When scripture says our parents are God why do some young devotees renounce their parents?

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Any other questions? Some scriptures say that we should see our parents as God, but then many young devotees renounce their parents and they give up their families to practice bhakti.
So, how do we understand this? We don’t denounce our parents. Denounce means to condemn. There is no condemnation.
The word is renounce, not denounce. But there are different perspectives to understand this. The Upanishads, the Taitiri Upanishad say that matra deva bhava, pitra deva bhava.
Now, if you look at the context, this is what people often quote. But if you look at the context, it is not saying that the mother and father are God. What it is saying is, it comes at a conclusion of a passage when it says that the mother and father are to be respected as if they are God because they are representatives of God.
That is when we are born in this world, among all living beings that are born, humans are among the species that is most dependent on the parents for living. Other species, like the nest. If a baby is born, birdlet, and the parents are not there.
But the birdlet will find it difficult. But they can manage. Somewhat.
Many other species can just get along. But humans cannot get along. Very difficult.
A baby, if there is no one to take care, the baby will die. So now, especially in the infancy and thereafter, the parents take care of it. And it is actually Krishna who is manifesting his love through the parents.
Now a mother may say, I fed you my breast milk. I have taken care of it. That’s true.
At the same time, when the child is born, the mother doesn’t do anything special to manufacture breast milk in her nest. The same God who sends a child through her womb to this world also sends milk in her breast. That’s going to feed the child.
So, we have to see the connection. That whoever offers us love in this world, it is Krishna who is offering us love through them. So now, they are the instruments.
We are grateful for the instruments. But we don’t stop at the instruments. And we don’t let the instrument become a competitor to this source.
And that is the mood of the verse. So, my dear lord, you are my mother, you are my father. The Siri that is given over here, you are my mother, you are my friend, you are my knowledge, you are my wealth, you are my everything, oh lord.
So, it’s like a growth trajectory. Initially, the child knows only the mother. Then the child comes to know about the father.
Then the child, oh, this is my brother, these are my friends. The child goes, oh, I have to do well in my exams. I have to do well.
My studying materials is important. My knowledge is important. And then I have to earn.
My money is important. So, all these objects give a shelter. Some are persons, some are things.
But they all give us some shelter in this world. And the vision, the integrated vision is to see all these, it is God who is giving us shelter in this world. So, if we start seeing our parents as offering God’s love to us, then we are grateful to the love that they offer us.
At the same time, we also don’t let our love for our parents come in the way of our life. If the parents literally are taken to be God, then say the mother wants the child to become a doctor. The father wants the child to become an engineer.
Now, which God should the child be? There are two Gods who are telling two different things. The verse is clearly not literally saying that the parents are God. It is actually telling that the parents are a person.
And Dhruva Maharaj, his mother tells him that you, I cannot help you in this situation. And his parents, his father has neglected him, his step-mother has insulted him. He says, whatever love I have offered you, the Supreme Lord Vishnu, he can offer you millions of times more love.
Take the shelter of me. So, she is not saying that her love is not true. If her love is zero, then millions of times zero will also be zero.
Her love is real. She really cares for her child. But she has taken an answer.
Now, in her case, she was actually reduced to a situation of very obvious helplessness. That I can’t help you in this situation. So, go to Krishna.
But actually, this is true for all parents. They do a lot for their children. At the same time, you know, they are not our ultimate shelter.
We all have gone through many different lifetimes, many different species. In each species, we have had some parents. And the purpose of our relationships in this world, especially in the human form, is to, all relationships are meant to help us strengthen our relationship with Krishna.
We have horizontal relationship with others in this world. We have vertical relationship with Krishna. The ideal situation is that the horizontal relationship strengthens the vertical relationship.
And the vertical relationship strengthens the horizontal relationship. That means that our parents and devotees, they inspire us to become devotees. And not just parents, all relationships, it applies.
And so, our horizontal relationship strengthens our vertical relationship. And our vertical relationship strengthens our horizontal relationship. In every relationship, there is expectation, there is frustration.
Sometimes, our parents may not be able to do what we want them to do. They may disappoint us. Then we understand.
We tolerate the ups and downs. We become more understanding. We become more respectful, even in spite of whatever limitations are there.
So, by seeing that, when we are connected with Krishna, we are sheltered in Krishna, then that decreases our, we get an emotional security by the connection with Krishna. And that decreases our emotional dependence in other relationships. And that can bring stability in other relationships also.
So, the ideal situation, the normal situation is that the horizontal and the vertical should strengthen each other. They should be symbiotic. Now, in a few exceptional cases, sometimes, some people, they may decide to focus primarily on the vertical relationship.
In every tradition in the world, there are people who feel all towards God. That since that child, since that young age, this is what I want to focus on. They may not feel it from the childhood, but once they get the calling, it’s an overpowering calling.
And there are some people who live in this world. Their feet are in this world, but their hearts have touched the sky. And for them, life as it is lived normally just doesn’t make sense.
You sit and chit-chat with people about cricket, about sports, about news, about politics. It’s just so distinct. It just doesn’t make any sense.
So, for such people, whose heart is drawn towards God, at that time, they have gone beyond the phases of their relationships. Then, for such people, they are going to focus on Krishna. sarva-dharmavan parityajya mam ekam shravanam vraja There are many dharmas and they are important.
But Krishna says, the time comes in our life, just focus on Mahadeva, Krishna and Vraja. Now, this is not the path for everyone. But there are few who may do this.
And the Bhagavad Gita assures that for those who devote themselves to Krishna directly, Krishna takes care of their parents. Marja’s parents, Krishna says, tri-sapta-kita-apnata. 21 generations, Krishna takes care of them.
They are directly devoting themselves to Krishna. So, there is a difference between, there is dharma, there is paradharma and there is adharma. So, normal dharma, that’s aparadharma, that’s normal conventional dharma.
That is, that we should take care of our parents. And that is what we will see that many people, you know, I was in a college and I was in a lecture in a university and then after that a professor came and he said, you did engineering in a women engineering college and now you have become a monk. He says, India lost an engineer.
Because I told him, India did not lose an engineer, America lost an engineer. You see, many people say, when somebody becomes a brahmachari, they say that, no, you have not done something material. Here you are talking about engineering.
So, you will take care of your parents. But how many young men actually take care of their parents? The most people go, they are just busy with their careers. And then they may provide some monetary support for their parents.
But they are really not there to take care of their parents. So, I once addressed a group of, in Pune, I addressed a group of senior citizens. All of them, their sons or daughters were in America.
And they were so desolated, so lonely, felt rejected. The children are busy in their lives. And they dreamt, I will send my child to America.
And yes, they send their child to America. But the child does not have any time for them now. So, actually, it is materialism that makes people more and more apathetic about their relationships.
In America, there is no culture of parents, children taking care of their parents. So, the parents have to plan for their retirement. They have to plan for years, especially with the lifespan, life expectation increasing.
People have to plan, if I am 80, I am 90, how will I live? So, actually, the more the culture is materialistic, the less relationships are valued. And even parental relationships will be valued. Even the child-parent bond will be valued lesser and lesser.
So, what happens by understanding spiritual wisdom is that many people who would have been at the level of Adharma come to the level of Dharma. A few may go to the level of Paradharma. Among the thousands of people, literally there are thousands, millions of people who are practicing bhakti all over the world.
Now, a few of them pronounce the word and focus entirely on practicing dharma. As elements. Most of them will become grahasthas.
And when they become grahasthas, they take better care of their parents than what they would have taken care if they had been materialists. So, that way, the spiritual knowledge makes us more responsible, not less responsible. So, when somebody renounces their parents, if they are doing it for the sake of their own sense gratification, for their own world, that is Adharma.
But when somebody does that for the sake of God, that is Paradharma. And even those of us who do devote ourselves to God, it’s not that we completely reject or reject our parents. No, we actually care for our parents.
There are various ways in which things can be arranged. If there is a community of devotees, the parents can come and stay in the community. The other members of the community take care of the devotees.
So, last year when I was in America, my father suddenly got a severe attack. And I was thinking of coming back to India. My brother is also in America.
So, there was no one to take care of him. So, then, it was devotees. They took him to hospital.
They took him by the hospital. They took care of him. And they provided him prasadam.
My uncle who came there, he said that we couldn’t have cared for him as well as the devotees took care of him. So, it is not that the parents are neglected or rejected. They are also cared for.
The community of devotees comes and helps the parents. So, I wrote a book about how I became a brahmachari. It’s going to be published in the next maybe six months.
So, the whole idea was, and many people feel that if somebody becomes a brahmachari, they are announcing they are going. So, when I wrote this book, after that, I gave this book to my father to read. And then his whole perception changed.
He was very upset when, in fact, he had come to the temple. He had come to the temple, the brahmachari leader. And he had taken out 500 rupee notes, the biggest notes.
He just threw it at them. He said, how many notes do you want? Take them and give my son back to me. He was so angry at that time.
But now, he comes to the temple, he is very appreciative of me, what I am doing. And when he read this book, now what has happened is, he has written the foreword for this book. So, actually, it is not that we are neglecting or rejecting our parents.
It is rather, if some people feel inspired to connect with Krishna directly, then that is a special honour, it’s a privilege. And the parents are also spiritually benefited by it. And as far as materially, there is a community of devotees to take care of them also.
But overall, we shouldn’t just look at those few instances. Among the, how many, there must be a million devotees. Out of that, how many brahmacharis are there? Maybe a few thousand.
I would say just a thousand or a thousand five hundred or something like that. So, for most people, by practicing spiritual knowledge, by practicing Bhagavad Gita, they will take better care of their parents. And even those who become brahmacharis, they also take care of their parents, but in a way different from what is happening.
So, does that answer your question?