​When certain services are considered higher than others, should we choose the higher or the natural for us?

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So We have We can have different Levels at which people practice bhakti But Is it that there is a core circle where there is Higher level of practice of bhakti And others are at lower level But in Varanashram there are various Varanas And is it within Varanashram that One level is higher than another level Or all of them are contributing cooperatively So when we have to take a decision At which circle do we situate ourselves This Where we situate ourselves In the practice of bhakti Is something which we have to learn From our own experience We can get inspiration From many devotees And whatever inspiration we get We are grateful for that But we have to know that Our spiritual master Is not going to live our life for us We have to live our life That means There is an ideal standard There is a high standard But we have to live with our mind With our senses, with our body With our surroundings And it is how we can live at this level That is something which we alone have to learn We have to learn And we have to adjust And This is in the Bhagavad Gita There is a verse where it says that Once one Hears from the spiritual master Once one learns spiritual knowledge Then one should become one’s own guru Now Yuga Swami explains this commentary there That when it says one should become one’s own guru Does not mean that one Rejects the spiritual master The initiating spiritual master It means that one uses One’s intelligence To act maturely in one’s life So For example Say if we are in youth We may think you should have become a brahmachari You should have become a grahastha And we may say that Is brahmachari higher And is grahastha lower So is it that Both of them are They are They are equivalent Paths towards Krishna Or is it that one is higher and one is lower So down here I will just give one example But there can be other examples We may say this is higher and this is lower See more important than which is higher and which is lower We have to focus on which is better For me Because Because I have to practice that throughout my life And if I am situated in something For which I am not suited It’s not going to work And this can apply to services also It is good to preach We can get many more people to Krishna We can share Krishna’s message But some devotees may just not be comfortable in preaching And just because everyone else is preaching They think I also have to become a preacher And they feel very uncomfortable They feel very insecure, they feel very fearful And preaching causes so much tension They can’t do anything Better do some other services It’s not that just because one thing is considered important That means others are not important All of them are ways in which you can serve Krishna And we have to find out How we can best practice bhakti So going back to the earlier point About brahmachari and grahastha See there is in Vaishnavism There is a tension Between The social And the spiritual That means From the social perspective The renounced order is considered higher Than the householder order And in terms of culture We see that culture of respect When sadhus come to some grahastha’s house Grahastha’s are very respectful At the same time The social convention Is there but bhakti Is what is important Bhakti can invert the social convention In this past time of Durvasa Muni itself We have Durvasa who is a grahastha and a kshatriya And we have Durvasa is a sanyasi and a brahmana And we have Ambarish Maharaj who is a grahastha and a Kshatriya But Ambarish Maharaj is revealed to be higher From the bhakti perspective One who has bhakti Is considered much more higher So the social perspective The renounced order is considered higher But from the spiritual perspective One who has greater devotion is considered higher So we have Chaitanya Mahaprabhu as a sanyasi And a brahmana He is hearing from Pramananda Raya Who is a shudra and a grahastha Complete inversion of social hierarchy Why? Because the spiritual is more emphasized That’s why we should focus on Not worrying too much about Socially what is considered higher We should focus on What is adequate to my bhakti the most And If we observe ourselves carefully We rather than taking decisions Based on pressure from others We focus on Trying to understand What is it that is my nature What is I am comfortable with And what is it that I can practice Sustainably throughout my life And then we do that That way we can move onwards Towards Krishna in a way That is sustainable Bhakti is not just a momentary flip It’s not like We don’t want to be like a rocket which goes high up and then falls down We want to be like a Satellite which goes out of the earth orbit And goes far into the space We want to keep moving steadily Till we attain Krishna And that’s why by taking Guidance from others but by focusing on Primarily not just Taking that guidance and simply trying to apply it Because he said I should do this, they said they should do this But trying to understand our nature And seeing how we can practice bhakti sustainably Then we can make the decision Thank you Any other questions?