Preaching Guidance:
Angry, Passive, and Challenging

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Speaking online to the devotees in Venezuela
13 November 2011

Question: I feel it is difficult for me to preach to the people on the street because many people look very angry. Sometimes I do not feel inspired, I do not want to preach to those people, and I do not know how to preach to them...

Do you know why they are angry? They want something material, they have material desires, and because they do not get what they want they become angry.

If you go to a mental hospital you can see that some people do not want to take medicine. They do not know what their proper medicine is and they become angry, but your duty is to still give them the medicine. They may even bite you, but your duty is to rescue them. They are going to die! They are killing themselves! So, it is your duty to rescue them.

Question: Do people on the street benefit just by hearing the Name of Krishna, hearing that Krishna is God, that we are part of Krishna? Do they get some benefit or connection by hearing these things?

Yes, of course, they get some benefit. If you tell somebody 'Krishna', if you tell 'Hare Krishna', they get some sukriti, of course.

—Is that enough?

Only this is not enough for them. It is not enough to only get some sukriti—if they do not practise properly, how will they get Krishna?

Slowly, slowly people will come...

In your preaching, people will disturb you, many austerities will come to you, you know that even Nityananda Prabhu was beaten by Madhai, but you will see gradually people will come. It is not so easy for a materialistic person to come to Krishna consciousness, but eventually they will come. Among ten million people, there is one wise person, among ten million of wise people, one is a liberated soul, and among ten million of liberated souls there will be one devotee of Krishna. It is not so easy.

Question: When we approach people in the street, sometimes they tell us, "Oh, I know this person, he is a devotee, but he does not follow the rules and regulations." What answer should we give to them?

You can tell them that if somebody does not practise properly, they will get the result. What can you do? Gurudev gives initiation, and some people do practise properly. You can give them an example. If somebody becomes a thief, will you become a thief too? It is not good, so you will not become a thief. If somebody does not follow the line, what can you do? You can say that we try that everybody follows the rules.

If somebody does not follow the rules, does not practise, they cannot preach, but those who follow properly can preach.

You can say also that we all try to follow but everybody can be attacked by the illusory environment, what can we do about that? Not everybody will get to Krishna-loka, not everybody will get proper service, not everybody will get proper mercy. Some people lose their mercy... But we must do our job.

Everybody does some business, but somebody loses their business and somebody's business grows glorious—every business does not run the same. So, everybody does not have the same qualification—everybody has some good qualification and some bad qualification, and we should take their good qualities and reject their bad qualities. We will not see their bad side, we will see good in others.

Somebody is good at preaching, somebody is good at cooking, somebody else is a good pujari—everybody has some good qualification, and we should use everybody for service to the Lord, we should not reject anybody. Five fingers on my one hand are not equal. We are all a family, everybody does not have the same qualification, but we must tolerate, must give honour to them, and give them some advice. This is how we should manage and harmonise our family...

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