What is wrong with practicing bhakti because the world is dreadful?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Prabhu, you mentioned about when I said that we should practice Bhakti because Krishna is so wonderful, not because the world is so dreadful. But isn’t one of the categories of people who come, Krishna, because they are distressed and they need relief? Yes. Now, Krishna does say that the distress comes to him, but he doesn’t say that the distress stays with him.
Now, for them, to stay with him, it may take, The initial, they start practicing something, but their practice is only initial. They are not surrendering. For surrendering, it may take many lifetimes.
So, suffering is, is for most of us, an initial impetus which starts our spiritual journey. But the initial impetus will not fuel our spiritual journey for long. At a certain point, frustration is fine.
So, say, like I give the example, somebody says, oh, I was frustrated in the relationship, so I want to become a brahmachari. No, if you are frustrated in the relationship, start developing the relationship with Krishna, not ready to renounce the world. And then, start developing the relationship, start practicing bhakti, start living the life of a devotee.
And then afterwards, if you get sufficient attraction, show sufficient dedication, then you may consider full-time practice of bhakti as a brahmachari. But the important thing is that for whatever reason people come to Krishna, we welcome them. But for sustainable practice of bhakti, one needs to have more of a positive motivation than a negative motivation.
So, from the platform of practicing bhakti because I am distressed to the platform of practicing bhakti because I love Krishna, because I want to serve Krishna, that is a long journey. Because ultimately, you know, when we love someone, we are not simply concerned about being free from distress. Love means that we are often ready to take up distress for the sake of our love.
When a mother has a child, at that time, the mother mostly loses a lot, loses peaceful night’s sleep, loses peace, loses routine. But there is love over there. So, like that, if we come to Krishna simply for freedom from distress, then our connection with Krishna will be there.
When the distress goes away, we land the connection. But even if the connection stays, we will not really become very deep or committed. Because we will always be looking, even in Krishna bhakti, I don’t want any distress, I don’t want any trouble.
But one extent of, one aspect of love is we are ready to sacrifice, we are ready to take up trouble for the Lord’s sake. If Prabhupada then wanted a distress-free life, he could have just stayed in Vrindavan chanting Hare Krishna. He came to America, that really took a lot of trouble.
So, distress can be a good initial motive, but it’s not a sustainable motive. Sustainable motive is that Krishna is so wonderful that I want to love Krishna. Even if I don’t feel Krishna is wonderful, at least intellectually I understand Krishna is wonderful, and I want to connect with him.
That will sustain his invocation. Did I answer your question?