Obstacles in Bhakti

1. Obstacles in Bhakti Arrogant Pride that comes from material opulence

2. Arrogant Pride rooted in material opulence

3. Remedy • Poverty – no facility to enjoy as trees • , or in terms which are particularly relevant to ourselves as aspiring devotees, simple living and high thinking.

4. What is Austerity? • Voluntary sacrifice for the satisfaction of Krsna • Process of Bhakti includes Austerity SB 11.14.20: My dear Uddhava, the unalloyed devotional service rendered to Me by My devotees brings Me under their control. I cannot be thus controlled by those engaged in mystic yoga, Sāńkhya philosophy, pious work, Vedic study, austerity or renunciation.

5. Austerity must be pleasing to Krsna • Improper austerity can lead to hardheartedness and false pride • When austerity creates pride, then that austerity is a distraction itself.  • It’s the Bhakti, not the austerity that connects us to Krishna Goswamis were humble because they did their austerities out of love.

6. Maharaja Ambarisha • “The king of this planet, MahārājaAmbarīṣa, thus performed devotional service to the Lord and in this endeavor practiced severe austerity. Always satisfying the Supreme Personality of Godhead by his constitutional activities, he gradually gave up all material desires.” – Sb 9.4.26 • MahārājaAmbarīṣa gave up all attachment to household affairs, wives, children, friends and relatives, to the best of powerful elephants, to beautiful chariots, carts, horses and inexhaustible jewels, and to ornaments, garments and an inexhaustible treasury. He gave up attachment to all of them, regarding them as temporary and material. “- SB 9.4.27

8. Maharaja Ambarisha • "Severe austerities in the practice of devotional service are of many varieties. For example, in worshiping the Deity in the temple there are certainly laborious activities. Śrī-vigrahārādhana-nitya-nānāśṛńgāra-tan-mandira-mārjanādau **. One must decorate the Deity, cleanse the temple, bring water from the Ganges and Yamunā, continue the routine work, perform ārati many times, prepare first-class food for the Deity, prepare dresses and so on. In this way, one must constantly be engaged in various activities, and the hard labor involved is certainly an austerity. Similarly, the hard labor involved in preaching, preparing literature, preaching to atheistic men and distributing literature door to door is of course an austerity (tapo-yuktena). Tapodivyaḿputrakā. Such austerity is necessary. Yenasattvaḿśuddhyet. By such austerity in devotional service, one is purified of material existence (kāmānśanairjahau). Indeed, such austerity leads one to the constitutional position of devotional service. In this way one can give up material desires, and as soon as one is freed from material desires, he is free from the repetition of birth and death, old age and disease."

9. Austerities- two levels • External- Physical • Internal- Mind and its artificial needs We need some austerity in our lives to reduce the distractions of the material inclinations of the body and mind, so that we can fix our body and mind in the loving remembrance of Krishna, in our service for Him and meditation upon Him. That is austerity. We have to do that because we are so much distracted and diverted.