QA Audio : 2017

If our family members don’t support our bhakti, what should we do?

Was the Mahabharata war predestined?

How can we spiritualize our work without disturbing our colleagues?

How did Krishna as Shanti-duta use sama, dama, bheda and danda?

If bhakti practice makes us less emotional, is that good?

How does repetition in bhakti lead to attraction when normally repetition leads to satiation?

Is our affection for Krishna to be cultivated as between wife-husband or spontaneous as between child-parent?

How can we know that deceased devotees go back to godhead?

Shouldn’t bhakti be a natural evolution in our love, not an imposition based on being told whom to love?

Is obsession with spiritual things ok?

What is the difference between attachment and obsession?

How to balance attachment and detachment in daily life?

The Pandavas could have won a kingdom anywhere by defeating someone else – why did they win it by killing their own relatives?

How can we focus on our spiritual advancement without becoming selfish?

If we can’t stop overeating, how can we control ourselves?

How can Vedic concepts be explained in scientific terms?

When we become responsible in our material life, our employers may exploit us – how to avoid?

Is starting spiritual life because of frustration undesirable?

Accepting that we are beyond the brain, how can we know whether we are the mind or the soul?

How can we make our wandering consciousness more connected to the body?

Is the brain the generator of emotions or the responder to emotions?

Have you had a near-death experience?

Can we get to higher consciousness only through near-death experiences or by other means?

Are the mind and the brain interchangeable?

Why does the Gita begin with Dhritarashtra, not Krishna?

Can those undergoing near-death experiences choose not to return to their body?

During near-death experiences, is everything that happens predetermined or can the experiencer choose?

How do we balance our fundamental and functional identities?

If we understand that we are souls, do we need to reject the whole life we have built on our bodily identity?

Who were the vanaras in the Ramayana – what happened to them?

As devotee-students, do we have to lead two lives?

Is a woman’s unchaste dressing responsible for a man’s misbehaviour?

How much of traditional culture needs to be replicated to practice bhakti today?

Is all the archaeological evidence wrong – did cavemen not exist?

Are scripture and evolution contradictory?

While understanding scripture according to time-place-circumstance, which factors need to be considered?

Isn’t ISKCON sectarian that it stops devotees from hearing from other Vaishnava groups?

The ninth canto contains many stories of shocking debauchery by sages such as Brihaspati – what is their point?

When the Gita Mahatmaya talks about Gita recitation countering various sinful reactions, is that karma kanda or is it bhakti?

When a devotee does bhakti activities for someone else, what actually happens?

If it doesn’t work, get out – is such a utilitarian attitude in bhakti towards things like marriage justifiable?

How can we reconcile contradictions between knowledge from science and knowledge from scripture?

Shouldn’t modern science be renamed as so-called science?

The more scientific people become, the more atheistic they become – is this true?

Is Vedic apara-vidya a better painkiller than modern knowledge?

When we face mental health issues, how can we deal with them spiritually and what can we learn from it?

Who all are the active factors in our inner world – soul or mind or Maya?

How to deal with indulgences that we aren’t able to give up?

Did many devotees leave ISKCON because they couldn’t see suffering as Krishna’s mercy?

Will those with low self-esteem mistake tolerating injustice to be humility?

How to decide between tolerating a situation or changing it?

Why do we promote our suffering as if it is the worst?

For a pure devotee, is the subtle body dissolved or does it still remain?

Does the soul go to the next body by its own desires or is it taken by the mind?

How can we know what is a principle and what a detail?

How can the tension between rigidity and fluidity be resolved in a living tradition?

How can we appreciate good devotees who are offensive about some issues?

If we are more attached to Krishna and less attached to family responsibilities, does that incur bad karma?

If our chanting is simply mechanical, will that please Krishna?

How can we cultivate more of a family atmosphere in our movement?

Can the desire for subtle sex – pride, adoration, distinction – be dovetailed in bhakti?

Won’t neglecting our attachments and focusing on bhakti lead to rationalizing our wrong actions?

To get stimulated out of sleep, can I visit Facebook first thing after waking up?

If we are following the principles to be initiated but have to wait for long in queue, does Krishna see us as initiated or uninitiated?

If senior devotees behave unethically, how can we maintain our inspiration?

How to deal with the emotions and inclinations that take us away from Krishna?

If we have a vision to do something but the authorities are not supportive, what to do?

Shouldn’t we expect to grow to the higher stages of bhakti?

Shouldn’t we take up challenging services to become humble & dependent on Krishna?

How can we find the service by which we can best contribute?

Why were the Pandavas treated so badly by their elders – in similar circumstances, are we meant to be submissive?

Suppose a talented, dedicated devotee encounters failure repeatedly – how to respond?

How can we counter the mind’s tendency to see the negative even in devotee association?

Won’t picking and choosing sections of philosophy or process rationalise rejecting important aspects of bhakti?

Is adopting something because it works a sufficient criterion for choosing a spiritual path?

What to do if our doubts block us in relishing bhakti?

Does our past karma affect our present free will?

When devotees debate fiercely over different aspects of bhakti, how should we respond?

Is taste in service Krishna’s reciprocation?

How do we balance hunting for the rhino in our services with being realistic?

How can we be humble enough to recognize the necessity of changing our habits?

While using tricks like propinquity to control our senses, don’t we neglect the bhakti aspect?

When genuine intentions will express as actions, how can we say that intention is not enough?

Should we make major life decisions based on bhakti considerations alone or also based on our material nature and situation?

When the Gita insists that we work according to our nature, why do ISKCON authorities tell us to do the needful, without considering our nature?

If we can’t replace our mind, how does purification change the mind?

If the material and the spiritual are separate, how can chanting attentively lead to good book distribution?

Can our material identity be spiritualized – which dharma spiritualises it?

Were the ancient sages humbler than the modern acharyas as only the latter mention their names in their compositions?

Who remembers Krishna – the mind or the soul, or the mind in the conditioned stage and the soul in the liberated state?

When the mind is external to the soul, what does externally serving and internally remembering Krishna mean?

When the Upanishads say the Absolute Truth is unchanging, how do bhakti teachers say that even Krishna’s abode is changing?

Does mithya mean illusion or hallucination – is the material world illusion or hallucination?

How can we understand the ideal without becoming impractical and fanatical?

As intelligence can make us calculative or over-smart, how can we remain simple while being intelligent?

When intelligence can be used or misused, is intelligence a power of our consciousness or a gift from the Supersoul?

Does Gita 12.8-11 refer to progressive levels or alternative ways?

How do we see people who come to the temple but don’t practice bhakti seriously – Hindi?

How can a person suffering from an incurable disease overcome resentment – Hindi?

Why is the intelligence said to come from goodness and the mind from passion – Hindi?