Should devotees be desensitized from social causes or involved in them?

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Transcript

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So, attachment to Krishna, attachment to one thing he says, I said it desensitizes us to other things.
So, then sometimes as devotees, we think that we should focus simply on practicing bhakti. But there are so many things which are going on in society. Say cow, there is cow protection, there is intolerance among religion, there is violence, there are so many issues in society.
So, how much should we be involved in them? Or is it that if we become desensitized to them, is that positive or is that negative? So, here, this is a matter of individual inspiration. There is broadly the central activities of bhakti, which we practice as sadhakas. But along with that, while practicing bhakti, each of us is individual.
And how we feel inspired to practice bhakti, that will vary from person to person. So, usually, we have to focus. We have to, what in military terms it is called, choose your battles.
Army cannot fight 100 places at the same time. I will fight in this place, others will go and fight in that place. So, like that, there are many things which are wrong in society.
From a point of view of spiritual culture also, there are 100 things wrong, million things wrong, I would say. But we have to see what we are inspired to do and what we are equipped to do. And we focus on that.
Or some devotees may be inspired for, say, Go Seva. And that is very good. But that does not mean everyone has to do Go Seva.
And just because somebody is not doing Go Seva, then they are not doing anything. That is, within bhakti, there can be different definitions of success. So, for example, somebody is doing a book distribution.
And I have distributed so many books. It is very good. That is a definition of success.
But somebody else may be doing preaching and inspiring people to understand the philosophy and become devotees of Krishna. That is also another definition of success. Somebody else may be focusing on building a temple.
And their primary purpose is raising funds and making a beautiful temple for Krishna. And that is also a definition of success. Somebody may work a little further out and say somebody may be doing Food for Life.
Somebody may be networking with the broader faith community. And somebody may be starting hospitals with a devotional inspiration. Somebody else may be trying to reform the educational system or offer an alternative model of education system, say, either through Gurukuls or within the mainstream itself penetrating.
So, now here, all these are ways in which we are doing our part in sharing Krishna s message. So, these are different definitions of success. And we need to recognize that bhakti accommodates various definitions.
So, to think of one definition of success as the only definition of success, that is fanaticism. To think of one definition of success as the only definition of success, I think we have to do book distribution. And if you are not doing book distribution, and you are deviating, you are not faithful to Prabhupada, you are good for nothing, you are useless.
No, it is not like that. Book distribution is important, but Prabhupada gave us so many other things to do also. So, if we feel inspired by doing something, we should definitely do that.
And in general, it is important to associate with like-minded devotees. Rupa Goswami says in the Bhakti Sama Siddhu that we need Sajatiya Ashe Bhagwat Sangam, that means like-minded devotee association. So, if I am doing, say, college preaching, and I am associating with devotees who are doing fundraising, then if I associate only with them, I will say, actually, what fundraising are you doing? What is the use of what you are doing? It will appear as if it is of no use.
So, if you want to be encouraged, you have to associate with those devotees who have similar definitions of success. By the same time, you should also appreciate other devotees who have other definitions of success. So, the amount of hard work that is required, say, college preaching requires one kind of hard work, fundraising requires one kind of hard work, book distribution requires another kind of hard work.
So, they are different. All services, if we actually start doing them, they require hard work, and we can appreciate them. So, Prabhupada, now, first I talked about different definitions of success.
Now, another thing is that success itself can be in terms of increasing concentric circles. That means, we could say that all these are ultimately, whether you are building temple, whether you are distributing books, whether we are making a, whether we are doing college preaching, they are all meant to help people become devotees. But even devotion is not just necessarily in terms of a particular standard.
When Srila Prabhupada was preaching in India, he saw that most Indians were not ready to become serious devotees. The 16 rounds, following the principles are more or less part of Indian culture, most of Indian culture. But to come to the level of sadhana bhakti, they were not ready.
So, Prabhupada created a facility for them to stay connected with Krishna in the form of life membership. So, one inner circle is 16 round of initiated devotee. But another much broader circle is become a life member, where people feel some level of connection with Krishna, and they are at that stage not ready to come to this circle.
But create a circle by which they are connected. So, like that, there are many people who are inspired to do go-seva. I am not talking about devotees.
Outside there are many people who are inspired to do go-seva. And if we network with them, then we give them some way by which they are also getting connected with Krishna. Some people were inspired to say, okay, so much conversion is happening, and we need to stop the conversion, we need to give some help to the villagers so that they do not get converted.
That is also a mission. If they feel inspired to do that, that is also a broader circle. So, if that is what one is inspired to do, one can and one should do that.
But it is not that anybody who is not doing that is negligent or is irresponsible. It is just that that is not what everyone needs to do. We are all inspired in different ways and we all contribute to Krishna’s mission in different ways.
So, if we start, okay, there is the two different things, when you talk about there is desensitization and there is detachment. Desensitization means we are ourselves actively involved in activities that are hurting others. But because of our attachment, we do not sense that only.
It is like Dhritarashtra was actually himself a part of the conspiracy to kill the Pandavas, to burn them alive. But he did not bother about that. He did not feel any compunction also while doing that.
That is desensitization. But detachment means that we recognize that I am a finite being, I am a limited being, and there is only so much I can do. So, what I can do, I will concentrate my energy and I will do that.
And other things, I do know that Krishna is in control. Actually, even what I am doing also, Krishna is in control only. But there is something which I can do in the service of Krishna.
So, we should not be desensitized in terms of yes, if there is terrible, there are many terrible things happening in society. And a devotee has a sensitive heart, but we cannot just be thinking about things which we cannot do anything about. That will just fill us with negativity.
So, there is darkness, so much darkness. Suppose, you know, suppose suddenly the power supply goes off and the whole city is in darkness. At that time, what do we do? We may take our phone and turn on the flashlight.
That flashlight is not going to illumine the whole city. But just because we cannot illumine the whole city does not mean that we have to stay in darkness. And we illumine our corner of the city and others will illumine their corner of the city.
So, like that, there is a lot of darkness. But if you just think, oh, it is so dark, it is so dark, it is so dark, then do your part to remove the darkness. So, whatever we are inspired to, whatever we are equipped to, we do in Krishna s service.
Other devotees will be inspired and equipped in other ways. And they will act in their ways. And in that way, we all contribute in our own small or big ways to share the light of Krishna s love, the light of Krishna s wisdom in different aspects of society.
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