Right livelihood

“A house­holder should com­fort­ably main­tain his depen­dents, either with money that comes of its own accord or with that gath­ered by the hon­est exe­cu­tion of one’s duties. Sb. 11.17.51” (p 78)

The ques­tion of right liveli­hood is impor­tant for one on the spir­i­tual path. Most of us do not have enough “money that comes of its own accord” to sup­port our­selves, what to speak of our depen­dents. There­fore, most of us must engage in “the hon­est exe­cu­tion of one’s duties” and hope to be able to make a decent liv­ing doing so. Blessed are the car­pen­ters, doc­tors, lawyers, busi­ness per­sons, etc. who have mar­ketable skills that earn a good income and are in high demand. Oth­ers may not be so for­tu­nate and have to strug­gle to make a mea­ger liv­ing doing things that do not suit their nature.

While we do not have a rigid caste sys­tem that we like to acknowl­edge, we do have a caste sys­tem indeed. One’s caste is deter­mined by one’s innate qual­i­ties, upbring­ing, edu­ca­tion, social posi­tion, wealth, skills and tal­ents. Some are labor­ers, oth­ers farm­ers and busi­ness per­sons, oth­ers war­riors and admin­is­tra­tors, while oth­ers are priests and teach­ers. All are nec­es­sary for the smooth run­ning of soci­ety. All should be ade­quately com­pen­sated for their work. There­fore, I have been a strong advo­cate for the liv­ing wage move­ment and wel­fare rights for those unable to work. No one should be with­out neces­si­ties in a world as abun­dant as ours.

As for myself, I became a spir­i­tual teacher at age twenty under the direc­tion of my spir­i­tual mas­ter, A.C. Bhak­tivedanta Swami. I taught world-wide for eight years. When I left his orga­ni­za­tion due to its cor­rup­tion, I con­tin­ued to teach inde­pen­dently. I often had to take other jobs to sup­port myself and my family.

When I became a pas­tor and teacher in the United Church of Christ, after much edu­ca­tion, test­ing, over-sight, time and expense, I felt I found the solu­tion to being a spir­i­tual teacher with integrity, sta­bil­ity and a good income. How­ever, after eleven years, I decided the churches I served were too con­ser­v­a­tive for me. I resigned and began this inde­pen­dent min­istry in 2002.

Since then, I brought my Radha Krishna devo­tion to the fore­front again. Rather than adopt­ing the role of a tra­di­tional Indian guru, I used the model of a Catholic spir­i­tual direc­tor, a spir­i­tual guide or a holis­tic, spir­i­tual teacher and prac­ti­tioner. I am an expe­ri­enced reli­gious pro­fes­sional who has been trained, tested and approved for spir­i­tual lead­er­ship in Hin­duism and Chris­tian­ity. I main­tain high eth­i­cal standards.

There must be a rec­i­p­ro­cal give and take rela­tion­ship between a teacher and dis­ci­ple. Some gurus ask their dis­ci­ples to give up every­thing else and fol­low them, to fol­low their orders strictly and do every­thing they say, to serve and wor­ship them, and to pro­vide money. I paid a high price in terms of time, self-sacrifice, effort and money to get the spir­i­tual wis­dom I accu­mu­lated over a lifetime.

I try to make the path as easy as pos­si­ble for my fol­low­ers. I pro­vide free teach­ings on my web­site and also set up a fee for ser­vice sched­ule and posted there. This enables a clean, pro­fes­sional rela­tion­ship between stu­dent and teacher with­out a lot of entan­gle­ments. Of course, for those who wish and are qual­i­fied, a more tra­di­tional teacher-disciple rela­tion­ship is avail­able. I do not want to exclude any­one who wishes to sin­cerely learn from me because my fees are too high. I am will­ing to nego­ti­ate a slid­ing scale fee for those who can­not pay what I ask. I am open to barter. I put a cou­ple of dona­tion but­tons on my web­site for those who wish to do so, and in this way, money can come “of its own accord.”

What type of rela­tion­ship is best for you? I would just as soon be able to teach freely, with­out charge, yet I have to earn a liv­ing. How can we work together?

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 24th, 2006 at 10:49 and is filed under Steve's Musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.