Won’t saying that don’t pursue worldly pleasures demotivate students from academic performance?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Isn’t saying that we shouldn’t pursue worldly pleasures, isn’t that demotivating for someone like a student? There are two different things over here. See even as a student, pleasures can be distracting. If as a student I have come to my college to study and then if I start going for parties, I start going for movies, I start just hanging out in the social scene in the college.
That can distract me from my studies also. So when we are talking about worldly pleasures, the Bhagavad Gita tells us that don’t indulge in worldly pleasures. They are the womb of misery.
It is basically talking about gross sensual indulgences which distract us from our duty. The Bhagavad Gita does not tell us to give up our duty saying that it is material. The Bhagavad Gita has spoken to Arjuna and Arjuna was a champion archer and he did not become a champion archer just by fluke.
He practiced tirelessly. He would learn from his teacher in the day and late in the night he would keep practicing the archery skills and he was appreciated for that and he used those archery skills. So when we say that we shouldn’t pursue worldly pleasures, that doesn’t mean that we don’t use our worldly talents.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t work as per our role in society. It simply means that we don’t see our success only in worldly terms. A devotee has talents, devotee will also work diligently to use those talents but in a mood of service.
So the bhakti vision of life is that what we are is God’s gift to us. What we become is our gift to God. What we are, now we have certain talents, we have certain abilities, that is God’s arrangement we have that and we are meant to make a contribution in life but we do it in a mood of service.
God has given me this gift, let me use them in a mood of service. When we have that mood, then when we are using our talents simply for getting achievement in this world and there is always uncertainty. If I don’t achieve, then what is the use of all my efforts? Or if I achieve something but I don’t get the recognition for it, if I am not praised for it, then what is the use of it? But if we have a higher motivation, now we are doing this to please Krishna, then even if we are not successful in the world’s eyes, still we will be internally fulfilled because through our work we will be connecting with Krishna.
So it is not that we are not meant to work diligently or achieve in this world, rather we don’t keep our goals restricted to this world. Our eyes are lifted beyond the world to Krishna and we want to make offering, we are living in this world, so we want to offer things in this world also to Krishna. But our goal is Krishna, not this world.
That’s the difference and that keeping the goal as Krishna actually brings greater stability in our life and then there is a greater focus. If I am always worried whether I’ll achieve my goals or not, then I’ll become very insecure if I start feeling I won’t achieve the goals. If my goal is to please Krishna and for pleasing Krishna I want to do the best that I can, then even if the result doesn’t come, I did my best, Krishna will be pleased and in that way we get inner satisfaction even when there is no outer achievement and that inner satisfaction provides a stability by which you can focus more and get outer achievement also.
Bhakti is definitely not about rejecting the world person, it is rather about refusing to give the world monopoly on our conception of success and happiness. That means I don’t define success and happiness only in terms of this world. We see success in terms of how we are serving Krishna and because we are serving him in this world, so we want to do wonderful things for him in this world also.
As students we should study diligently. It is Krishna who has put us in this situation and we want to use our talents in a mode of service for him. But even if that doesn’t happen, if we are connected with Krishna, we will be