When our professional and family responsibilities already fill our schedule, why should we take the additional burden of practicing bhakti?

Answer Podcast:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
The question is, often, our family, our professional environments, they themselves conspire such a big burden on our time and energy that it is difficult to cope with that. And bhakti, rather than contribute something, seems to make a further demand on our time and energy.
So, what does bhakti contribute actually? We are already stressed with a lot of demand on our time. Yes, it’s true that all of us are busy, and at a initial or surface level, it will appear that bhakti is actually demanding more time from us. But what bhakti does is, bhakti takes our time, but it helps us to regulate our energy, to regulate our thoughts, regulate our desires, regulate our reaction situations.
Often, we tend to evaluate time in terms of the activities that we do. I answered this yesterday also in the evening. We tend to evaluate time in terms of the activities that we do.
But actually, our energy is consumed a lot by our thoughts. So, for example, if I am very stressed, I may do some work, but I may do it for 3 hours and just not get it. If I was relaxed, I might complete the same work in 10 minutes.
And I am here. And one, what to speak of, direct devotees recognizing this. Even there are many companies nowadays, they are recognizing that in workplaces, work burnout is an increasing problem.
So, many companies require people that you have to take some breaks, you have to take some use. And especially in America, I don’t know how much in Australia, many companies themselves organize seminars for stress management, seminars for yoga, seminars for meditation. And they recognize that if the employees are less stressed, then they will be more productive.
And although externally organizing a 2-day seminar or giving some time for meditation or something like that, that may seem like taking further time, but eventually it saves time. Because it makes us more efficient. So, even from the material perspective, leave alone whatever spiritual gains we get by practicing bhakti, even from the material perspective, our productivity is not determined by our activity alone.
We don’t have a fan here. Now, a fan, sometimes, a fan moves round and round and round, but it gets nowhere. Like that, sometimes, our mind runs around, I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to do this, I have to do that.
But I was supposed to do that, I forgot to take that. And I run back and get it. But I missed the bus, and then I take a taxi, and then, oh, I forgot my wallet.
And then we find that often, activity does not translate into productivity. And this is a big problem, especially when we live in a passionate culture and have a passionate mind. The external culture is frenzied, and the internal mind is also hyperactive, it is also frenzied.
So, goodness, coming to sattva guna, coming to the mode of goodness, will actually increase our productivity. It’s like somebody is working on a computer, and the computer has got a virus. And somebody comes and says, Sir, the computer has got a virus, we have to remove the device.
He says, no, I don’t have even one moment to spare, I have so much work to do on my computer. And he’s going to do all the work, but you know, that work will be useless. So, like that, in our mind, there is a virus of stress, there is a virus of anxiety, there is a virus of so many unwanted emotions, there is a virus of depression, there is a virus of anxiety syndromes.
So, there are so many viruses like that, that suck our energy. So, taking time out to calm our mind, to clear our mind, is going to help us even more. Many devotees who work in very influential positions in companies, one of them told me that, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, we never thought that we could do so much in one day, as we are able to do routinely now.
Why? Because in the past, the emotions were so turbulent, we start doing things, but at the end of the day, we don’t get much done. So, there is a lot of activity, but there is not much productivity. On the other hand, when we cultivate goodness, when we spend some time to purify our mind, then that, our activity becomes more purposeful and more fruitful.
It translates into productivity. It’s a matter of going beyond looking superficially at what is taking how much time in terms of external activities, but looking at how much is my attention, how much is my concentration, how much is my my actually productivity through the whole frenzy of activity. So, those people who are having, this is the primary reason that, too special in their time, we can tell them this.
People who are more introspective, already in goodness, then we can talk about the ultimate purpose to life also. And even if you manage all your workload, what is the point of it at the end? That is the philosophical reason for turning towards Krishna. But even if a person turns towards bhakti for a utilitarian reason, that is also any way a person comes to Krishna, that is fine.
Krishna says, four categories of people come to me. They are the distressed, the inquisitive, the need seekers of wealth and knowledge. Mostly in Kalyuga, those four categories are the distressed, the distressed, the distressed, the distressed.
Yes, there may be some inquisitiveness, there may be some seeking of knowledge, but it is primarily distressed. I want something, it’s fine. So, we should be able to present bhakti in a way by which we don’t make it seem that bhakti has so many demands, as bhakti has demands.
But what bhakti offers us is far more than what it demands for us. We present it properly, that misperception of bhakti