To minimize their material entanglement, should devotees try to give their children the cheapest education?
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Transcript
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Hare Krishna. So as devotee parents if we want to educate our children and we try to spend the least possible money and try to give them the best possible education is that good? See firstly it’s not necessary that the education that involves the maximum expenditure is necessarily going to be the best quality education so the parent’s responsibility is to educate the children and whatever is required for that we should do that and we shouldn’t equate simplistically that less expensive education is necessarily less quality education but as far as the practice of bhakti is concerned we sometimes have a simplistic separation, this is material this is spiritual and this material I should do as less as possible just entirely and this is spiritual I should do this as much as possible this is actually a very surface level understanding of bhakti yes we should separate between the material and the spiritual so that we give enough time for the spiritual directly, that means we come to the temple, we chant the holy name, we worship the deities, so for that we should make time in that sense we can separate or mark the material and the spiritual but once we have cultivated through the spiritual activity the mood of service to Krishna that mood of service to Krishna should permeate our entire life and then by doing every activity it’s not that we should be thinking is this material or is this spiritual, no for example if in a class say we are having a class and the speaker makes some joke and then we start instead of laughing we start thinking am I laughing for Krishna’s pleasure or for my self gratification and there is no need to go into paralysis by analysis like that just it’s a part of Krishna katha, we can laugh there is no need to constantly be analysing material spiritual, material spiritual like that our focus should be not what is material or what is spiritual, our focus should be how can I serve in the best education how can I serve so our children we should see them as, Ropa told them Kuntachitra, Krishna has entrusted them to us and therefore we should do what it takes to offer them the best education as far as economising is concerned, yes it’s always good not to be extravagant in terms of spending money but we should try our best to give them the quality education that will help them to become wonderful human beings to become wonderful devotees in future and thus they succeed in the mission of life and we also succeed we shouldn’t separate because material life is spent, I should not spend too much money on this, no our goal should be how can I serve, Prabhupada writes in 7th chapter part 4, jurisdiction of Krishna consciousness extends everywhere so even in our family life in our relationship with our spouses, with our children with our parents, there also we think how best can I serve Krishna and act accordingly so give them the best possible education in our circumstances and we should see that not as a material duty, it may be a material duty but because we are trying to serve Krishna it is also a part of our devotional service, does it answer your question