Feeling of missing material pleasures while following devotion! Tips!
A male devotee (Name hidden) asked like this:
“Hare krishna prabhuji pranam please accept my obeisances. Let mercy of senior devotees like you always be with fallen souls like me.
Prabhuji. by Krishna’s mercy, i am trying to get krishna conscious. From past days i am chanting 16+ rounds, attending Mangal Arti in our local iskcon temple, eating food only which is offered to krishna first, reading Prabhupada books, following 4 regulative principle….etc also trying to do best in college academics (i am engineering second year student) but prabhuji from past few days i am feeling something incomplete or missing in me. Firstly i thought that this incompleteness could be due to Krishna reducing my material desires in my heart and this feeling would fade away soon but many days past i am feeling this incompleteness.
Why am i feeling this prabhuji?? What should i do to overcome this??? Is this feeling Normal for neophytes in krishna consciousness??? Please help prabhuji”
REPLY:
Nice and genuine question.
Yes, this is natural during the initial stage of following serious devotional life for feeling of missing material pleasures!
So far, you would have been living for achieving some material goals in your life.
You were having so many material attachments/ goals.
(How One suffers & falls due to attachments as said by Krishna? READ HERE!)
To buy a costly car; to build a big house; to become a big businessman, to marry and enjoy life, like that.
Then, you got introduced to Krishna consciousness.
You started to learn and practice about the supreme Personality of Godhead.
When you start to taste a higher taste, all your lower tastes start to gradually come down.
When this transformation happens, you will be losing the lower material pleasures and gaining higher spiritual bliss.
Unless you fully desert your attachments with the materials, you can’t happily lose the materials. Initially, the feeling of missing material pleasures while following devotion may exist.
For example, you may decide to sell your favourite car thinking that it has become old. But, after selling, you may feel that you have lost a car that has been your pet for so many years. You may feel as if you should not have sold the old car.
If the husband has lived a attached life with the wife, the husband may feel heavily lost if the wife dies. At the same time, if a torturing wife dies, the husband feels relieved.
You had attachments with some materials and material pleasures. When you are trying to lose interest in those materials and pleasures one by one, your relatives, neighbours and friends will still be enjoying them.
When the majority of people are enjoying a materialistic life, you will be trying to lose your interest in the materials.
It will take many years to come to a stage in which you will realize that Krishna Consciousness is the topmost gift you have got by losing the lower and temporary material pleasures.
So, till you advance to that stage, you will still be having some feel of losing the temporary attractions of material pleasures.
This is the cause for your feeling of losing material pleasures while starting to follow Krishna Consciousness.
Don’t worry. Have a conviction that you are on right track and you are fortunate to have been blessed with Krishna consciousness. With that conviction, follow devotion sincerely.
When you FEEL Krishna’s mercy, you will not feel as if losing something.
Hope you are now clear about Feeling of missing material pleasures while following devotion!
(I FEEL GUILTY OF MAKING SHOW AS DEVOTEE. HOW TO CORRECT? READ HERE?)