​Should we try to develop distaste for worldly things?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
no so if we can just lose the taste for worldly things and desires will not come and the mind will be more focused on Krishna yes that’s definitely true if we could lose the taste for worldly things that is fortunate now the taste for worldly things is, it comes from various sources, it comes from our past conditionings, it also comes from our present association as if we associate serious devotees then our worldly things can go down considerably at the same time bhakti is not so much a process of simply distaste in material things, see when we find that our desires come from a particular source then quite often the tendency can become to blame the source and that can be very unfavorable for bhakti because the whatever is the outside object when Krishna is asked when Krishna describes where lust resides he does not say lust resides in sense objects he says lust resides in our senses the mind and the intelligence he is referring to our sense so what happens is if we think that something external is the source of my desire then we become averse to that which can be unfavorable for our relationships, for our bhakti more importantly it’s not even philosophically correct see the external sense objects are not the source of desire they are the trigger of desire now trigger like a gun when the trigger is pressed the bullet comes out and the bullet ooze but the trigger is able to cause pressing the trigger is able to cause an injury only because the bullet is there inside so lust is not present in the sense objects greed is not present in big cars or big houses or expensive gadgets or anything like that these are present in our heart so in developing distaste for these things we have to be cautious that we don’t become averse to those things we don’t become scornful or hateful of those things and many times in this world the worldly resources can also be used in Krishna’s service and if we are too averse to them each of us has our own set of anarthas which we want to battle with and sometimes for me it may be that if I get a lot of fame and prestige and following that obsesses my mind very much but for someone else that may not be such a big thing they may just be sociable people and they just like to have people around and they don’t get too caught in this so what happens is if I have a battle with prestige or fame or something like that then if I see others having followers then I start thinking you know this person is very much interested in prestige, this person is very much interested in following but that may not be the case so from our point of view our focus needs to be on serving Krishna and in developing a taste for serving Krishna and if certain things come in the way we can surely keep a distance from them if possible we can try to minimize the triggers for our desires but we shouldn’t become averse to those things and we shouldn’t become judgmental about others if they are having those things that way bhakti is a process of community bhakti is not just a process of individual purity I become very pure and I look down at others it is a process of community being in a community and we engage in community and that’s why sometimes distaste can become an obstruction thank you very much thank you