Should we serve according to our nature or try to transcend our nature?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so should we just act according to our nature in serving Krishna whatever be the mode in which the nature is or should we come to the mode of goodness and give away our nature you know I was in London and then a devotee was going to drive me to the airport he mentioned two prominent devotee preachers and he said are you in this devotee’s party or are you in that devotee’s party I said what do you mean he said this devotee when he has to catch a flight he goes five hours before and this devotee goes one and a half hours before so now both of them are very dedicated devotees but one devotee just make a rush of things go there, be peaceful, sit there, you can do your work there other devotee said you can do so many things, why go there before just go there last minute so both are serving Krishna and both are doing it in their own way is it that one is right and other is wrong no that’s just the way people are so I would say that sometimes when we put labels on actions this is in goodness and this is in passion that might itself be I met one devotee in America he said that I don’t even tell people I am a Hare Krishna he said why as soon as you put follow I am by something then people have a particular conception of the something Hare Krishna was like this Hare Krishna was like that I am a Brahmachari I am this, I am that whenever we put any conceptual category on a particular thing there are certain preconceptions and some of them those connotations may be positive some of them may be negative I just tell people that I am following a process of self-realization I am a follower of a process of self-realization universal statement similarly I would say rather than getting into deciding, so is it that going one and a half hours before to the airport in passion and going six hours before in the mood of goodness not like that every devotee has their nature and they are serving Krishna accordingly so I would say that better rather than categorizing things like this this is in passion, this is in goodness just do that which keeps us most peaceful two things, we want to be as peaceful as possible while doing it and we want to be as productive as possible now naturally these two don’t go together I want to be productive if I just want to be peaceful I may not do anything and I am peaceful also I want to be productive and then for that I may lose all my peace also but we try to find as much of a balance as possible so for some people some devotees are very much they should never do multitasking just do one thing at a time but some devotees their brain is so voracious that if you do one thing you get bored get bored so when I hear in their classes there is one devotee preacher who speaks so slowly I feel like intellectual torture come on do it so the way I engage myself is what this, that devotee speaks speaks one sentence I will translate that sentence into Hindi in my mind, I will translate that into Marathi, I will translate that into my own English and by that time the devotee spoke the next sentence now that is just my need is that in a mode of passion, somebody just sits there and hears, they are just so happily hearing now maybe it is a mode of passion maybe it is just my intellectual, but this is the way I am some devotees when they do kirtans they sing in such complicated tunes that the kirtan is not a participatory kirtan it is a performatory kirtan so is it that one somebody who sings simply is actually purely devoted somebody who is singing musically is having more musically contaminated not necessary we find out how best we can serve Krishna and over a period of time, we ourselves will find out when I do this when I say the best balance is being peaceful and being productive that means if we go too much towards peace we will feel I am not doing anything but if we go too much towards productivity we will feel I am being overwhelmed so we have to find out how best we can serve Krishna so best not to, when we are serving Krishna best not to label certain things as in goodness or in passion or in ignorance it is just that one definition of goodness could be external cleanliness, external orderliness, external we can have certain ideals which are associated with goodness, but actually goodness means basically the essence of goodness is that we are in harmony with ourselves in transcendence we are in harmony with Krishna in goodness we are in harmony with ourselves so we are in harmony with this is what I am and this is how I can best serve Krishna, in passion we are in disharmony with ourselves trying to do much more than what we can do its like say somebody is exercising they can lift 15 kg weight and then they go for a workout and they lift 15 kg, 16 kg they can do it smoothly and they improve their muscles and their body by that but if they try to lift 25 kg they may want to show to the world how much strength I have, but then they do that and after that in private so so then that is in the mode of passion, trying to do way too much and mode of ignorance again we just underestimate what we can do or we don’t train ourselves adequately, somebody can lift 15 kg but they go and do with 5 kg they are not going to grow any muscles by that, its not a workout its just like a time out so rather than stereotyping that these activities in goodness is in passion that which makes us in harmony with ourselves that is in goodness