What if we feel attracted to serving Krishna in our role in this world but not in the spiritual world as his associate?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, what if we don’t feel attracted to going to Krishna and serving Krishna in the spiritual world by making flower garlands or whatever for him, if we feel that we want to practice bhakti, we want to chant Hare Krishna, but whatever we are doing in this world, we feel more attracted to doing that than we are attracted to serving Krishna in the spiritual world. Yes, so there is a sentimental attraction to Krishna and there is a spiritual attraction to Krishna. Sentiments are not bad, but sentimentality can be a problem.
Sentimental attraction to Krishna means, Oh, this is so nice, that is so nice, that is so nice. We just are moved around by our sentiments. The spiritual attraction to Krishna is centered on service.
Krishna, you are my lord, I am your servant. And I want to serve you. So now based on our particular upbringing, based on the particular kind of culture we were in, the specifics of the spiritual world, we may or may not presently find attractive.
And if some of us find attractive, whether that is simply because of cultural upbringing or that is because of spiritual attraction, we don’t know right at this stage. So some of us might just be attracted to gardens and flowers. Oh, spiritual world is filled with gardens and flowers, very nice.
I want to go there. Well, that is fine. Anyway, we are attracted to Krishna, that is good.
But we don’t have to necessarily worry too much about whether we are attracted to the specifics at this stage. The specifics of the spiritual world, we will become attracted as we become purified and as the soul starts becoming manifested. So I’ll give some examples from the Indian context.
So some of us may have been may have been born and brought up by parents who were Rama devotees, Ram Bhaktas. So in our childhood we may have heard some Ram bhajans, Ram katha and we will be attracted now also to Ram Bhakti. Some devotees will say, no, I am so attracted to Ram Bhakti.
Maybe I belong to Ayodhya, not to Goloka. In the spiritual world, maybe I am in Lord Ram’s abode, not Krishna’s abode. Well, it may be, it may not be.
So it might be our attraction to Ram might simply be culture because that’s what I was born and brought up with that. So anyway we are attracted to Krishna, that is fortunate. But we don’t have to necessarily limit our relationship to Krishna to just that particular thing.
Oh, because I belong to Ayodhya, so I won’t hear Krishna. No, at our stage, we simply want to get purified. We simply want to develop a service attitude.
And eventually, whatever is our Swaroopa, whatever is our eternal form and relationship with Krishna, that will be revealed. And when it is revealed, we will spontaneously attract. So at this stage, we just focus on developing the relationship with Krishna, on connecting with Krishna.
So we come in the association of devotees, we hear about Krishna, we do practical service to Krishna. And when we do this consistently, then right now the soul is covered by the mind and is covered by the body. And even when we are serving Krishna right now, the soul’s desire to serve Krishna will be expressed according to the body and the mind.
So if I have the body and the mind of an intellectual, then my desire to serve Krishna will be expressed through intellectual activities or it will be expressed as intellectual desires. I want to write, I want to speak, I want to analyze. If I have a body and mind, which is, say, of a singer, then my desire to serve Krishna will be expressed as a singer.
Now, it is not necessary that this particular desire to serve Krishna which we have currently, it is not necessarily reflective of the desires which we have, of the soul’s natural desires in the spiritual world. The soul may have a different set of pure desires, which will become awakened when we are purified. So we see that externally speaking, in our tradition, we have the Goswamis, who are considered to be the topmost devotees, among the greatest followers of Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
And in the spiritual world, they are Gopis. They are Manjaris actually. They are the associates of the Gopis.
And externally speaking, you look at the Sanyasis and you look at the Manjaris. There is no similarity at all. There is no similarity at all.
And the way they were serving here was also significantly different from the way they were serving the spiritual world. Some similarities are there. But the difference is also there.
So the important thing is, we don’t have to, at this stage in our spiritual life, we don’t have to worry too much about the specifics. We just focus on connecting with Krishna. Along with that, as we keep practicing bhakti over the years, we should try to also hear about Krishna, specifically about Krishna.
About Krishna, his pastimes. Not only about that, and not only about, say, esoteric pastimes of Krishna. But as we hear about Krishna and become purified, we will find that our particular spiritual nature will start manifesting.
So rather than focusing on whether I have an attraction to some specific in the spiritual world or not, we can focus on whether I have a commitment to serve Krishna. We can see our relationship with Krishna developing in terms of our commitment to serve. How much am I ready to commit myself? How much responsibility am I ready to take for serving Krishna? If we are ready to do that, then we are growing spiritually.
And eventually, when the time comes for us to enter the spiritual world, whatever is our relationship with Krishna, that particular attraction will manifest from our soul. And we will be accordingly engaged, and we will be fully satisfied in that.