Isn’t it better to chant extra than to use dama and bheda with the mind?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so can sometimes dharma and gita become dangerous because the person may just manipulate us and do what he likes to do rather than what is actually good the normal dharma is chant Hare Krishna isn’t that better actually when we fight a war what is important is that we survive and win the war it’s not that just we have to use one particular weapon or weapon I know many devotees who say every day they chant 64 108 192 but I appreciate that they are chanting about their dharma but if I associate with them all they are not happy they are not happy and their associations are misguided there are so many companies which is wrong so yes they are chanting it’s definitely good but is their chanting making them happy yes in the long run chanting will make them happy but right now there are other devotees who just chant 64 they may take 3 times prasad but they may not so yes chanting is a yoga dharma but the point is it’s not limited to chanting 9 hymns or what? 64 items or what? so we cannot we cannot use a one size fits all formula for everything so if I have insistence on that sort of thing can have alienating results you know alienating results means what? that people people people feel I started chanting mama you are not chanting sincerely let’s chant sincerely there when you just insist on the same thing then what happens is this devotee doesn’t and then or if they are they are not possessed then they start looking you know people are possessed about themselves and you know guilt can be constructive and guilt can be destructive also I have a full class on this I am not going to do that see Krishna is here I am Krishna is here and I am here now Krishna I am here and this is inflected so guilt should come between me it is a simple activity but somehow the mind is so so deceptive that actually we do the activity and afterwards Krishna is here so then guilt comes between me and Krishna I do some simple activity what does he do? I am so simple so so I am just supposed to come between me and sin that is now coming between me and Krishna and in that way a person becomes discouraged and guilt can lead to a lot of complications so one of the important principles in bhakti is that people can be inspired to surrender and bow down but then when it comes to practical application they have to surrender at their place now when they are going to surrender at their place at certain facilities where they may or may not be provided in a certain situation if somebody says I can’t wake up in the morning then maybe that devotee can’t stay in the place that devotee can’t wake up in the morning the point is there is a room for individuality and if people cannot practice at a higher level what do we do? do we just say that you should not practice bhakti or you are not sincere and that’s important important point Pradyumna Sirupurana has given a sadhana in the history of congregation in which he was found very nice and so there he explains in the early days of our movement the definition of success was that person should join the temple isn’t it so if a person is given the right to join the temple then he is successful and then they found initially there was a big crowd and many of them would join very easily because they were already there so they were already homeless so they easily came but then many of the Hindus started coming to the temple and these Hindus were quite career conscious they had come to America for a career and they had no intention of joining they had no idea they did not want to join they thought they would die they always looked for new people but it took several years for us to realize that these Hindus they come to every festival they come every Sunday we don’t pay any attention till they are coming and if a person in the street asks them so we they are not like Krishna because they don’t join the temple but if they were asked in the street or in some circle which Hindu group we belong to so they say they are Hare Krishna but we say they are not Hare Krishna so what did that create that we had a very narrow definition of who is a Hare Krishna and then over a period of time we realized that actually not everybody is going to join the temple and those who are not joining the temple can also be famous devotees and they need to be accommodated in the temple and then that is how the whole concept of weekly program started earlier it was only daily Bhagavad Gita class and weekly Sunday we were in the temple but the idea of weekly going to congregation to his house and cultivating a program doing a program and the whole point of going to congregation to his house is it just largely means A. it is not to get that devotee to join the temple A. it is to make that devotee’s house important so that is only the grass top and that is not true so there is a expanded definition of success so one of the signs of maturation of a movement and of an individual is that we understand that there are a success in Krishna consciousness is not defined by digital logic it is not that inside the temple you are successful outside the temple you are unsuccessful no, it is defined success as like a set of concentric circles There are some devotees who are inside the temple, they are serious devotees, there are some devotees who are outside the temple, they will be working and their careers, but they are also devotees.
So in fact, this offering, expanding concentric circles, is what Krishna is going to reveal on 12.8 to 12. First verse, just fix your mind on me completely. Just try to fix your mind on me.
Work for me. If you can’t work for me, then just give me a job. So we need to have flexible definitions of success and be accommodating people according to those definitions.
In one sense, that’s what we are realizing that there are many boys who were cultivated by boys. And they couldn’t talk to boys, but still they have the vision of boys. And they may help in other ways.
So somehow, because they did not fit into our definition of success, we just neglected them. But they can help in their ways. So therefore, we have to be careful.
Certainly, we just can’t say that somebody wants that dheda and dama. That is necessarily selfish or manipulative. It may just be that that’s the level the person can practice.
And as long as in the philosophy, we are clear that this is a higher level of practice, this is a lower level of practice. And then if the person decides, I want to practice bhakti at this level, we don’t drag the person to a higher level. The person has to choose to come to a higher level.
And even if the person doesn’t come, that doesn’t mean that the person isn’t sincere or that our preaching is important or important. It just means that they have to practice at that level.