We feel more eager to read news than scripture – what to do?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna ignorance of the news its not that we have to be completely blank about what is happening a certain amount of awareness is required and Prabhupada says in Anody that there is a devotee should not engage in reading mundane novels and mundane stuff like that but there is no injunction against reading the news specific statement of Prabhupada in Anody on my website I publish Prabhupada’s quotes regularly especially Prabhupada’s that is one of the quotes I have published over there also so its not that devotees have to be ignorant of the news because if we are living in the world we need to be aware for our practical purposes and also if you want to share Krishna conscious with others people should feel that we are sensitive to everything so if we don’t even know who is the prime minister or the president of a country and we think I will deliver this country by sharing Krishna’s message people will say you are so out of touch what are you doing so especially if we are interacting with certain level of awareness is required and we should make a virtue about not knowing the news that’s first point now specific but there is a problem that that we can get very entangled with it in the sense that we keep getting ok what happened this happened now you say that often the news is what happens this is going to happen this is going to happen say world cup cricket is going to happen world cup cricket is happening world cup is happening world cup happened so so much glamorization of things is done and we get caught in that so as devotees from functional point of view to be aware of the main events from headlines many newspapers provide daily feed basically aware of that and then if our specific service requires some more news more awareness of something that can be done but with respect to matter of our interest and attraction I would say there are three different factors one of course is spiritual because our consciousness is not spiritual but it’s a material so we gravitate towards material things and that is just a matter of conditioning which we will have to overcome by discipline so even if I am not interested I study spiritual subjects because it’s a matter of purification matter of discipline and gradually the taste will change but apart from that long term measure of studying Shastra as a matter of discipline there are couple of other things also second thing is that we have to find what interests us in Shastra and we develop that now Shastra itself is so big at one level we want to study Shastra systematically to understand what is given in Shastra but at another point we all are individuals with particular interests and our individuality is not denied in Shastra in fact the whole purpose of the system of Varanashram is to facilitate human individuality some people are intellectual some people are mercantile oriented some people are administrators and Shastra has created a whole system of human organization to facilitate individuality so if we find ourselves interested in a particular section of Shastra we can see that interest also as one way Krishna’s mercy manifest and try to take shelter of that section more read the purports over there more maybe hear some devotional classes on that section if we have studied Prabhupada’s books sufficiently then we can also read few of Sathya Narayan’s communities if that’s what inspires us so whichever section in Shastra attracts our interest we can focus on that and develop that and gradually through that other sections of scripture or other scriptures so that individuality whatever is our individual interest we can use that and develop that that’s the second thing and third thing is that often interest is a matter of as I said interest is a matter of intent if I just purify myself I am going to study subject gradually interest will develop but secondly interest is also a matter of relevance so many times when we study scripture we may not be able to sense the relevance of it to our lives and that’s why we have Shri Prabhupada’s purports and not just Shri Prabhupada’s purports Shri Prabhupada wanted the Bhagavatam tradition the Bhakti tradition to be a living tradition and that’s why he gave us this purpose but sometimes devotees asked Prabhupada that you know in the Bhagavatam class daily there is no devotee who can be as pure as you so in the Bhagavatam class everyday we can just hear your Bhagavatam class why do devotees have to give classes in the Bhagavatam class so Prabhupada said no we don’t want devotee Prabhupada’s answer is that the Bhakti tradition is a living tradition he said that we don’t want just it’s not that we end the idea of the last pure devotee is Shri Prabhupada and after that there is no other devotees nobody can be as exalted as Prabhupada but Prabhupada’s glory is that he created a living tradition of bhaktas and often by hearing the Shastra from those devotees who can explain it in a relevant way for us our interest is triggered so at least for the first 10 to 15 years of my spiritual life I learned much more from hearing than from studying I would say it applies even now but now I would say I get a lot of inspiration from studying Prabhupada’s purpose, Acharya’s purpose but initially we learn a lot primarily from hearing because what happens what we can know depends on what we know what we can know depends on what we know like earlier I gave the example if I look at a traffic signal or a traffic sign what that red, green or yellow means it may just be seen as a child’s message colourful lights changing in a nice pattern but for a person who has knowledge about traffic then what I can know depends on what I know so like that those devotees who are trying to live Shastra in their life in the world that we live in then by hearing from them we can see the relevance of Shastra and then as we start seeing that relevance more and more then when we directly study Shastra also we can start seeing its relevance so that’s why we see that by hearing from devotees whose classes strike us as relevant we can also develop an interest in Shastra so three things, first is that even if we don’t feel interested we study because it’s going to purify us and as we become purified our interest in Shastra will awaken secondly, within Shastra we look at sections which naturally attract us and we see that as a means for connecting with Shastra and broadening and expanding our interest thirdly, we try to study Shastra in the association of those who can show us its relevance and then our interest will also be