The lazy and crazy

Trying to spread Krsna Consciousness without the necessary knowledge and realization often can create harm.

In the material world, there is duality. Some people are intelligent, others unintelligent. Some are active and others are lazy, some sane and others crazy, and so on. Amongst devotees, there are also distinctions; there are kanista devotees, madhyama devotees, and uttama devotees.

The uttama devotees are the ones who can see beyond material duality. They see the pure soul and not the body, and thus they can understand that actually everyone is an eternal servant of Krsna. Not only are they eternal servants of Krsna, but they are dear to Him, so much so that He is present in their bodies as Paramatma. Uttama devotees are the ones who actually see the highest level of reality. However, because they don't see material duality, they also don't preach, preferring instead to do their solitary bhajan. This is, however, a platform that can't be imitated. Or we are on it or not.

The madhyama devotee is the one who sees material duality but sees it in connection with Krsna. He can distinguish between different classes of people, and thus he understands to whom he should preach and to whom he should not. The madhyama devotee is guided by SB 11.2.46: "An intermediate or second-class devotee, called madhyama-adhikārī, offers his love to the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is a sincere friend to all the devotees of the Lord, shows mercy to ignorant people who are innocent and disregards those who are envious of the Supreme Personality of Godhead."

A madhyama devotee understands that although everyone is a soul, some types of conditioning are favorable for the practice of devotional service and others not, and thus he prioritizes persons who can successfully adopt the path, and avoids persons who are too deep in ignorance to value it. He preaches to the innocent class of people, but avoids staunch atheists, for example, as recommended in the scriptures.

Srila Prabhupada explains that there are four classes of people: lazy intelligent, active intelligent, lazy foolish, and active foolish. The first two classes can offer a lot to our movement and help enormously to spread Krsna Consciousness. The lazy intelligent is the one who is in the mode of goodness, and although not particularly active, is good at maintaining things. The active intelligent is the passionate and talented, pious person who can get things going.

The lazy, foolish can also contribute to some degree, since although he is foolish, he is not active and therefore doesn't do harm. This is the type who is happy living in his house and coming to the Sunday festivals, or sometimes even living in a temple and doing the basics. This is a person without great aspirations in spiritual life, but with a pious disposition.

The active foolish, however, is very dangerous. He is passionate, but because he is deep in ignorance always uses this tendency in destructive ways. This is the type who may try to be a devotee at some point, but very quickly falls under the weight of his arrogance and quickly starts to attack devotees and our movement as a whole. This class of people can cause a great deal of harm.

There are also other distinctions. There is the pious and the impious, the lazy and the crazy. Some are crazy but lazy, and others are lazy but not crazy. These types will never be able to do anything very valuable, but at least they will not do much harm. They are welcome as long as they live in their houses and not in the temple. However, the crazy person who is not lazy is very dangerous, because he can do all kinds of nonsense. In the years I've been practicing, I've seen a number of cases of this class of people creating havoc and doing so much harm to countless devotees. This type we should keep as far as possible because when they come close to devotees, they just commit offenses. Better to help them at a distance in indirect ways.

Madhyama devotees can distinguish between these different classes of people and use their intelligence to see who can be engaged in devotional service and, at the same time, avoid people who can be harmful.

The kanista devotee lacks this understanding and can therefore commit many mistakes that can create problems for other devotees later. One may start bringing many crazy and lazy people to the temple and thus involuntarily contribute to the lowering of the standards, for example. One may try to spread the mercy "unrestrictedly" and save all the Jagai and Madhays, but often the result is just chaos. In the same way, the kanista may try to imitate the standard of spiritual practice of the uttama adhikari, but without the same realization, he will also just create harm for himself and others.

We should all try to be madhyama devotees, working to spread Krsna Consciousness, but doing it with knowledge and realization. We should try to surpass as soon as possible the chaotic and unsafe kanista platform, becoming effective in practicing and spreading Krsna Consciousness. In this way, we will have a chance to keep ourselves on the right path and help ourselves as well as others. To just try to spread Krsna Consciousness and "distribute the mercy unrestrictedly" without the necessary knowledge and realization often can create harm.

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