Isnt fear of entanglement in grihastha life desirable?

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Thank you Hare Krishna Question Isn’t it desirable to fear entanglement in Vraastha life? You mentioned in one of your answers that one should not enter Vraastha life with a negative attitude thinking that it is entangling but isn’t it better that one have that fear of entanglement and that’s how one way one can protect oneself from entanglement Answer Yes, there is healthy fear and unhealthy fear unhealthy fear comes out as negativity whereas healthy fear is caution so unhealthy fear essentially means that one goes in with a negative mentality and that negative mentality becomes like a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein whatever one fears that’s what one gets eventually and that’s how one becomes more and more entangled and more and more contaminated so if one starts thinking all this Vraastha ashram is going to be filled with problems it is going to have this complication, that complication then all the problems that come rather than being prepared for those problems we become burdened by those problems it’s a matter of the attitude a habitually pessimistic attitude Vishadhi, Dirgha Sutri Krishna talks about Vishad, Vishad is rejection, depression, moroseness that he says is in Tamoguna so being cautious is in Sattvaguna being habitually pessimistic is in Tamoguna being cautious is Sattvaguna so as devotees we should be in Sattvaguna not in Tamoguna of course we aspire to be transcendental but we cultivate goodness so that eventually we can move towards transcendence so the important point is that if we as devotees don’t recognize the difference between goodness and transcendence or rather between goodness and ignorance in this particular situation then we may embrace ignorance and think that that is the that is what scripture is teaching us no, we don’t see in scripture that anyone who has entered grhastha ashram failing to execute responsibly the responsibilities of grhastha ashram we see that people do execute those responsibilities diligently because they understand that that this is what is my dharma right now and by executing those responsibilities diligently Naram did not think when Sita was abducted oh anyway I have to take valapasthana sanyas later so anyway now Sita has been abducted good, I am free from nine times, he didn’t think like that so the Pandavas when they were dispossessed eventually they came back to clean their kingdom they did not accept the false argument that Dhritarashtra made through Sanjay that oh anyway you have to take valapasthana later so now take valapasthana only they said no, we have a duty of dharma over here duty to establish dharma and we must do that duty our dharma is right now as grhasthas so the point which I am making is that sometimes the difference between healthy fear and unhealthy fear becomes blurred an unhealthy fear comes out as the habitually negative attitude and that negative attitude becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy which creates unnecessary complications and aggravations of our situations so the healthy caution, what does healthy caution means? it’s not that when a devotee is doing household responsibilities so I will explain how things will work out in Tamagoda if a person is too tamasic, when the household duties are there at that time that person is thinking oh only if I could go to temple, only if I could hear katha, only if I could dance in kirtan all this is so burdensome and one just wants to get rid of those things and go into devotional activities now this may seem wonderful at one level but what happens is that one neglects, one does those duties neglectfully and then one has to eventually spend more time rectifying the mistakes that one has done and by being careless or irresponsible one hurts people and those hurts eventually create ruptures in the relationships and that takes a lot of time and that causes a lot of distraction cause of emotional agony also so when one neglects one’s household responsibilities in the name of devotion then that often creates greater complication in the household responsibilities later on and that leads to further problems so instead if one focuses on transcendental principles if one focuses on understanding with a transcendental vision that the scope of Krishna bhakti is not limited only to directly devotional activities it is not that when we are going to the temple and doing directly devotional activities only then we are performing bhakti we have to expand our conception of bhakti so that bhakti, the performance of bhakti is not limited to the temple alone but the performance of bhakti is done at our home and it is done at our offices also so when we have this expanded conception of bhakti then with this inclusive vision we will do even our worldly duties responsibly because you see these are also the ways in which I am serving Krishna this is not my home, this is Krishna’s home and in this Krishna’s home I am trying to serve him and these are Krishna’s, these are not just my family members they are Krishna’s family members and they have been entrusted by Krishna to me and I take care and I serve them in the way whatever is appropriate according to my responsibility, my situation and that way I move onwards towards Krishna and even by doing my household duties so of course if one thinks that my bhakti so one limited conception of bhakti is it is restricted only to the temple now another limited conception of bhakti is that bhakti can be performed anywhere so there is no need to go to temple only whatever I do at my home itself, whatever I do at my office itself, that itself is bhakti now again that is a limitation which will cripple our devotion that is a limited conception which will cripple our devotion because without explicitly devotional activities our consciousness will not stay devotional for long because right now we are very much affected by what we are, the situation that we are externally in and what we are doing at the physical level because we are in the material world and we are materially conscious so when our externals are also devotional and we are doing directly devotional activities that does influence us devotionally and that creates adequate inner impressions and inner inspirations that we can carry on and continue bhakti at home and carry on that devotional disposition when we are at home and in our offices also so we need explicitly devotional time and along with that we also need we need to give due responsibility to our due time and attention to our devotional responsibilities when they are to be done at home or in profession also so caution means that we understand that there is a possibility of entanglement and to prevent that possibility from becoming an eventuality we need to have regularity in our spiritual connection so the sattvic way of dealing with the danger of entanglement in gharastha life is to make a diligent commitment to regularly practice bhakti the practice bhakti in the sense of directly devotional activities and the tamasic way which is unhealthy fear the negativity is that one just treats everything gharastha ashram as a burden and with that negative attitude one makes a mess of things and then seeks bhakti as a relief from that mess that one has created by one’s negligence and one’s irresponsibility and then when one approaches bhakti with that kind of escapist attitude then one doesn’t even really do bhakti wholeheartedly because one’s focus is not on to whom we are going but from what we are running that means I am running away from the problems of my life I am not so concerned whether I am running towards Krishna so as devotees if we recognize that gharastha ashram is also an ashram and ashram means it can also give us ashray of Krishna and with that understanding when we take shelter of Krishna through gharastha ashram then we will have the healthy caution without becoming without succumbing to a negativity which will be the unhealthy fear which will make problems worse whereas the healthy caution will keep problems minimal and will enable us to deal with whatever problems come in a responsible and effective way Thank you. Hare Krishna