Should we stabilize our material life before practicing spiritual life?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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esoteric side so sometimes when I teach to young people they will say, this bhakti is important but first I have to stabilize my material life that may take a few years, after that I’ll practice bhakti this notion that first I’ll stabilize my material life, then I’ll practice my spiritual life this compartmentalizes things in a artificial way it is not that for the next 5 years I’ll build a body, then I’ll become the soul even now I’m always the soul and my existence always at our present existence is always multidimensional we are the soul but we have mind and we have body so if we understand the philosophy we will understand that actually nourishing the soul cannot be done we have to take care of our spiritual side but there is also a valid principle that how much time we can invest in taking care of our spiritual life that may take a long time so there are two kinds of later, the later which is an excuse for never I’ll do it later and the later which is an acknowledgement of the reality of the present so we cannot equate see one problem in today’s mainstream society I mean I’ll say Hindu society broadly that it is many people equate dharma with avaradha that means they think that if I’m doing my family duties if I’m taking care of my family if I’m taking care of raising my children and that itself is enough I don’t have to do anything so one is one extreme is that we reduce dharma only to avaradha and think if I’m doing this I don’t need to do anything more and the other extreme that is what has happened in our movement in the first generation that it is to equate dharma only with paratha and to neglect all avaradha so both are mistaken that means if somebody says I will not care about anything and I will simply practice bhakti well that means in time and circumstance whether one can actually sustain that level of bhakti it doesn’t work out like that for most people we may have a spirit which you want to practice bhakti seriously but then to sustain that lifelong is often not easy so we need to have a balance of paratha and avaradha now in the in the case of say some young people who want to develop their career and they want to grow in their material life that is important and that is not to be neglected but most people nobody can work for 24 hours nobody even if they have career ambitions they all need some breaks they all need some jubilation and if bhakti is presented appropriately to them then they see that actually bhakti doesn’t take away my work time bhakti actually takes away my worry time you know when we have only a materialistic conception of life then there is so much uncertainty let me go wrong now if we look at our lives every morning 7.30 to 8.30 is my worry time we don’t have that but worry is like a constant background noise that irritates and zaps our energy and if we understand that I have an indestructible spiritual self and that actually Krishna is always there with me the more we understand this the more the worry goes down worries will not go away entirely there will be some worries but the magnitude of the worry substantially goes down and even in our material life if we are calmer if we are more focused we can be more productive so rather than see our spiritual life as a contrary tree to our material life we can see that we have complicated life and that requires guidance so how one can practice bhakti in a way that one does not neglect one’s material life at the same time it is not that for the sake of pursuing one’s material life one neglects one’s spiritual life so how to balance it one requires guidance and one requires examples there are many students it has happened to many students that after they became devotees if they were guided properly they actually become better students also their character performance if they now have more focused minds their character performance improves it is not universally likely that a person who is an ordinary student will suddenly become a topper by becoming a devotee that may not happen but overall it is not that bhakti leads to neglect of our material responsibilities that is what one is doing if one has an incomplete understanding of bhakti and now as far as stabilizing one’s material life is concerned one has to honestly evaluate how much can I realistically how much time can I spend on material life as I can’t work for 24 hours so in some situations some people may say that here there is an association of devotees but I have got a job somewhere else where I don’t have an association but there I can earn more or I have better prospects for growing in my career so maybe I go there for a few years then I’ll come back now if somebody has taken a decision like that one has to honestly evaluate if I go away with the association of devotees will I be able to practice my life and in what way can I make contact with devotees so these are practical decisions which one has to take with guidance but it’s not that our practice of spiritual life should should be stopped till we stabilize our material life at one level we can also say philosophically that there will never be stability in absolute sense in material life now waiting waiting for stability in material life so that you can practice spiritual life is like waiting for the waves in the ocean to stop so that one can swim the waves will never stop so like that you cannot have ever permanent stability in material life but there is of course phases of relative stability and relative instability so if there is some emergency, some crisis in family life or in our worldly duties then fine so for example if a student has got exams coming now everyday students will chant the Japanese one but on the day of exam they chant after the exam then completely fine if somebody has a severe family, regularly they come to the temple but there is a family family emergency, family crisis, they cannot be able to come to the temple regularly that does not mean that they have fallen into maya, that’s what is required so that sort of adjustment has to be done with using one’s intelligence and being guided by mature devotees we don’t have to postpone our spiritual life for the sake of stability at the same time we shouldn’t think that I should focus entire spiritual life and not bother about my stability in the material level there has to be a balanced regulation so that it’s interesting, this verse 6.17, Maharashtra says yukta ahara vyahara se, yukta cheshya se karmasu, yukta sapna so it’s a dukkha, the freedom from misery will come by the practice of yoga yogo bhavati, but when, that means at the spiritual level, when we rise to spiritual consciousness, we become free from misery that raising to spiritual consciousness will happen by yoga, yogo bhavati but that yoga for it to be practiced, yukta ahara vyahara se, there has to be regulation regulation in eating, regulation in communication, regulation in words, regulation in speaking, so with a regulated life at the material level when we practice sadhana bhakti or practice yoga then we transcend material miseries, so both are required regulation at the material level and connection through yoga then there is, there is elevation and liberation from misery so with guidance, people can understand that at home, people can be helped to find how they can practice spiritual life with a reasonable degree of seriousness, while also pursuing progress in civilization in their material life is there any other question? yes yes