What should I do if my bhakti is damaged after coming from ISKCON?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna Question I was born and brought up in a Vaishnava family and then I was introduced to ISKCON but now when I see so much commercialization and politics in ISKCON I have lost my my faith in Bhakti has become damaged how can devotees be like this so I came to ISKCON to practice Bhakti but I feel that my Bhakti has been damaged in ISKCON how should I see this what should I do Answer yes it is very sad and regrettable if one has had experiences that are damaging for one’s Bhakti that too in a moment which is meant to cherish our Bhakti at the same time we also need to have a philosophical understanding of things ultimately our spiritual life and our spiritual growth is our responsibility it is Bhakti is a relationship and that relationship is between us and Krishna of course Krishna relates with us through his devotees so we need spiritual guides who help us connect with Krishna at the same time when Krishna says that at the moment of death we have to remember him and throughout our life we have to remember him this is in 8.5 and then 8.7 he says always remember me now this is not a instruction for the spiritual master this is an instruction for the disciple so the spiritual master may provide us facilities for remembering Krishna and that is the expertise how to make remembrance of Krishna easier that’s what the spiritual master provides but the responsibility for one’s spiritual growth is one’s own and to understand this then we may wonder what is the role of the institution if it’s my responsibility then what’s the role? The role is that institution provides facilities for the growth of our faith for the growth of our devotion at the same time it is the onus is on us to ensure that our devotion is growing so consider an example because you are talking about commercialization I will first give a commercial example so suppose we consider that someone is, suppose there is a stock exchange there are people who come there they have some quantity of money with them and they come there to raise their money they want to invest in particular places and by investing in those places they will increase their capital whatever they have they want to increase the amount of money they have by coming to the stock exchange at the same time in a stock exchange they can very well lose money that can be because if they are careless or because there are some stock brokers who are going to mislead them there can be multiple factors so it’s not that because the person has come to the stock exchange with money the person’s money is going to stay or going to increase the decisions have to be taken by that person that investor and of course with guides but the decision has to be taken by the investor in such a way that the money can increase now without the stock exchange it may be very difficult for the money for the money to be increased that way so we can consider the Krishna Consciousness movement to be like a stock exchange for increasing our faith for increasing our bhakti and here this whole stock exchange is created for the purpose of exchanging and exchanging and for transaction so that money people can earn similarly the whole purpose of the Krishna Consciousness movement is to help people increase their faith but at the same time it is not necessary that everything that we do in the movement is always going to increase our faith people can lose money in the stock market similarly people can lose faith in their in their faith while they are in the Krishna Consciousness movement if either so now there are regulatory bodies in the stock exchange to ensure that the malpractices are to the minimum so like that in the Krishna Consciousness movement also there are sometimes people who come with ulterior motives and sometimes these people may come to may come to occupy some positions and they may mislead others so when this happens there is a corrective mechanism by which these people will be corrected and removed but at the same time we need to recognize that it is for us to grow it is the responsibility for growing is ours and the best way we can grow is by choosing our association Vishwanath Chakravarthy says in his commentary he says that if some devotees they may be chanting and they may be practicing the principles of bhakti apparently but if their behavior is not proper even if they are doing the activities of bhakti we can respect them but from a distance so within the association of devotees we need to look for that association which inspires us as like in a stock market there are many there are many many companies are there and we need to invest in those companies where our stocks will rise where the stocks are going to rise and where our money will rise by that so like that if we need we have to choose association properly which inspires us and which helps us to move onwards so the onus is on us and as far as politics or commercialization is concerned unless specific examples are given and that discussion has to be done in private with the concerned people we can’t really comment but the fact is that yes these are possibly there because the Krishna consciousness movement exists at two levels simultaneously at one level it is a spiritual mission at another level it is a human institution so to the extent the devotees in the movement are spiritually conscious remembering that I have come here to serve Krishna and I want to serve him so to that extent and we will see within the Krishna consciousness movement abandoned facilities for serving Krishna but at the same time the Krishna consciousness movement is also in one sense a human institution it is run by human beings and human beings have faults and not more than run by human beings it is also filled with human beings so to the extent we focus either we focus on the human fallacies and human flaws and we focus we give in to our own weaknesses human weaknesses to that extent we will miss the spiritual essence so it’s up to us again to choose association properly and if we find that certain devotees are too political we find that certain places or certain sections are too commercialized then we can seek clarification from some devotees but if we don’t find those clarifications adequate then we can avoid those parts and the world is a big place and nowadays we can connect with Krishna and his movement through various ways online through social media and various other ways by which we can stay connected so rather than focusing rather than labeling an institution labeling the whole Krishna consciousness movement as being as being whatever political or commercial or whatever we can recognize that people with different motives have come here and they are getting purified so overall the principles of the movement are an aspiration for pure devotional service but the actualization of that aspiration takes time and during that process while the actualization is taking place we need to recognize that there is a different spectrums on the journey from the what they are right now to what they aspire to be and there may be some people who do not actually aspire they are just putting on a facade to continue on so that’s also possible so the important thing to recognize is we choose our association carefully we choose an environment which nourishes our bhakti and then our bhakti will grow so now if we say that okay why get involved in all this itself yes that might seem to be one way of looking at it but if we consider the mainstream society today you know how much facility does it offer for us to be Krishna conscious leave alone Krishna conscious even basic spirituality is difficult to practice in today’s materialistic society so we do need a spiritual environment and Shri Prabhupada by his tireless sacrifice has created a spiritual movement for enabling us to practice bhakti and within this movement there may be different places and now rather than saying that one place is bad and another place is good we should just know that there are different devotees at different levels there are different devotees with different nature so different inclinations and they all are facilitated in their practice of bhakti according to their nature and their level so if we are of a different nature and at a different level we may find a particular kind of practice of bhakti uninspiring and we may find another minute we can find that the practice of bhakti as done by some other devotees may be more suited to our nature more compatible with our level and you will find it inspiring so in English there is a saying don’t throw the baby out with the bath water so if a mother bathes the baby and then wants to throw away the dirty bath water dirty water if she throws out the baby also it will be a disaster so like that if we have had some bad experiences that is unfortunate at the same time we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bath water we can see where there is inspiring association where there is conducive environment for our practice of bhakti according to our level and according to our nature and we can take the onus for ensuring that the way we invest our bhakti within the Krishna conscious movement by that our stock will grow and we will move closer to Krishna and there are hundreds and thousands of people all over the world who have been positively transformed who have come closer to Krishna by the practice of bhakti within the facilities provided by the Krishna consciousness movement and we too can be among those if we focus not so much on the institution but on the principles, if we focus on the principle that Krishna has told us to remember him and we see Krishna consciousness movement what in the Krishna consciousness movement facilitates my remembrance of Krishna which association, which engagement which environment and we focus on that then we will be having our relationship with Krishna and our reciprocation with Krishna facilitated by the Krishna consciousness movement and we will move steadily and strongly onwards towards Krishna Thank you. Hare Krishna