What is the solution for my brother hating family after becoming a devotee?
A sister of a devotee boy wrote like this:
“My brother is your admirer. He started chanting of HARE KRISHNA HARE KRISHNA ,KRISHNA KRISHNA HARE HARE,HARE RAAM HARE RAM RAM RAM HARE HARE because of you.
Now his behaviour is totally changed. Even because of him I also started chanting, but now he is ruling like a god.
His duties towards his parents are nothing to him. He is telling no 1 is here relative to me except Krishna.
One should do only for Krishna when he finished his studies and is sitting now at home. He is the only son of my parents.
Pls tell me what should I do how I understand him that parents are the first priority. Don’t u think so sir..??
When I will leave this home after my marriage who will take care of my parents.
Sir pls find the solution I will be very much thankful to u.
Hare Krishna”
REPLY:
In fact, he is spoiling the image of Krishna Consciousness. He has not followed the devotional life properly.
As far as my writings are concerned, I have NEVER written encouraging to hate others and material things. I did not preach to quit home even in my dream that all the devotees know. In fact, ours is the only media that is REPEATEDLY encouraging the people. It seems that he has not read all my posts.
I have always written that hating family after becoming a devotee is not right. Because we need even materialistic people like milkman, shop keepers, maids, etc.
(What if my family accuses my following Krishna Consciousness? – PART -2! READ HERE!)
I have been noticing everywhere that many budding devotees start to hate others after they develop a LITTLE KNOWLEDGE about Lord. He starts to wear vaishnava symbols, clothes and keep a chanting bag with him. This distinguishes him from others. Other devotees start to show more respect to him. This makes a few devotees to think with a superiority complex that he is following what his family does not follow and hence he is superior to others.
Since this disease of hating family after becoming a devotee, is spreading everywhere DURING THE INITIAL – GROWING DAYS OF DEVOTIONAL PRACTICE, I have been writing MORE about dealing with such material relations. If you read all our posts of this site since the year 2011, you will wonder how a devotee can fight for this cause this much. In fact, the ABOUT column in our Site & Social media pages clearly state that this media is to give tips for balancing both material and spiritual duties.
So, if he behaves like that even after reading our posts, that means, he has not read all our posts.
I can definitely say that I am honestly guiding the devotees about managing their family as well as devotion. This is evident from the messages I receive from many senior devotees who are appreciating my tireless efforts in this aspect.
So, your brother is innocently creating disrepute to the Krishna Consciousness by hating his parents. Did Krishna hate His parents and people?
Do not say again that he is reading our media. If it is so, he would have loved his parents, sisters, brothers, friends, etc. He will never treat others bad.
Without his mother and father, from where he came to this world? Is his mother a fool to bear him for 10 months in her womb? Is his father a fool to give him studies and knowledge? Without learning with the help of parents, how could he become a devotee by reading many books and our media?
(Should a devotee be merciful even to cruel and clever people? READ HERE!)
If he is unable to love his sister and brother, how can he love his fellow devotees?
Ill-treating the people who gave birth, gave food, gave education, gave protection, etc, shows that he has no gratitude towards those who helped him this much so far. He will remain indebted to those people.
Me, who is guiding all of you protected my mother continuously for more than 22 years since my student age without expecting the support from any others. Why? Not because of any attachment with mother. In fact, I have no attachments with anyone. But, I have some duties to perform ass a son to my parents. I can not escape from such duties. So, I protected my mother. Thus, by treating her with dignity till she died, I have repaid for the pains my parents took for me . That is why, I am living my life without any guilt. Had I escaped from my duties and settled in temples, even Krishna will not forgive me.
So, if your brother hates his family people and studies, he will feel for that in future. I have seen many devotees who felt in their second part of their life because of ill-treating their family members in their young age.
A male devotee from Delhi wrote to me ten years back that I am liquidating the devotion by encouraging the devotees to be in the family and hence he left our FB Page. After 8 years of leaving, he came back to our Site and is repeatedly sending mails seeking my pardon for giving that comment about my services in his young age with inexperience. He says now that after marriage, he realized how true my advices are that we should never hate anyone in life though they are very materialistic. Because Krishna is there in everyone. He is now a serious follower of our site.
(Is Hating non devotees and praying to Krishna to punish them right? READ HERE!)
So, Tell your brother that any sathsangha that he follows can not arrange people for cleaning his stool and urine if he becomes unconscious in his old age. Only his family people will do those services. Spiritual organizations are just like training schools to teach devotion. The devotees are the students who learn devotion. After learning, they have to follow in their day to day life what they learnt from spiritual organizations. If all the devotees prefer to settle in the temples, they can not feed all of them because, without the support of Grahasthas, no temples can run even for one year.
Since the temples run because of the support of grahasthas, no spiritual organization should discourage grahastha life. If any spiritual organization does so, they are selfish because every spiritual organization and sanyasis are living because of the support of the grahasthas only.
Most of the devotees do not commit such mistakes of preaching against grahastha ashrama. I know a few devotees speak against the grahastha ashrama because of their own personal experiences.
Particularly, I will never encourage detaching from the people themselves. I just preach to desert attachments, not the people.
Show this reply to him and tell him that I requested him to be kind with family and others. A devotee should be more kind with others than non devotees.
If a devotee hates others, it may be because of attachments with wrong persons or any failure in his personal life, not because of Krishna Consciousness.
Krishna Conscious life is a blissful life. Not a moody life or a dull life.
The devotees should be extremely kind with the other suffering people and should kindly encourage them to follow devotion in their day to day life. Hating family after becoming a devotee is ignorance.
All the best.
(Will hating the family and performing devotion please Krishna? READ HERE!)