WORKING FOR KRISHNA Part3
You have to be submissive in spiritual life , you have to understand the principle of mercy and how you can receive the mercy of devotees of Krishna, even if these devotees are not perfect….phewww! This is a very heavy principle, which in the beginning when the movement began to take off became a problem for many devotees, that they had to follow the….(in a disgusted voice)…the Temple President! Errghhhrr, that was something that, was like too much. Right, Ok they were ready, they were ready to surrender unto Srila Prabhupada….
“Yes Prabhupada, Yes Prabhupada, we will give our life to you, Gladly..whatever you say, we will do, even if we find it difficult, Prabhupada we will do for you, because you are wonderful we will do………………..But not for the temple president, Never! No way! This guy is telling me this, telling me that , who does he think he is and he is not pure, he is not pure, he is not a spiritual authority, he’s just some guy, some manager, who sits in the seat right now, but he doesn’t have anything spiritual to offer me so why would I be submissive to such a person, it doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t make sense at all. I can surrender to people with genuine spiritual qualities but I will not surrender, no way, to one who is not qualified. Before I surrender to a person, that person first must have some qualifications, we can not just surrender to anybody, where will that take us?! No no no no no , we must be selective, in our surrender and only those who have spiritual qualification, we will listen to them, but not to some ordinary guy, he just has a post, a post doesn’t really transform a person, it’s personal qualification”
So this point came out so many times, this line of reasoning came out so many times, but spiritual reasoning is not at all like that, spiritual reasoning is to see that even the president who may be a person who has individual shortfalls, I’m not necessarily talking about the Amsterdam Temple president but in general, please don’t take it wrong… I’m just talking about a principle that generally speaking most temple presidents in ISKCON are not paramahamsas to tell you the truth, they’re not, they’re simply sadhikas, they’re sincere devotees who are trying to become purified. So speaking on that platform without diminishing the temple…. So we may consider that, that they are not perfect, but we should understand that they have dedicated their lives to work for the perfect mission and that we should assist them in that because by assisting them, in that mission we are also part of the mission.
Being part of this movement is not that simple because it’s not a movement where we are together with a bunch of friends that you’re finding out pretty soon, initially you think and you thought that the devotees would be all like a big family and a group of like very close friends, and you thought that when you are going to live with the devotees you are going to have relationships of like intimacy and friendship, like you had never had before, because these relationships are going to be free from envy and selfish desire, everyone is selflessly living without desire, it’s beautiful, it’s beautiful …. But it’s not entirely like that you may live in the temple and you may see that person with that pudgy face who you always thought looked horrible, right, just at first sight, the hairs on your head just stood on end seeing this person and you just thought that oh god, oh no…errrghh, errgggh .. even when you didn’t speak to him and that guy who you thought definately belonged with the demons walks in the temple with a dhoti and you think oh no now I’ve got to live with him and you may find that you’re nature is completely the opposite of him.
That each time you get enthusiastic about something that guy gets not at all enthusiastic, just the opposite, discouraged and when you think boy..this is heavy this is difficult , then he suddenly feels enthusiastic, right.. so you may see that this person .. how can I count him among my friends, but within our movement we are not considering that, we are not looking like that, we are not looking for similarities in nature, not looking for that kind of a connection. Our connection is that somehow or other we are already to give our energy for the mission of Krishna consciousness and in this way you can even begin to develop some appreciation for that guy, right…. Well at least he is also working for Krishna, he’s doing things for Krishna, that is nice…and in this way, we have people with complete opposite natures who may not immediately develop the most close relationships of friendship but still appreciate each other because they see we are working together for the same thing and therefore they are tolerant of each other…… contd tomo
