us away from Krishna now yes if say if there is an illicit relationship between a man and a woman that very strongly takes one away from Krishna that is Adharma and that certainly has to be given up so we have the regulatory principles which protect us from Adharma but Aparadharma is what we should be doing and doing it by infusing it with the mood of Paradharma so it will be actually very detrimental to our capacity to take care of our children if we start thinking that our relationship with the children is Maya actually our relationship with children is an opportunity for us to serve Krishna and we should try to infuse as much devotional consciousness in that as possible and of course this does not mean that it will not be devotional service if the children don’t become devotees we don’t have to burden them with so much expectation that they just that they feel so cramped and they feel forced to choose Krishna no if we give them devotional impressions they will choose Krishna on their own due course of time and our taking care of them doesn’t whether that is devotional service or not that doesn’t depend on whether they become devotees or not it depends on how much of a devotional disposition we have that’s why now one extreme could be that as I said as somebody said that only Paradharma is real and Aparadharma is also illusion and this is actually unfortunately happened in our movement in the early days the disciples of Shila Prabhupada who got leading positions they were not very mature and they can’t be blamed they were just practicing not just practicing they had been put in responsibility where they had to lead the practice for schools of devotees of something which is very foreign culture for them so they were they actually told some of the devotees that you should not develop affection for your child a child should also not develop affection for you but then when Prabhupada this was brought to the notice of Prabhupada Prabhupada was very upset he said these are Vaikuntha children why are you thinking of giving your children away to someone else you should take care of them so now Prabhupada corrected those misconceptions so one extreme is to think that Aparadharma itself is sorry Aparadharma is all that Aparadharma is all that I need to do I only need to practice this Krishna Bhakti and nothing else everything else is illusion and I become negligent about that no that is the extreme which is unsustainable actually even if somebody is a Sanyasi Sanyasi cannot just chant and dance and sing Sanyasi also has Aparadharma that means they have to be in a particular social position of course Sanyasis are in one sense they are committed they have renounced themselves disconnected from society but even they have their social responsibilities in some way so so actually nobody can entirely give up Aparadharma so thinking that I will only do Paradharma that is one extreme and the other extreme could be that I think that my Aparadharma is itself Paradharma that means if I take care of my children that is all that I need to do and I don’t need to do anything separately for Krishna my children are sent by Krishna to me and I will serve them through serve Krishna through them and I don’t do any Bhakti directly I don’t chant the holy names I don’t go to the temple that is also an extreme because then that is unsustainable because we may start that sort of activity the mood of serving Krishna but then because the relationship is so much at a bodily level we may often very easily forget Krishna entirely and then it will just become a material relationship now even that material relationship is not bad it is laudable because it involves such a level of selflessness and service and as Prabhupada says natural necessary but then it will not be spiritual it will cause attachments which will keep us in the cycle of birth and death so what we need to do is have a balance between aparadharma and paradharma now of course when a mother is pregnant or she has just delivered at that time she may not be in a position to practice bhakti too that is understandable but in a normal situation actually there should be a proper balance between aparadharma and paradharma and so one practices devotional activities which infuse the heart in the devotional mood and then when one takes care of the children also that is done in the devotional mood and that attachment far from being moha which will cause bandhana that will actually take us because we are doing in the mode of service to Krishna that will take us closer to Krishna and when the children see that actually my mother my parents love me so much and they are devotees of Krishna then let me also become devotee of Krishna then I will also become so loving I will also be not only be able to please them but I will also become like them loving and caring and so that way we can actually make our relationships into ways that take us and our relatives our loved ones closer to Krishna thank you Hare Krishna question from