How can we prevent repeated falls from shaking our faith in bhakti?
Anwser Podcast
Transcription :
Transcribed by: Geetanjali Nath
Edited by: Nikhil Fernandes
Question: How can we prevent repeated falls from shaking our faith in bhakti?
Answer:
Detachment from the world and attachment to Krishna are both related and unrelated to each other. At one level if you become attached to Krishna, you naturally start becoming detached from the world. On another level, detachment could simply be a consequence of sattva guna. There are people who, without practicing bhakti, live very sattvic lives – however, they happen to be atheists who live sattvic lives. For some people detachment is easier and may be a way of life. Take for example Hitler who toward the end of his life was considered to have become vegetarian, but who also murdered people.
We should not over value detachment in a spiritual life. We all have different anarthas, and detachment from some of them may be more difficult than detachment from others. If we look around us, there may be some things which trouble others but do not trouble us at all. Thus, we can understand that with our specific conditioning comes issues with specific anarthas. We should not obsess over this. Instead, we should focus on the practice of bhakti, and with bhakti that anartha will gradually be overcome in time. We should seek to do things that could help minimise our vulnerability to that anartha. If there are certain situations by which we get tempted, try to minimise them. However, sometimes this might be unavoidable. Overall, we should focus our energy on trying to connect with Krishna.
The principal to remember is that connecting with Krishna is more important than detaching myself from things. We are meant to be faithful devotees of Krishna, not frustrated devotees of renunciation. In principle itself, our priorities must be clear – that we should go towards Krishna and not that we become detached from the world. Detachment will follow naturally once we become attached to Krishna.