We need some happiness in Krsna consciousness. A little happiness helps; it makes life easier so we need some friends. As the Hare Krsna movement became bigger, it lost some of its original spirit of being like a family, of being like a group of friends and instead, became a society and the members of the society sort of became like colleagues.
The mood between colleagues is very different to that between family or friends. With colleagues it is like,“You know, get it together. I mean, pull up your socks. I mean, you are holding us back. You are disturbing the functioning of this whole thing and if you don´t get it together, we will replace you!” To a colleague, this kind of mood exists.
Whereas with family, what can we do!? Even if your brother is half-cracked, what can you do… still he is your brother. This is the nature of family relationships. So we need family relationships, not colleague relationships. And it is very important that we have these friendships and personal relationships.
The quickest way to become a devotee is by trying to help others to become devotees. That is the quickest way because it attracts the most mercy of Krsna. So one who preaches is very smart as he gets extra mercy of Krsna. One who takes difficulty for Krsna, to bring Krsna consciousness to people who are not so easily accessible gets extra mercy. It is easy when you preach only to the Indian community. It is somewhat easy because they have some culture. But jail preaching, for example, is a little more tough.
Source:https://www.kksblog.com/2016/05/devotee-relationships/
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