WORKING FOR KRISHNA Part6
…..spiritual life….. No we are not fruitive so we become submissive and flexible to all the vaishnavas but we don’t expect that they become submissive and flexible to us, that is all spontaneous so therefore you can not say it doesn’t work, it only doesn’t work if you are not flexible, do you understand what I am saying?
This remark “it doesn’t work” is taking it from a mundane platform where it is an exchange, I bend you bend I give you give, you know, equal giving and that business that is material, in spiritual life we are ready to give and bend and give up our own fixed opinions, our own fixed ideas and just bend to the will of the devotees, that is our spiritual life because we can …alright it doesn’t matter, this isn’t so important he has such a strong desire, alright let me just go along with it, as long as his desire is connected to the mission for spreading Krishna consciousness.
You may see for example someone may have a desire to go and distribute prasadam, late in the evening in the city… ok, well that’s a bit late, we are suppose to sleep at that time, this that but if someone has so much enthusiasm you say go ahead, go ahead do it because it is part of the mission, then we support and we are flexible and we say yes yes yes, because of the desire the person has connected himself to the mission and anytime we see that the person has connected himself with the mission, then we become supportive of him, this is our mood. This is where we encourage people and we go along with people, so we must develop this mood to encourage others when they have the desire to do something in mission of Krishna consciousness, whatever it is we encourage them, that is the vaishnava principle.
Ok you also said karma yoga although you also disqualified it, so you also compare it -bhakti yoga and karma yoga in your question? You are sort of indicating….
Devotee speaks
Maharaja: You are going on this concept that there is a yoga ladder, that you begin at various levels of yoga, karma yoga, jnana yoga and then you finally come to bhakti yoga, right?
Well, Srila Prabhupada once, if you search in the folio, finds only one mention of a yoga ladder and was not generally in the forefront of Prabhupada’s preaching, Prabhupada didn’t see that we were really doing karma yoga, Prabhupada was always calling our activities bhakti yoga. It’s been like a more recent line of preaching, for a number of preachers who emphasise this karma yoga aspect of, and preaching we are not really doing bhakti yoga, we are doing karma yoga as long as you are not completely free and pure in the service of Krishna….But Prabhupada generally his explanation was whatever you do in devotional service for Krishna is bhakti and we can speak ofcourse of karma misra bhakti, that there is still some desire, some personal desire mixed in your devotional service but still we are engaged in this movement in devotional service, bhakti yoga, that is the way Prabhupada was teaching and I think we should stick to that and it is not yet ……sanskrit….. uninterrupted and unmotivated so………I gave the example already, the desire to crack jokes sometimes or… to interrupt devotional service a little bit and we may also have some personal motive in our devotional service, we want some recognition, we want some position, that we want…Why is it that devotees get fried with a particular service and enthused to do another service? It’s like you have the person is very lively and enthusiastic and you can say we have got a nice service for you, you can become the book keeper. And he goes( in very negative mood) “ The book keeper! Errr the book keeper…err well”
And you go to the book keeper and you say, “I’ve got a great service for you, you can go on the street and distribute books”
He goes ( in a very hesitant mood) “ Err ehh err ttt talk to people!”
right, so, of course I am making bit of dramatic performance, don’t want to offend any book keeper, nor any book distributors or anything like that…..but, you know, the principle is there different natures, if a person is engaged in a service which is not according to his nature then he goes completely sour. So this proves we are not on the spiritual platform at all, we are completely mundane because it is not like we like devotional service, No, it’s I like this and I don’t like that, I like cooking but I hate book keeping or I like book keeping but I hate going into that kitchen where I am all sweaty and greasy and stand over the stove all day, and so forth, according to your nature, you have your likings, so that proves we are not on the transcendental platform yet, the activity itself is perfectly transcendental.
Prabhupada said we are situated in the boat of transcendence but the boat is being rocked by the three modes of material nature, sometimes we are affected by that, but gradually by staying in the boat it gets more and more stable in it’s course, until it won’t rock any more.
Devotee speaks
Maharaja: Well it’s like this there are sometimes, let us say there are certain standards that have to be followed, like you are supposed to bow down when we come in to the temple. Let us just say this that one devotee, he doesn’t bow down all the time and you notice it, you know, and you may feel that you have to say something so you say “ ah Prabhu I saw you, you forgot to bow down, just thought I’ll remind you, yeah, would be very good if you bow down”
and the guy just turns round and says ( in very angry voice) “ WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME ANYTHING?!!!!”
“ Oh err sorry”….he almost bit your nose off, right, so what to do …so you can just respond immediately “LOOK, DON’T YOU BAD MOUTH ME!!! OK?!!! I’m not just a nobody. DO YOU REALISE WHO I AM. LOOK MATE DON’T PUT A TRIP ON ME!!! I’M THE HEAD PUJARI HERE AND IF YOU DON’T BOW DOWN IN FRONT OF THE DEITIES , I’M NOT GOING TO LET YOU IN THE TEMPLE ANYMORE, YOU GET IT?!!!!”
“ If you are not going to let me in the temple I’m not going to let you out of the temple anymore,…Right!!! You try step out that door and I’ll fix you nose ok!!!”
So of course you can have an interaction like that and he might fix your nose or you might fix his and all kinds of varieties are there,.. you might fix each other and that’s one way but it’s not meant to be dealt with like that.
So how do we deal with things?..................with humility…contd tomo
