How is it possible that a sincere devotee even after many years of strict sadhana following, regular chanting of prescribed rounds and intense engagement in devotional service can face crisis so severe that he might even give up in despair his practice or leave the association of devotees?

Obviously there is something missing. Despite the fact that our chanting is not of the best quality and we make it barely out of the offensive zone to the purifying zone, there is one element which is most essential. It could be formulated in one single question:

Are we rightly situated?

Arjuna found himself in despair. As a softhearted devotee he tried to retreat from what he saw coming. He thought the position he was in according to his varna and asrama was mundane and a cause for finding himself facing his relatives in an upcoming battle. And so he thought to take to the path of renunciation planning to take sannyas. It was HIS idea of sannyas. As we all know, Lord Krsna didn’t approve.

And so even today we find many many devotees roaming around, assigning themselves to various positions and services, trying to do something useful for Srila Prabhupada according what they think could be useful. Good devotees... in wrong positions. And so good devotees become bad devotees and happy devotees become agitated devotees.

Once upon the time we used to have in North Europe a very empowered GBC. Tons of books got produced and distributed, (more during his management in his zone as during Srila Prabhupada’s presence on the whole planet!), temples were established, devotees joined, restaurants flourished... but he himself didn’t finally flourish. Why? He said it himself in one of his lectures. A statement which rang in my ears like an alarm clock and never stopped ringing.

"It seems that we have many problems, but actually we have only one problem: we are not rightly situated."

Little we knew at that time that he was talking about himself. Three times he tried to approach the GBC body with a desperate request to be relieved from his duties and allowed to get married. Sometimes he was allowed to do so and changed his mind, sometimes he was not allowed to do so out of fear to compromise the status of the others. Finally, material nature and his growing disease brought the whole display of his personal schizophrenia to the end and he went mad, committing the final guru aparadha by daring to criticize His own spiritual master. And so the mercy was withdrawn and he ended up being simply a shadow of himself, struggling with the same old question: "Who am I?" until today.

Seeing such an amazing example of an amazing devotee getting into amazing trouble is a lesson for life. Once one obtains to identify oneself with institutional designations and gives up one’s own ideas about ones varna and asrama, life gets easy.

It’s so obvious who of us should serve in terms of his conditioning. It will be revealed by time and the response of other devotees. Time is Krsna and Krsna’s statement is ultimate. It doesn’t matter what we think, the nature will talk to us. And so will devotees we meet on the way. To have a spiritual master who is himself rightly situated and can give potent counsel and guidance in this matter is a luxury not to be missed. And so with a long term vision we have to settle down in a situation appropriate to us and our body. Performing the duties of another one, even perfectly, is hypocrisy. Srila Prabhupada is stressing this point on many occasions. (Like example 25. 2. 1976 in Mayapur, 26. 9. 1973 in Mumbai and of course in all the appropriate B. G. purports).

Once getting a glimpse of my struggle to become real I exclaimed in front of the very same troubled GBC: "It took me fifteen years of intense book distribution... just to understand my varna! He looked at me while smiling, clapped his hands and said: "Bravo! Most people don’t get it their whole life". It seems that he was right at this point.

And so individually and collectively we may lose our credibility as we try to impose upon the public that we are something we are not. People may not understand our philosophy, but they do understand instinctively hypocrisy while living in it and with it all the time. And so when they see our devotees masquerading as brahmanas, our sannyasees masquerading as renunciater while being emotionally and financially dependent on their followers, when they see our vaishyas being crooks and our kshatriyas running away in despair after failing to become despots and our brahmanas becoming melancholic old men while retreating into some sort of underground... how can they take seriously shelter in this movement which is supposed to be identical with Srila Prabhupada’s mission and His Divine Personality?

There is one process to become real. It is very fast, very efficient and very painful for those who think they are somebody they are not:

That process is called sankirtan-book distribution. Only here pretense is punished instantly, the modes we operate under will be revealed gradually and the point of absolute surrender can be reached finally. Outside of that pretense is easy. I believe this to be one of the reason why Srila Prabhupada wanted book distribution to be basis of His movement.

One can fool few for long time, many for short time, but at the end one cannot fool everybody forever.

Only a rightly situated devotee can be fully effective. It is duty of every manager to be rightly situated and see to it that others are rightly situated. Then our chanting and our practice of bhakti yoga can take its full effect.