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Question: I am engaged in Kṛṣṇa consciousness through the gṛhastha āśrama. How will I properly and gradually become detached from family at the right time and take vanaprasta or go to some ISKCON temple and completely surrender my life for Kṛṣṇa?

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Jayapatākā Swami: If your wife is favorable in your devotional service then it is not necessary to give up family in this way. I don’t know how old you are. The vanaprastha can still be practiced with husband and wife. But one has to be completely freed from sex life in vanaprastha life, but they can stay with their wife. Sannyāsa is where you are completely renounced from your family life. Anyway, as a gṛhastha, Lord Caitanya said, whether one is a gṛhastha or whether one is not a gṛhastha, they should chant Hare Kṛṣṇa—gṛhe thāko vane thāko sadā hari bole ḍāko – whether you are in the house or forest chant the names of Hari all the time. So as a gṛhastha you have many responsibilities, wife, children, etc. to maintain and take care of household expenses. So you have to see that all your children become devotees, because that is the future of our movement.
17-April-2021 Śrīdhāma Māyāpur, India