The Situation of Devotees in ISKCON

“The situation of these ISKCON devotees is like a person who took a taxi to reach his destination to get some work done there. After reaching the destination, when the taxi driver charged him a lot of money, he asked the driver, “Are you returning to the place where we have come from?” The driver replied, “Yes sir.” The man then asked, “Would you take passengers with you?” The driver replied, “I do not think I can find any person who will go back to my town.” To this the man asked, “If you found someone, how much would you charge?” To this, the driver replied, “Whatever they will pay, I will accept, because I will go back empty anyway.” To this the man said, “Would you take a person even for one tenth of what I paid?” The driver said, “Yes.” To this, the man thought, why not go back for such a cheap price? Thus he climbed in the taxi and returned without fulfilling his goal for which he had gone there in the first place.

The meaning of this analogy is that the goal of a devotee should be to reach the spiritual world. While practicing spiritual life, a devotee may attain some level of spiritual advancement. If he or she becomes mesmerized and allured and falls back to their bad habits because returning to maya is so readily available, then it must be understood that they were never serious devotees in the first place. Those who are sincere and serious in devotional life may sometimes fall back to their bad habits due to certain circumstances, but if such people don’t return to become real devotees again, then it must be understood that their devotion was just a show and they were bogus devotees from the beginning. Simply wearing saffron robes and claiming to be a devotee without fulfilling the ultimate goal of human existence is simply bogus. Such people are no better than normal karmis who are doing everything unscriptural in this world.”

[Sri Krsna Balaram Swamiji, My Mission, KBS0139]