Should we seek financial security first so that we can focus more on bhakti later?

Transcript

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should one seek financial security and pursue it by working hard to retire comfortably and be able to focus on sadhana peacefully in the last leg of life for a grahastha what is the right mindset and approach to take in this regard yes certainly as devotees once we start getting a taste for krishna consciousness and we start seeing how much conflict and how much trouble there is in the world and often we start feeling this world is ultimately we have to go beyond this to krishna so this desire always comes in serious devotees that how can i maximize my bhakti and one way is this particular way that we work hard now, earn a lot of money, earn sufficient amount of money and then we can retire and focus on bhakti and in general this is the vedic plan when we are grahastha we prepare for vanaprastha and vanaprastha is the time when we start focusing more and more on bhakti more and more on our spiritual side so in this case there are two things which have to be taken into consideration first is that there is certain basic level of bhakti which you should always practice because practicing bhakti is not just a matter of having financial security yes we do need financial security to practice bhakti peacefully but practicing bhakti is fundamentally based on our desire to serve krishna and that desire to serve krishna itself cannot be maintained if we are not serving krishna right now in some small way so atleast in some basic way we have to maintain our bhakti otherwise we may start with the intention of we may start with the intention like one devotee was telling once i earn this much money then this one devotee was not telling just a mentality once i get this much money i will get 51% of my earn but now i can’t give 1% no it doesn’t charity i will talk about charity in general bhakti charity is not just an activity charity is a mentality if we reduce charity to just an activity one time i will give charity sometimes a big amount ok that is good if we give in the future but the point of charity is not just to give a big amount or to give any amount the point of charity is to develop the mentality that whatever we have is a gift from krishna and therefore because it is coming from krishna we should give something to krishna so even if a person is earning a small amount out of that even if one gives a little that habit is developed similarly practicing bhakti is not just a matter of having a lot of time in future or having a lot of financial security in the future then we will be able to practice bhakti nicely it is a matter of developing the habit and if we don’t develop the habit now rather if we suspend or neglect the habit now so that we will be able to do it in future in the intermediate period what is likely to happen is because we are focusing on our material life may be earning more or making a range of financial security that is the process when we are more likely to associate with materialistic people when we associate with them their desires will come on us and at one level if we are not spiritually minded then no amount of material financial security will seem to be enough and we will just get caught more and more and more in that so yes making plans in the future to intensify our bhakti is good, it is desirable it is intelligent at the same time that should not be at the cost of not practicing bhakti at all there should be some basic level of bhakti practice which should always go on and there can be a plan to increase the bhakti in future and secondly even when we think that we can earn more now so that we will practice bhakti more peacefully in the future even that earning we have to see in such a way that it does not cause disproportionate anxiety to us disproportionate anxiety means say if I have capacity to work for say 6 hours 7 hours, 8 hours, 9 hours, 10 hours and we take up a job which requires us to work 12 hours, 14 hours, 15 hours then the stress caused by such work will itself be so demanding that we will lose even our material peace of mind, we may lose our health and a lot of complications may come certainly any job that we take, any plan that we make there is some amount of anxiety but there is manageable anxiety and there is unmanageable anxiety the difference is basically like a person is practicing to lift weights now if I am lifting 10 kg regularly I can lift 11 kg, I can lift 12 kg but if I am lifting 10 kg and suddenly I decide I start lifting 12, 20 kg or 30 kg, I will break myself so like that even while planning for financial security in the future we shouldn’t take up so much workload, so much anxiety now that even materially things become unmanageable and then we will bring ourselves to a breakdown so slow and steady that means certainly we should prepare for financial security but at the same time in a way that we manage our bhakti now and we don’t make our material life excessively complicated some amount of complications definitely there, Prabhupada talks in the 7.15 purport he talks about self-created duties so there are certain amount of duties and responsibilities which anyway come in material life but we don’t have to maximize them and multiply our anxiety by that so if you take care of that then definitely planning to intensify one’s bhakti in future is a very auspicious desire and that also if you are planning in some way it also shows Krishna our seriousness because generally we plan about things which are important to us so if you are planning like this in future that also shows Krishna our seriousness and he was also reciprocate and guide us how we can do this in future