Question: What should be our responsibility to family when we are inspiring to join brahmacari ashram?

Jayapataka Swami: This is a young man? Who is thinking to join the brahmacari ashram? And wants to know what he should do for the family? By performing devotional service as a brahmacari, one naturally benefits the family and if you get back to Krsna then 14 generations, 7 previous and 7 subsequent get delivered. But if you can somehow inspire family members to take up chanting and devotional service, that would be ideal. So there is no harm to keep some contact with your family members, try to preach to them, try to encourage them to practice. I was present when Subhag Swami, at that time he was a brahmacari, had joined the temple and apparently his uncle was the famous Indian cricketer. Pinaki Rai (Pankaj Roy?). I don’t know, you may know from the previous age. Anyway, so his mother came up and said, ‘I want my son back, I want my son back!’ He was there, Srila Prabhupada was there and his mother was there. The mother started rolling on the ground, crying, Bengali mother! ‘I want my son! I want my son!’ Srila Prabhupada ‘I am not holding your son! Your son can go!’ ‘Really! Yes,he can go, he is free!’ Then she looked at her son, Subhag and Srila Prabhupada asked him ‘do you want to go home?’ He said, ‘no!’ Ha! So now the mother is satisfied. Her son is a sannyasi, he is a guru, he has done lots of seva for Krsna and he is very kind to his parents and by being a sannyasi also his so many generations are liberated. Of course being a brahmacari is a transitional stage. One may stay as a brahmacari or become a grihasta or one may take sannyas So it is a training program and one spends some days as a brahmacari and then what they want to do will be decided between them and the guru, but there is no force. Everyone is free to do whatever they want.
28-JULY-2019 CHENNAI, INDIA