Should I postpone my sadhana bhakti to focus on college studies?

From Jayashree Mataji:

Answer Podcast:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Jai Shri Mataji.
Sometimes I feel that when I am studying in college, that college studies take so much time and sadhana bhakti also takes so much time. So maybe I should postpone, just now focus on my studies and then I can do bhakti afterwards. But sometimes I feel that I should not give up bhakti also because bhakti is also very important.
So how should I balance the two? Answer, firstly, we don’t have to have this or that attitude. It is something, it is a matter of first when we accept the principle that both are in principle non-negotiable. Yes, I want to practice my bhakti also and I want to do my studies also.
Once we understand that, then we can find out ways in which we can balance. But if we are always thinking at the back of the mind, maybe I’ll just give up my bhakti now or I’ll postpone my bhakti and practice it later, then what will happen is, we will always be thinking of that as a shortcut and we will not be determined to find ways in which we could manage both. So certainly, we may not, if we are in college, there are times when college is quite busy and we may not be able to practice the same level of bhakti as we were practicing when we did not have so much academic pressure.
So for example, when exams come up and submissions come up, when certain deadlines come up, at that time, we may not be able to practice bhakti at the same level as we might practice at other times. But overall, by some planning, by some preparation, we can find a balance. And in general, one main problem that comes up when we try to find a balance is that we expect that balance to be like a frozen formula.
Okay, this is what I will do. Morning I’ll do this, afternoon I’ll do this, evening I’ll do this. This time I’ll do this, this much time I’ll do for this, this much I’ll do once.
Yes, this is good in principle, but in practice, many unpredictable things come up, many ad hoc things come up. And in practice, the reality of the world is certain sometimes, certain activities demand more time. So for example, as when exams are there, we need to give more time to our studies and accordingly, because we have only 24 hours, we may give less time for our bhakti.
That is fine. Just like if we are going on a cycle, then the normal balance state of the cycle is a vertical state. But if I’m going on a cycle, we come to a dead end, we have to turn left.
If I return left, the balance state of the cycle is the tilted state. So if you’re tilted, then only we will be able to move onwards. And then again, of course, we make ourselves vertically aligned, right in ourselves, and then we keep moving forward.
And then when we come to another turn, say we turn ourselves to the right and tilt ourselves and move onward, and again come vertical and move on. So basically, especially during that turns, the balance stage is a tilted stage. So when to tilt in some direction, in order to stay balanced, and when to return back to the vertical stage in order to balance, that requires most importantly, a sense of direction and a sense of purposefulness.
Once you know, this is the direction in which I want to go, then okay, there’s a dead end over here, and I’ll go this way, then I’ll turn this way, and I’ll turn this way, then I’ll turn this way like that. So that sense of direction and sense of purpose, that keeps the cyclist going on in the right direction, even if there are roadblocks or dead ends by finding alternative ways. So similarly, in life, we cannot have a frozen formula for getting balance.
Because as I said, things keep coming up. So we can have a broad principle. Okay, this is the direction in which I want to go.
Yes, I want to have time for bhakti also, and I want to have time for my studies also. So now, I want to grow both spiritually and academically. Then sometimes, we may tilt towards the right, the study pressure is a lot, then we can focus on studies.
Sometimes festivals come up, say Janmashtami, there’s Gaur Purnima, then we can at that time give more time to our spiritual life. And overall, if we can come in contact with some students, who have also practiced devotional life in their student life, and we can get their guidance, then we can also find out how to balance. Because academic performance is not just a matter of the quantity of studies, it is a matter also of the quality of what we study, how we study.
We can study efficiently, if we can take guidance from our seniors and find out to what depth we need to study, what are the things we need to focus on. Because sometimes we may spend too much time on things that are not all that important. So we can be efficient in our study by taking guidance from seniors.
And if we find out, if we have some devotee seniors, from them also we can learn efficient effective study practices. Or otherwise we can even consult some other seniors, if they are also willing to share their experiences with us, and we can learn. So it’s not necessary that we have to postpone bhakti so we don’t have to focus on studies.
In fact, we will find that if we plan properly, then bhakti won’t take away our work time. Actually, it will take away our worry time, it will take away our waste time. Now we may think, oh my bhakti takes so much time, but then we will see that for non-devotees, how much do non-devotees study? Yes, they spend so much time in so many things which are actually not related to studies, which they consider as enjoyment.
Now that means watching movies, watching cricket matches, and chit-chatting, gossiping, net surfing, and in spite of doing all these things, they also study, and many of them also do well in their studies. So it’s not impossible, it’s not that to do well in our studies, we need to fill our life only with studies and nothing else. The very time that non-devotees spend on non-devotional activities, non-devotional and non-academic activities, so we can use that time for our sadhana bhakti.
So if we consider student life, so there is one circle of academic activities and there is another circle of other activities. So non-devotees fill their other activities with largely wasteful activities, so not really efficient use of time, often wasteful, but we don’t have to, we don’t waste our time like that. So if we can, we will be saving that time, we use that time for bhakti.
So we shouldn’t think that my study time is going away because of my bhakti, rather it is our, the other time which other people are wasting, that is being saved by a practice of bhakti. And this is especially the realization of those devotees who get introduced to bhakti in college, many times through college preaching programs, students get introduced to bhakti in their college and then many of them tell that, you know, as compared to the time that I had earlier, the time that I have now is actually I am able to manage my time much better because there is so much anxiety, there is so much worry that is there. Now worry is definitely there for everyone, it’s not that devotees will be entirely free from worry, but to a large extent if we practice meditation, if we do sadhana bhakti, then the worry becomes substantially reduced and we are able to live life in a much more harmonious way and thus we can, we will actually, so we don’t lose time, rather we save time and that way by, as I said, by being, first of all being convinced that both are non-negotiable, I need to balance both of them and secondly knowing that we need to be flexible in balancing, so sometimes you may give, just like a cycle needs to be tilted at times in order to balance, sometimes we need to tilt more towards studies, sometimes tilt more towards devotional activities and like that seek a dynamic balance based on a sense of direction and purpose, not a rigid formula and then after that take guidance from some seniors about how to study effectively and don’t let the mind make us believe wrongly that our bhakti is taking away our study time.
No, the time which our peers, the non-devotees spend on waste and worry, that time is saved for us and that time we are using for bhakti and in that way we can grow both academically and devotionally. Thank you.