When we have material problems, should we just focus on spiritual advancement or try to solve it materially?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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So I said the spiritual is not the substitute for the material. So then if I have a chronic disease, should I try to cure it by looking for the material means to cure it or should I just focus on spiritually growing? This will vary according to time and place circumstances. Basically, whenever we face any material problem, we have broadly three options.
One is counter that situation, cure that situation. Second is walk away from that situation. Third is tolerate that situation.
So for example, if I have a boss who is very exploitative, then I have one option, I might change my job. Another is maybe I might report to his boss or whatever and try to correct the situation. Third is I might tolerate it.
So broadly, we have these three options. So correcting, tolerating, walking away. And which we will apply, that will vary according to time and place circumstances.
Sometimes even in some, what to speak of chronic disease, there may be some other material situation also in which we have to tolerate. So tolerance is a virtue. But the Bhagavad Gita is not a book which calls for blanket tolerance of all situations.
Krishna tells Arjuna, tam siddhi shasabharata, tolerate. But then, if that was a blanket call for tolerance, that would have meant, Arjuna, just tolerate the Kauravas’ injustice, why are you fighting this war? He said, no. There, it was their duty as the warriors, as the protectors of citizens, to ensure that there is dharmic rule for the citizens.
And there, they had to do their activity. So it’s not that just tolerance is necessarily a higher virtue than action or that renunciation is a higher virtue than action. So if you have toleration, renunciation, action, all three can be options.
And which will work? That we are going to see from the broader picture of how we can best serve Krishna. What is happening? So that will vary. Now, if we have a chronic disease, it is difficult to say.
But usually, if we can, we have to see how much that disease impedes our functioning and how much, either in our material life or in our spiritual life, the curing is going to help us or the trying to cure is going to cost us. Not just in financial terms, in time terms, in various other terms involved. And then we can make a decision.
So we shouldn’t make only one particular course of action among various material actions as necessarily a course of virtue and the others as faults. No, it can vary according to time, place, circumstances. So we have various different situations.
Say, Parikshit Maharaj is cursed. And he decides to accept the curse. And he absorbs himself in chanting the holy names and hearing Bhagavatam rather and absorbs and he tolerates and he just endures the curse that way.
And he gives up his body. On the other hand, we see that when Arjuna went to the heavens, at that time, Urvashi propositioned to him. And when Arjuna refused saying that you are like my mother because you are my ancestor’s partner, he is his partner.
So then she felt very rejected and she cursed him that he will become impotent. Now, Arjuna did not say, oh, I have become impotent, let me renounce the life, let me become a sannyasi. He did not do that because he knew he had a particular responsibility to perform.
So then he went to Indra and Indra assured him, this will all work out right for you. And then eventually he had to go through a period of impotency for about one year and he used that period of impotency during the Virat, during when he was in the kingdom of Virat, he acted like a eunuch. So at that time, he used that.
So here we do not see that he passively accepted the curse, but rather he was following assertive course of action and within that he kind of integrated the effect of the curse. So for a devotee, what may be the right course of action at a particular time, that will vary according to the circumstances. So we can pray to Krishna, introspect ourselves and consult our senior devotees and then take a decision.
Is that the question? Thank you. Any other questions?