Question: To live in the society, you have to do something all the time, even if you don’t want that. Is it possible to get free of it or the only way is to go to the mountains and live separately as a hermit?
Answer: No, going to the mountains is not the answer. If everybody went to the mountains, the mountains would be crowded. So the art of Bhakti yoga is the art of learning how to do whatever you need to do in your life, but to do it as service to the Supreme Lord. It is a very practical philosophy. It’s not a philosophy of going to the forest. It’s the philosophy of bringing the Supreme Lord into your consciousness, into your heart, into your life, and doing what you do as an offering to Him.
But again, there’s a system that has to be followed. In other words, you don’t just keep doing the same thing you’re doing if some of the things you’re doing aren’t a part of that system. So you have to harmonize things, you have to adjust things. However you can still have your families, you still have your work, you still have your educational systems, you still have recreation, you still have the basic things of life, but now correctly structured and done. And that does not contaminate you, that liberates you. This is the true art of living.