View source for If one by practice of meditation is actually advancing in spiritual life, why he's materially affected? What is the difference between a person materially affected and spiritually advanced

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[[Category:If One]]
[[Category:Practice]]
[[Category:Meditation]]
[[Category:Actually]]
[[Category:Advance in Spiritual Life]]
[[Category:Why]]
[[Category:Materially Affected]]
[[Category:What Is The Difference Between]]
[[Category:Person]]
[[Category:Spiritually Advanced]]
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<h2>Lectures</h2>
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<h3>Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures</h3>
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If one by practice of meditation is actually advancing in spiritual life, why he's materially affected? What is the difference between a person materially affected and spiritually advanced?

Take for example our students. We may not be very much highly advanced, admitting that, but at least if any gentleman comes, if he's sincere, he'll appreciate how pure they are. At least they are practiced.
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[[Vanisource:681220 - Lecture BG 03.01-5 - Los Angeles|681220 - Lecture BG 03.01-5 - Los Angeles]]
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Prabhupāda: Practically that is real silence. If you simply engage yourself in activities of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, then automatically your activities in māyā become silent. Just like the same example I have given. Here is a glass. If you want to fill up with milk, the water will go automatically. You have to throw away the water. You cannot put the water and the milk at the same time in this glass. Similarly, if you become active in Kṛṣṇa consciousness, you automatically become silent in material activities—without any separate endeavor. It is so nice.

And if you try artificially to stop, to become silent from material activities, it will not be possible. You may meditate for fifteen minutes or for fifteen hundred minutes or fifteen thousand years, it will not be possible. The mind is very strong. Mind's business is to accept and reject, accept and reject. You accept something, you reject something.

Better thing is that we accept something Kṛṣṇa conscious under the direction of disciplic succession. That is your . . . should be the aim of life, and you are successful. You have to accept something. Simply by rejecting, it will not help you. But you have to accept something. That acceptance is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Simply negation will not help you. You must have some positive engagement.

Go on.

Tamāla Kṛṣṇa: "The Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam affirms this. If somebody takes to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, even though he may not follow the prescribed duties in the śāstras or execute the devotional service properly, or even if he falls down from the standard, there is no loss or evil for him. And even though he carries out all the injunctions for purification in the śāstras, what does it avail him if he is not Kṛṣṇa conscious?

"So the purifying process is necessary for reaching this point. Sannyāsa or any purifying process is meant for helping one to reach the ultimate goal of becoming Kṛṣṇa conscious, without which everything is considered a failure."

Prabhupāda: That's all. So any question? (devotees offer obeisances)

Any question?

Jaya-gopāla: Actually, so many people who stop performing prescribed duties to engage in so-called meditation, actually they are committing sinful activity? Is this actually sinful activity to attempt such meditation like that?

Prabhupāda: Meditation?

Jaya-gopāla: Yes.

Prabhupāda: That you can see from the result. You'll find so many persons meditating, but see their life. Phalena paricīyate. One has to be judged by the result. You have worked very hard and supposed to be very rich man, but if I see that you have no nice apartment, neither any car, neither any opulence, so what kind of businessman you have earned?

That can be understood immediately. So if one by practice of meditation is actually advancing in spiritual life, why he's materially affected? What is the difference between a person materially affected and spiritually advanced?

Take for example our students. We may not be very much highly advanced, admitting that, but at least if any gentleman comes, if he's sincere, he'll appreciate how pure they are. At least they are practiced. You see? So by the result one has to see. But we have seen so many meditators, they cannot change even their daily nonsense habits. So what result they have obtained, they have achieved, I cannot understand. By the result one has to take account. Not by simply jugglery of words.

Just like there is examination. One student says: "Oh, I have studied so much." But when the examination was taken, he failed. So what does it mean that he studied? That means he did not study, that's all. The test is that spiritual advancement means minimizing material activities. Bhaktiḥ pareśānubhavo viraktir anyatra syāt ([[Vanisource:SB 11.2.42|SB 11.2.42]]). Automatically they will be detestful for material engagement. Spiritual advancement means that.

Just like a hungry man, if you give him to eat, as soon as he begins to eat, immediately he'll feel satisfaction, and when he is fully fed, he'll say: "No, I don't want any more." So similarly, spiritual advancement means proportionately one should be detestful to material engagement. That is the test.

So if anyone is advancing by meditation or bhakti-yoga or Kṛṣṇa consciousness, one has to give evidence that he is now being proportionately detached from this material engagement. That is the test. This is not for only the meditators, it is for you also. How far you are advancing in Kṛṣṇa consciousness you test yourself—how far you have become detached from material consciousness. That's all.
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