When later never comes, why tell people to postpone spiritual life for material life?
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Question from Stupa Krishna Prabhu, Krishna Prabhupada knew that later never comes and that’s why we have this, his famous quote, a woman telling a man chant, chant, chant and he’s saying can’t, can’t, can’t. So by encouraging people to pursue material life now and focus on spiritual life later, no, don’t, isn’t it true that later will never come and people will go away from Krishna? Answer, there are two kinds of later. One is a later which is an excuse for not doing anything now and other is a later which recognizes that growth takes time, you know, say a father and a son go to a gym and the father lifts a 20-30 kg weight and the son can barely lift 2-3 kg and the son gets glum, oh I can’t lift the big weight that you are lifting and the father says later, as you grow up you will be able to lift the weight.
So just as we understand that the father is telling the son later, here is not a, not something that will never come, that will happen, now of course here the aging is something which is biologically and naturally going to happen but is there, is there something similar with respect to the development of vairagya also, naturally, that’s why there is brahmacharya ashram and then there is grahastha ashram, so and then there is vanaprastha and then there is sanyas after that. So the whole point is that renunciation comes through realization and realization often requires some level of experience, so the whole principle of an ashram is progressive renunciation. Now Jabal Upanishad also says that the moment you get vairagya, renounce the world, so there is that facility given for those who have that realization early to renounce but those who renounce early, they are few and especially in today’s culture that renunciation may be more because of frustration rather than because of realization, frustration because one is unable to achieve material things, that does not usually translate into renunciation because there is no detachment from material things, realization means material things are, material things are not worth all the trouble in pursuit because anyway they are temporary and I want to pursue something higher in my life, so we cannot impose renunciation on anyone, if we say that all later is equal to something which is never going to come, then how are we going to explain Srila Prabhupada himself not taking up the instruction of his spiritual master to preach immediately.
Now Bhaktivinoda Thakur told him, you are a young person, why don’t you share the message all over the world and Bhaktivinoda Thakur didn’t just give that instruction once, he gave it second time in 1933 and on neither occasion did Srila Prabhupada do sarva-dharma did not give everything up for the sake of, for carrying his spiritual master’s mission. Now in one sense Prabhupada went to the opposite, you know although he was so influenced by his spiritual master, he barely met his spiritual master once a year in the 11, in the 13, 14, 15 years from 1920 to 1937 when Prabhupada was in the planet of Sanskrit Thakur, Prabhupada barely met his spiritual master a few dozen times or so, why he was busy in his material life, improving his material life. Now Prabhupada’s purpose was transcendental, no doubt, but the point is that was not the way Bhaktivinoda Thakur wanted him to share Krishna consciousness.
Bhaktivinoda Thakur wanted him to preach, but Prabhupada thought that I will learn and I will finance my spiritual master’s mission. So now the point here is that if we divorce Srila Prabhupada’s teachings from his life, especially his life as a grahastha, then we, especially when we are in grahastha ashram, then we will, ourselves we mislead or we may end up misleading others in terms of what people can realistically practice, misleading, mislead obviously not in a sense of giving wrong advice, but giving the improper advice about what people can do at what level. So there is, so there are two different things here.
One is one does no practice of dharma right now and just engages in materialistic life. So if somebody does that, then it’s very unlikely that realization will come by then because the more one enjoys sense gratification, the more the desire, the craving increases and the hope comes that, oh, happiness is just around the corner. The next object that I get, the next goal that I achieve, the next raise that I get, that will solve, that will give me pleasure, that will make me happy.
So if there is no practice of dharma at all, then there is only the repeated experience of material enjoyment and then although there is frustration in that experience, but there is the hope that there will be better in the future and thus one stays entangled. Now in contrast, there is the, there is the practice of dharma and there is the practice of, there is the pursuit of material ambition. So when one does both, then one pursues material ambition and when pursuing material ambition, one gets some pleasure, one gets some thrill on achieving something, but then one sees it’s so short-lived and in contrast, if one is also practicing dharma and getting higher happiness, then one realizes, oh, this higher happiness is so much better and it’s so much fulfilling, this is so much more lasting and in that way, one gradually shifts towards focusing on the higher happiness.
So if somebody, so here if someone just gives up spiritual life for the sake of practicing material life, for pursuing material life and material improvement, then that person will just get caught in materialism and will be lost and that is definitely not what is being recommended here at all. The point is that while pursuing material, while practicing spiritual life, to what level one should pursue one’s material ambition, that will vary from person to person and everyone has to come to that, come to the realization of detachment and renunciation gradually and that requires both the practice of bhakti, which gives realization of higher happiness and the pursuit of material life, which while we use our talents, we use our resources, we fulfill our desires to some extent and we realize, okay, even this can be from Krishna, there’s nothing great in this. So this realization has to come gradually.
When people have rajoguna, rajoguna, the mode of passion cannot be wished away. The mode of passion needs to be dovetailed. So if one can dovetail one’s passion and directly devotional activities, there are abundant forums which are doing lots of distribution and lots of rigorous services.
If one can do that in the realm of devotional service and not let that passion go too much into one’s material life, that is good, that is far better, but that may not always be possible for everyone. Then one continues a basic practice of dharma and along with that one can pursue one’s material career. So that is not against the principles of bhakti at all.
Yes, it may not be the highest practice of bhakti, but the highest may not be accessible for everyone at all times and there has to be a progression towards the highest That progression will be decided by different people based on their own time, place and circumstance. So to conclude this discussion, what I am saying should not be taken as a license for rejecting spiritual life for pursuing material ambitions and material improvement. And certainly this should not be taken as a substitute for whatever specific guidance a person may get according to one’s time, place and circumstances by one’s spiritual lives.
I am simply talking about a principle that we need to recognize that all later is not something that will never come. All later can be a preparation where one’s realization and renunciation are at a particular level right now and those realization and renunciation will grow by the practice of bhakti in due course of time and that progressive or organic growth of renunciation should also be accommodated within the fold of the devotee community. Of course if somebody can get renunciation quickly, authentic renunciation, not just superficial zeal, superficial zealousness or zealotry or superficial or just frustration with material life but authentic renunciation in terms of, authentic renunciation that leads to absorption in Krishna not just frustration with material life, then that is wonderful.
And we need people who have that kind of renunciation also but we cannot restrict the devotee community to only those who are ready to have that kind of renunciation. Those who want to pursue material life but without giving up the practice of dharma at a basic level. They also can be accommodated and facilitated within the devotee community.
Thank you.