Q186. What is the most practical spiritual advice for today?

What is the value in gaining all the people in the world as your silly face book contact, but you lose your soul (to degradation)? What is the value in having 7 billion followers, but your soul has none? What is the value in gaining many connections in the world, when your soul has no connection to the material world? What is the value in hooking your body to the material world, when you are the soul, which cannot be hooked to a body for long? What is the value in talking non-sense all day, if your soul will be forced to come back in another body to hear back the non-sense?

Immediately close all your silly social media accounts. Minimize the use of cell phones. NEVER take your cell phone to Temples and Kathas. ➢ Don’t give your children (<16 years) a cell phone. ➢ ➢

The purpose of these silly social media accounts is simply to waste valuable time by engaging you in non-sense thoughts and talks. The purpose of the cell phone is simply to engage you in non-sense talk all day, so you waste your days and life. When your mind is occupied in social media and/or cell phone usage, your mind becomes more materialized. Spirituality is opposite of materialism. Stop the nonsense social media and cell phone usage and let your mind focus on the self, the soul. Rather than other people who are completely materialized.

Social media and cell phone usage is all about seeing non-sense, talking non-sense, thoughts of non-sense people and their activities and so on. Basically, everything that is mentioned in the below verse is affected by social media and cell phone usage. “Humility, pridelessness, nonviolence, forgiveness, honesty, simplicity, service to a genuine spiritual master (guru), good thoughts/words and physical cleanliness, steadfastness and self-control, aversion for the objects of sense gratification, absence of ego, constant reflection on the pain and suffering of birth, old age, disease, and death, nonattachment with family members, home, etc., steadiness amid pleasant and unpleasant events, constant and unalloyed devotion to Me [Krishna], taste for solitude, distaste for social gatherings and gossips, steadfastness in acquiring the knowledge of self-realization, and search for the absolute truth— I declare all this to be real knowledge. That which is contrary to this is ignorance. (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-Gita 13.8-12) Drug usage will harm your body, social media and cell phone usage will harm your soul by corrupting your mind. Don’t get addicted to social media and cell phone, get addicted to God. You can only get addicted to one of them. “Just become My devotee, always think of Me, bow down to Me, and worship Me. Then you will come to Me, without fail. I promise you this, as you are very dear to Me.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-Gita 18.65) Stay connected with Krishna, not Facebook. Listen to the Bhagavad-Gita and Srimad-Bhagavatam, not worldly affairs from social media accounts.