Why do some devotees see things in terms of black and white without any nuance?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
they may leave does that answer the question so you said that as devotees sometimes we become very black and white in terms of accepting the rejection model based on reading some scripture yeah in fact if you look at the history of ISKCON when it grew and first began in America it was largely operating on the rejection model and that was because of various factors many of Prabhupada’s early disciples were hippies who had already rejected the material world yeah almost, not everything but most of it and Prabhupada came along and gave them philosophical reasons for rejecting the material world and it was not just that they rejected the material world physically in terms of they were not having jobs or careers or families also so much but along with that, becoming a devotee at that time meant moving into the temple so the movement itself was very insular at that time so yes you know all those karmis out there are bad but at that time somebody moved out of a temple people used to think that if you go out of a temple that means you have fallen down so many Indians when they would come to the temple they would often be very devoted when they would come to the temple but they had no interest of moving into the temple and in the early days the devotees thought that Indians are in maya they are not going to become devotees but later on when the devotees realized that we cannot live like this lifelong they wanted to have their own families they wanted to have their own jobs they wanted to practice bhakti but then quite often the same Indians whom they had considered to be in maya they became the models of how to use stable growth of the life so and if you see Prabhupada did not necessarily stick to one approach when he went to India most Indians Prabhupada hardly had very few Indian disciples and even most of the Indian disciples whom he had they were people who had say Gopalakrishna was in Canada and he met devotees in Canada so not many Indians were interested in rejecting the world so Prabhupada accommodated them Prabhupada started what is known as the life membership program where practically people, no commitment, not even regularity principles just give some substantial donation for the building of the temple and Prabhupada will give you the complete collection of his books and Prabhupada’s goal was that they would eventually become devotees but he was there is one thing which is like an aspiration and there is something which is accommodation so if we downplay the aspiration itself then we will be compromising but if we downplay the accommodation then we will not be facilitated so we need both Prabhupada was if anybody reads Prabhupada’s book they will be clear that this is what the ultimate goal is we want to become purely devoted to Krishna but Prabhupada accommodated so what happens, especially in the initial phase of our spiritual life because it’s so different because the values that we adopt, the culture that we adopt is so different so it’s natural to gravitate towards the rejection model but after some time as we mature, we also understand that I cannot sustain this rejection model sometimes some devotees may just try to do it but sometimes when the body falls sick and just can’t do anything if the body has fallen sick can’t just wish away the body by saying I am not the body for all practical purposes while I am living in the world I am the body because all my practical service will have to be rooted to the body so the rejection model of the body model of spirituality can can reflect in our relationships where we become insensitive to anyone whom we consider not a devotee it can reflect even in our relationship with our own body where we think of the body as illusion and you stretch the body too much and then afterward we find we cannot do this, we collapse there is a letter of Prabhupada where he says that if you don’t take care of your health now in future, even if you are very enthusiastic you will not be able to serve Krishna so that rejection model is to some extent a natural reaction to the dramatic changes that happen in our life initially when we start practicing Bhakti but afterwards we do need a balance and the balance should not be some devotee may say you fell down or you became a loose devotee it’s not like that that is what is required for the devotee to practice it is described that when Prabhupada was in Varanasi at that time Prabhupada was a pharmacist who was working with a doctor who would prescribe medicines and Prabhupada would give the medicines so the doctor says that time he was not a Swami, he was Abhay Babu Abhay Babu was a very religious man but at that time his main thought was how can I earn more money that was what was needed for him so somebody might have thought he is always thinking about money what kind of devotee is he but that was what was required so we cannot we cannot reject the rejection model but at the same time we cannot indiscriminately adopt it also we respect it that is the ultimate goal of life where we want to purely focus on Krishna but the way to get there will have to be charted out by each one of us and we need to as a movement have the maturity to recognize to give people the room to chart out their own way towards Krishna so Krishna does that Krishna offers various ways towards them in 12.8 to 12.12 he offers different levels at which you can practice bhakti so we also following Krishna’s footsteps need to tell people the goal but then we leave it to people to chart out their own way or more than their own way you could say decide their own pace how they want to practice and then that way there will be no force but at the same time there will be some direction in this