Isn’t faultfinding necessary for correcting and benefiting others?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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So is serving according to our interest and inspiration lower than serving because we are told to do and just doing what we are told for the pleasure of Guru and Krishna I think that this whole analysis of lower and higher can be very damaging for the long term health of a devotee because more important than lower and higher is what is sustainable we have to practice bhakti lifelong and if you try to practice some level of bhakti which is unsustainable for us you may do it for some time and then get frustrated and then from that level it will go down it will go out also it will slide down to very low levels so I mean whether we are at a higher level or lower level more important than that is whether we are at a sustainable level bhakti is something we have to practice lifelong and the way we are right now we may be surrounded by senior devotees who are there for guiding us but who knows in the future how things may change we may not have an authority there to constantly guide us we may have to practice self motivated self motivated means not that selfish it means that motivation has to come from us nobody there to instruct us and follow us so at that time we should have enough inspiration to go on lifelong so the higher lower analysis can be very very discouraging for people and in general Ranath Maharaj was he said clearly that if devotees from their point should be surrendered then they do whatever service they are told to do but the authorities should be mature enough to not make the devotees to do things which is not according to their nature authorities should be searching how can we engage devotees in a way that they can continue practicing lifelong and engage them accordingly so this approach is a little difficult especially when the project is in a rapidly going stage and has a lot of demands so sometimes as devotees we may have to take up some services as a necessity but in the long run we don’t have to bother about lower or higher focus on what is sustainable and do that and with respect to will this lead to something higher if by that you mean that say by doing say scientific sort of study and preaching is it that eventually we will develop study for Shastra or is it that by doing what we like to do we will become purified and then we will be ready to do what we don’t like to do maybe, maybe not that is not very necessary and we have to it’s not that doing what we don’t like to do is a sign of higher spiritual advancement it’s a more spiritual advancement is more a matter of intent than of content like we say Maharaj and Prabhupada also quotes that Krishna is more concerned rather than what we are giving but what mood we are giving so as you become purified by doing what we like to do it’s not necessary that we may do other things because if you are doing something which you like to do you become specialized in those things and you may be able to do it very well so giving that up to go to some other service that may not be a very beneficial thing for that service and for our own satisfaction but we will do it with more and more selfless intention we will do it for example when somebody likes to preach then it’s not that the preacher will graduate to something else after preaching but as the preacher will continue preaching and gradually the focus will shift more and more from how much people praise me and appreciate me for my classes to how much I am actually remembering Krishna how much I am actually benefiting people and helping them to remember Krishna the focus will become more and more Krishna centered and in general Varnashtra means about working according to our nature and surrender means not that we have a lifelong work against our nature but surrender means that we use what is according to our nature for Krishna’s cause and if this is the circle of my nature, this is the circle of Krishna bhakti surrender means I stay in the intersection sometimes you may feel that oh I can do something which is not devotional so that I can so that I may get certain results so we may have to check whether I really need to do that or not surrender or spiritual advancement doesn’t necessarily mean doing what we don’t like to do it simply means doing what we feel inspired to do but doing it with a more selfless motivation for the pleasure of Krishna