Opportunities and perils of living in holy places

Many devotees go to live in Mayapur or Vrindavana and see a decline in their health. That’s one of the main reasons many end up deciding to move back. How can we avoid that?

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Many devotees go to live in Mayapur or Vrindavana and see a decline in their health. That’s one of the main reasons many end up deciding to move back, many times after buying apartments and making other arrangements to live for good in the Holy Dhāma. How can we avoid that?

There are several points we should be careful about.

The first point is that our health can decline quickly when we are not at peace mentally. Mind and body are interconnected, and imbalances in the mind can easily lead to health problems. Moving to a holy place is a change that can’t be underestimated.

Most of us live on our own and have the freedom to see or not see devotees wherever we want. This allows us to go at our own pace, and alternate between fulfilling others’ expectations and having our personal space. We may spend a week at some festival waking up early every day for mangala-artik and doing everything strictly, but we may spend a few weeks afterward just chilling at home and doing whatever we want. We thus alternate between times when we do everything “correctly” according to others’ expectations, and times were we just relax out of the public view.

Going to live amongst devotees in the holy dhāma, in an environment that can be much more judgmental and with a much smaller buffer of personal space, can make things harder. If one continues to pretend to be on a higher platform than he or she really is, pretending to follow rules that are actually not natural at one’s level, this may lead to a process of burnout. To avoid that, it is better to just be what we are, start to care less for what others will think, and just settle into a rhythm that is natural for us.

Living in the holy dhāma also implies great changes in terms of climate, environment, diet, and so on that can have a much bigger influence on our lives than we initially expected. When one is on the spiritual platform, such changes become insignificant and the spiritual environment becomes the main factor, but when we are not so transcendental, it may bear down heavily on us. If that’s the case, it’s important not to be fanatical and spend some time and money adjusting the situation according to necessary. One may get an air-conditioner, spend more on foods that are familiar, make a few changes in the house, and so on. Even in Caitanya Lila, we see cases of devotees who would go to Vrindavana and would need to procure rice from the east, since they could not get used to the diet based on chapatis and rotis that was common there at the time.

Another change that can’t be underestimated is related to work. Even though we may complain about our work, it is still a great part of our lives. We may not like all of it or even dislike most of it, but there are always certain aspects of our work and a few friends that we actually value. More than that, our work is part of our identity and often gives us some sense of purpose in life. When we leave this work to move to a holy place, it’s important to find other services and occupations that replace that. There are cases of devotees who just become frustrated with the material world and go to the holy dhama to just sit and chant, but this rarely works. Devotees who are genuinely on a spiritual platform can do that, but most of us need some occupation that gives us some sense of purpose. Without it, we may literally go nuts. We come then to the classical problem of finding a service that is according to our nature, which we already discussed in a few of the previous articles.

Another important factor is to adjust our expectations. We often think that holy places are perfect communities where everyone is perfectly Krsna-conscious. It is not. Many materialistic persons go to live in holy places to make money or pursue other interests. One of the reasons is that holy places are visited by many pilgrims, which creates many economic opportunities. One who goes to a holy place just to make money usually gets the short stick in terms of spiritual development and ends up developing many negative qualities. Just as holy places make saints saintlier, they also make the materialists even more vicious, and the presence of such materialists makes the environment difficult for everyone. As long as we are not tuned up to Krsna, we will notice all the wrongdoings, and this can disturb us.

It’s also a mistake to think that holy places like Vrindavana or Mayapur are perfect communities. They, of course, can be considered perfect in the sense that Krsna is worshipped and many pure devotees live there, but they are still mostly composed of imperfect individuals, such as ourselves. They also don’t work as communities in the sense we may expect. It’s more like a big city. There are many communities inside, but the place itself doesn’t work as a community. After moving to the city, one still has to find it’s peers there, otherwise it can be a very lonely place.

Finally, living in a holy place is a kind of race against time. Holy places, especially Vrindavana and Mayapur, are very powerful places that push us in the direction of Krsna. The holy place presses and stretches us, pushing us to gradually become free of our material attachments, critical mentality, and other negative material traces and reconnect with the spiritual platform. The problem is that if we can’t keep on the pace, the holy place gradually creates a situation that is uncomfortable for us. When confronted with that, many make the choice of going back to the material world. There is thus a delicate balance between being honest with ourselves and doing things at a pace that works for us and being negligent with our practice. If we go too much to one side or the other, the result may not be good.

In conclusion, although we are free to make concessions and try to adjust things to a certain extent, it’s important not to become too complacent in our spiritual practice. Living in a holy place brings us a lot of facilities for making quick spiritual advancement. We must make good use of the opportunity, attending the morning programs as much as possible, serving other Vaiṣnavas, and, especially, associating with pure devotees who reside in, or visit these places, while at the same time avoiding the many materialists, sahajiyās, and impersonalists who also live there. If we can do that, we can tune in to the spiritual platform and become part of the holy place, instead of just another intruder.

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