Hare Krishna all,
Pamho,
Agtsp!
My family is big and my family members dont follow KC. I am unable to convince them that krishna is supreme they have their own age old beliefs on demigods. They follow old rituals like killing animals although they dont involve me , I love my family becoz they raised me from childhood and spent their hard earn income on my education, so I respect them from bottom of my heart and cant avoid them becoz they dont follow KC, They were present in all my difficult times and shared them. As I developed KC and understand what is good and what is bad, it is very difficult for me to live with them and at the same time ignore them. They think that I became sentimentalist and overdosed with wisdom. Why Iam born in this family and why krishna showed mercy only to me,Please suggest what to do in these troublesome situation.
Your servant
Aakash
Replies
Hare Krishna mataji and prabhujis,
Thank you for all the suggestions.
Hare Krishna dear Devotees, please accept my humble obeisances!
All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
i am sure that all of our parents invested so much for each of us. I am sure that Siddhartha's later Lord Buddha's father also was far more kind to his beloved Son.
What to speak of parents of Raghunatha Das Goswami Maharaj?
....there are so many examples.
And such like thing will continue life after life. All parents love their children even materialistic parents love their children. So how many lives we will be such like loving children?
On the other hand we have in this life chance to serve to Krishna and go back to Him. To our original Father and Mother???
It says that if one becomes a pure Devotee he delivers 21 generations. In this way to be a Devotee is more helpful to our parents rather then again and again take birth in this world.
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Now, if Devotee Prabhu is not married and stays at home is not proper according to Vaishnava Dharma. One should get married and make his family members Devotees of Krishna or join brahmachari ashram and serve to Guru and preach about the Holy Names.
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If You earn money and maintain Your family Prabhuji, but they will buy meat for Your money then You will also earn sin. Then what is the use? Under the name of supporting them You earn sin.
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Even though i am in female body, even though for it is not recommended far away from home i could not tolerate the sins done in my family. It was very painful to see how all my family members, relatives swim in sinful activities. They do not have time for God...then why i should be with them?
I left to the Temple and i am sure that Krishna will take care of them.
i tried sooooooo much to preach to them. Somehow mother became vegetarian, father also started to chant but even though when i was a the university they again started the same sinful things.
Then sometimes mother used to criticize Devotees, i used to cry and try to stop her somehow but was not possible then left.
What is the use??? To hear blasphemy of Devotees and ruin our Krishna Consciousness?
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Now some good solutions for You are to get married to a Devotee girl or if You already married at least try to make Your wife a Devotee. Or to move to the brahmachari ashram.
and it is not a joke.
It should be our last life in this world and our main goal should be to achieve love Krishna and go back to Him.
He will take care of Your parents.
Your servant,
Hare Krishna Prabhuji.Dandavat Pranam. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada
Don't think you are the only one, Infact whoever starts practising Krishna Consciousness , they become odd one out in the society. Parents and relatives starts thinking that this boy/girl became mad. Friends circle starts avoiding the person. Office collegue looks strangely and if get chance doesn't leave to make joke of God , scriptures and starts thinking within that we are dwelling in some mythology. Every devotees face this kind of situation once they starts devotional service. To the sleeping ignorant people it looks like some abnormal activity and Krishna also says so in BG
BG 2.69: What is night for all beings is the time of awakening for the self-controlled; and the time of awakening for all beings is night for the introspective sage.
So its obvious a sleeping man don't like the person who is trying to wake him up. What can we do except crying for help to Krishna,Mahaprabhu and Prabhupada. We have to face this with tolerance. There will be so many impediments in the life of a devotee, but a devotee should stick to his/her devotional service with firm determination. It is like declaring war to both within and without. But be assured if we don't deviate from executing Bhakti,then we will surely win the war.
Your aspiring servant
Hari Bol
Hare Krsna to you too prabhu,
Nice to know you are getting devoted to the philosophy and started thinking in right terms.
The mercy of the lord has been there from time immemorial to all the living beings equally, there is no partiality on the flow of his mercy. He reciprocates in the same wave length that we realize him.
If you are new to ISKCON, your kind of experience is not new for us, we have all gone through the same thing.
Your family is very important to you at this time and there is no one that can replace it with similar setup for you. We were suggested by senior devotees that we should never do any revolution in the family to disturb their sentiments. It is obvious that they think you are behaving like this in your new found philosophy.
Spiritual life is very tough and is not bed of roses. Devotees of the Lord have maintained that we should stay in and learn how to get out, i.e., swim to reach the shore.
It does not matter if someone follows you or not, just ignore them all. You feel that Krsna has showered His mercy onto you alone, so be it. Live in the bliss of chanting and listening to Prabhupad's lectures everyday. Go to www.prabhupadavani.org, you will find thousands of his lectures.
Don't worry. Everyone will have to come to Krsna one day, if not today. Their time has not yet come.
Just chant and be happy.