Why loosen attachment to a devotee family?

The Vānaprastha Adventure, Installment 14

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Now, one might have a bad son or a mean wife, but what if the family members are all good devotees, pleasing and helpful in Kṛṣṇa consciousness? In a family of devotees, Kṛṣṇa is in the center of everything, and everything is devoted to him.

Yet even such devotees are meant to retire from family life. As noted before, Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “In the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement there are many young couples engaged in the Lord’s service. Eventually they are supposed to take vānaprastha, and after the vānaprastha stage the husband may take sannyāsa in order to preach.”¹

Having received the gift of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, we are indebted to our spiritual master and Kṛṣṇa. So at least in the mature stage we are advised to leave family affairs aside and do our best to distribute Kṛṣṇa consciousness to others. In 1968, after Śrīla Prabhupāda had been through a heart attack, gone back to India, and then returned to America, his disciple Madhusūdaṇa Dāsa wrote him a letter suggesting, it seems, that for the sake of health Śrīla Prabhupāda hold back on lecturing. Śrīla Prabhupāda, declining the suggestion, pointedly wrote back, “If I would not have lectured, how you would have come?”²

Leaving the little world

Concerning Lord Caitanya’s acceptance of renounced life, Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura wrote, “He left His little world in His house for the unlimited spiritual world of Kṛṣṇa with man in general.”³ It was in this same spirit that Śrīla Prabhupāda first became a vānaprastha and later accepted sannyāsa.As Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote in a purport to Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam (1.8.41), “A pure devotee cuts off the limited ties of affection for his family and widens his activities of devotional service for all forgotten souls.”

In this book, we should recall, we are not yet talking about sannyasa. We have not yet reached the stage of cutting off all family affection. We are merely talking about loosening it.

At a certain stage, family affection is natural, even for devotees. But family life tends towards comfort and complacency—the same habits, the same routine—and so in later years it tends to hold us back and stand in the way of our doing more. And family life still involves us with the bodily platform—husband and wife, children, grandchildren, relatives. We still have attachments, gross or subtle, in the family circle. And those attachments we want to get free from. We want to transfer our full attachment to Kṛṣṇa. Therefore Kuntīdevī prays to the Lord, “Please cut off my affection for the Vrsnis and the Yadavas—for my father’s family and my husband’s family.” Why? “So that my affection can be completely turned toward you.”⁴

Sooner or later our connection with our family will inevitably be cut off, by death. So before death comes we are meant to detach ourselves from this binding connection. Kardama Muni gave up family life even though his son was the Supreme Lord Himself. And in the Bhāgavatam (7.14.12) it is said that if any man can give up the deep attachment for his wife—the center of life at home—he conquers the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

Setting an example

But let’s suppose that as devotees we’re not materially attached. Though living in family life—in the gṛhastha āśrama—we’re simply attached to Kṛṣṇa. Even then, at the mature stage a sober devotee is advised to move on to the next āśrama, vānaprastha, if only to set an example for others. As Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā (3.21):

yad yad ācarati śreṣṭhas
tat tad evetaro janaḥ
sa yat pramāṇaṁ kurute
lokas tad anuvartate

“Whatever action a respectable leader performs, common people follow. And whatever standards he sets by exemplary acts, all the world pursues.”⁵ In the purport for this verse, Śrīla Prabhupāda includes among “respectable leaders” not only kings but also “the father and the schoolteacher.” For that matter, all devotees are meant to be respectable leaders. And so, following in the footsteps of the great devotees before us, at the mature stage we are advised to move on from family life. If at retirement age our relationship with our devotee family is excellent yet still we adopt vānaprastha life, the example we set will be still more valuable.

Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira’s wife Draupadī was Kṛṣṇa’s pure devotee, and all his other family members were also pure devotees. Yet Śrīla Prabhupāda wrote, “Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira wanted to retire just to set an example for others. As soon as there is some young fellow to look after the household affairs, one should at once retire from family life to uplift oneself to spiritual realization. One should not rot in the dark well of household life till one is dragged out by the will of Yamarāja.” Retired old gentlemen, Śrila Prabhupāda continued, should take lessons from Mahārāja Yudhiṣṭhira and “leave home for spiritual realization before being forcefully dragged away to meet death.”⁶

The example of Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura

Householders reluctant to move on from family life might wish to cite the example of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, an ideal householder saint. “He never gave up householder life, so why should we?” Yet in his last years Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura accepted the dress of a bābājī and lived as a complete renunciant.⁷ And more to the point, we’re not Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura. Nor should we make him the patron saint for our material attachments. Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura was fully attached to Kṛṣṇa and fully detached from everything material. From the life of Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura, that is what we should learn.⁸

As Śrīla Prabhupāda writes, “[A] person whose main concern is Kṛṣṇa consciousness, even if he is entrapped in household life, should always be ready to leave household enticement as soon as possible.⁹

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Notes:

1Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Madhya 24.259, purport. Bhāgavatam 4.13.46, purport.

2 Letter to Madhusūdaṇa, January 24, 1968.

3 Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu: His Life and Precepts.

4 Bhāgavatam 1.8.41‒42.

5 I take the translation “respectable leader” from Śrīla Prabhupāda’s word-for-word meanings. Śrīla Prabhupāda used the same term (rather than “a great man”) in his original dictated translation.

6 Bhāgavatam 1.15.37, purport.

7 Rūpa Vilāsa Dāsa, Seventh Goswami, chapter 25.

8 Śrīla Bhaktivinoda Ṭhākura himself wrote in his Bhaktyāloka (Chapter 10) that one should not use exceptional examples as an excuse for abandoning general rules. He mentions Jaḍa Bharata and Dhruva Mahārāja. Jaḍa Bharata never took initiation, but this doesn’t mean we should not. Similarly, Dhruva Mahārāja went to Dhruvaloka in his material body, but we shouldn’t waste time hoping we will too.

9 Bhāgavatam 3.23.49, purport.

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This is part of a draft

This is an excerpt from a new book I have in the works—The Vānaprastha Adventure, a guide to retirement in spiritual life. While I’m working on it, I’ll be posting my draft here, in installments. I invite your comments, questions, and suggestions.