Guest guest Posted May 1, 2005 Report Share Posted May 1, 2005 Sure, Madana Mohan prabhu, what you're saying fits very well into engaging wellfare activities in direct devotional service. Your servant Visista dasa > >> Sorry but I can't understand one thing: if we have innumerable ways of > >> using almost everything in direct devotional service then why we're so > >> much advocating doing the material charity works? > > Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. > > Thank you, Adipurusa Prabhu et al., for your sagacious remarks on the > topic. One point to consider: > > If pure devotional service is indeed the highest modus operandi, which can > govern literally all spheres of our activity in the most perfect way -- > then what would be the Krsna conscious way of dealing with other people > ***when they are not aware of our being devotees?*** > > To rephrase it, if someone does not have a clue that I am a Hare Krsna > devotee and I have no chance to preach to that person directly -- say > while traveling in a public bus or standing in queue -- is there a way of > dealing with those people around me that would still be pure devotional > service to Krsna and beneficial for them? > > If "no" -- it would mean we are narrowing the scope of pure devotional > service down to a mere talk and exclude from it most of our real life > experiences involving some 99.99% people we happen to deal with on a daily > basis. Or maybe we are just trying to be transcendental before becoming > properly human. > > But if "yes" -- then how else are we to call, define and describe that > behavioral pattern other than "charity" or "sad-acar"? Maybe, > "sad-acharity", if you allow me a bit of a frivolous linguistics... > > In other words, there is (or should be) a way to deal with people, which: > > - benefits them even without them being conscious of who they deal with, > > - does not cost any extra endeavor or money, > > - incidentally happens to be the way cultured humans are supposed to deal > with one another anyway, that is to selflessly help one another, come to > one another's rescue, and share food and other basic necessities with one > another in time of dire need, and > > - incidentally happens to be the way an ideal Vaisnava/Vaisnavi is > supposed to behave even when no one knows who he or she is. > > And what if one day we happen to realize that it is exactly due to the > lack or absence of such behavior on the part of ISKCON devotees, > individually of collectively, that people at large are having such a hard > time taking us not only for exalted saints but even for proper humans and > thus cannot care less about what we propose to proclaim to them about the > highest purpose of human life -- whose fault would that be? Their or our? > > Begging to remain > > your servant, > Madana-mohana das Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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