Hare Krishna to all...
I am a beginner in Krishna Consciousness..now the problem is that my firends who are not devotess dont understand what i am doing..as to y do i go to the temple so often,..or y do i attend namhatt..or read Srila Prabhupada's books..or chant..i tried to explain it to them..but they dont understand..gradually i am not interested in watching movies, or mundane activities like going out for fun..but they dont understand the change in me.they get annoyed that i say no...should i gradually stop being with them or bring a balance or try more to bring them to Krishna consciousness.
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Basically in material association and world the philosophy is : " You do for me I will do for You"
what tried to do is to be more depended on Devotees rather than karmic people. When one gets help from others one debts and it tights our relationship. Because of that i tried my best to help them in any basic things but for help for myself i asked from Devotees.
What help i needed?
---how to improve sadhana, chanting, controlling senses...
how karmic people could help in these things???
i also lived in the hostel with them, sometimes they ask you to borrow them something: knives, spoons, books, money, computer works...
which things i could share i would share, but which things i could not give them like: spoons, knives...i just explained that i can not, sorry. if you want then take for ever, i will buy new one. then they used to understand.
We should not be afraid of saying truth, just we have to explain that it is our life style and we are happy with this.
help as much as you can, but also know place where to say "no".
Your servant,
Its good to hear that ur on the right track to reach Goloka Vrindavana to be with Krishna.It remembered me also of my college days where i was asked similar questions.Dont worry carry on Ur KC but try to associate with other matajis n other devotees more as the proverb"A person is known by the company he keeps.U be with devotees u will speak of Krishna b with nondevotees then u will speak gossip.
One more request as usually all my siksha gurus n senior devotees advice me hear hear hear about Krishna followed by chanting as ears and tongue are an effective medium for improving devotion.
We all guarantee you that in future you will be proud to say that you took the correct and most important decision to love Krishna.Haribol
You will definitely need their help not only for acadamic but even when u start working out... we need the help of non devotees. That is what i called as working relationship. Just do the minimum required to have the relation ship. If we try to get very close, then they would want to do the nonsense they do and we used to do earlier.
hari bol!!
Mataji
Im also facing similar problems but we must realize that whatever jokes or insults our friends cut on us should not be taken seriously. We are in love with our sweet lord SRI KRSNA.. and if we can get his mercy then we need nothing else..
Don't take your friends too seriously and pray for their well being...
Hari bol!!
Hare Krishna Prachi mataji,
PAMHO. AGTSP.
This is a common scenario in all devotees initial days of KC. It happened with MOST of us too soo you are not alone and dont have to worry much about it. Further on your question as to what to do with your friends, my suggestion is try to give them the knowledge of KC. If they accept it its well and good. If not, you have nothing to lose. Krishna will be happy to see our endeavor to make others KC not the results. When we were in college and had this problem, our seniors suggested that we have a working relation with our friends. Since we are living in this society, we need to have contacts and communication with all non devotee friends also. Having said that, we should be very cautious because we can get our conciseness corrupted if we are not very strong in our daily sadhana.
Most of the time it so happens that people get annoyed with the reasons we give them for not doing something. I often get offers from my co workers to join them for a movie or a lunch at some restaurants. If I say I am a devotee and not supposed to do these... then people will ridicule me and the movement. Instead I give reasons like I hate watching movies in theaters - sitting in a pitch dark room like an idiot for 3 hours!!! If something does not work out... I use the option of having too much of work in office... :) For the food in restaurant, most of the people in office now know that I do not eat from outside as they have onion and garlic!!! so they generally do not invite me these days.
I met one devotee who was in US for quite some time with his family. He said that if they say not to give any non-veg to the child in the school, their teachers would not agree with it. But if we say, they are alergic to meat/onion/garlic/mushroom, etc... then they accept it with no hesitation. So, I sometimes give this reason that my stomach gets upset when ever eat outside and I prefer not to eat outside food.
I hope this was of some use to you.
Hari bol!!!!