Shouldn’t love for Krishna soften devotees’ heart and make them gentler?

Anwser Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So shouldn’t people love for Krishna that is their ultimate purpose shouldn’t that soften their heart and help them come closer help them become more gentler and sensitive people see our vision of the ultimate purpose may be the same but our understanding of how that purpose is to be implemented may vary so broadly speaking in the Vedic culture there is Shastra and Shastra so Shastra is used by Kshatriyas to discipline Shastra is used by Ramanas to educate both are meant to establish Dharma but they are different so like that different people Ramanas will try to correct things in a particular way Kshatriyas will try to correct things in a different way so even when people have accepted Krishna consciousness as their ultimate purpose the way they will implement it will vary from person to person it depends a lot on one’s nature many of the people who are very cutting in their approach, confrontational, cutting one is it is largely because of their past nature and one other more particularly problematic thing for our movement is that many such people derive their justification from Prabhupada’s strong statements Prabhupada was like that, we have to be like this so I gave a seminar on cultivating non-judgmental attitude in Brisbane a three part seminar Brisbane Australia so we want to go, we haven’t been to Australia actually I saw your videos so this devotee said that I’ll finish so after I gave the seminar I put it on my website and one devotee wrote to me that I saw your seminar I heard one of them I have looked in Vedas, there is not a single place where Prabhupada uses the word non-judgmental so are you inventing something new and he says Madhyamadhikar is meant to judge discriminate so then I had a long discussion, he is a very senior devotee so I wrote back and I explained that ok Prabhupada doesn’t use the word non-judgmental but Prabhupada is not a single use of the word judgmental also so basically that word is not there in Prabhupada’s vocabulary that’s why the concept is concerned certainly we are meant to know who is at what level and deal with appropriately we deal differently with devotees, with materialistic people with envious people that is true but that is in terms of our inner discrimination that may not necessarily be in terms of the way we deal with them the way we talk with them, the way we conduct ourselves with them there are many cases where the Shastra talks about being sensitive speak in a non-agitating way I gave an example like that but the point which I am making is that sometimes devotees so then I gave several instances of Prabhupada himself how he was very sensitive, how he was very gentle so then I actually did a search of the whole Veda ways and how many times does Prabhupada use the word fools and rascals and how does Prabhupada, how many times does he use the word Krishna and soul so most of the use of fools and rascals comes in his personal conversations with his intimate disciples in the Veda ways especially in his published books books which are meant to be published as books science of self-realization, genius of discovery these are not intended to be published as books they are lectures at different places compiled together as books Bhagavatam, C.C., Bhagavad Gita, Anody Vishwamitra these are books published as books you take that, in all of them Prabhupada uses the word fools and rascals maybe 10-15 times and Krishna comes like 25,000 times soul comes 20,000 times something like that so sometimes based on these statements so we may get a picture of Prabhupada, that Prabhupada was cutting and that’s how we should be but Prabhupada may have been like that on some occasions but that is not the essence of Prabhupada the essence of Prabhupada was he did what it took to connect with Krishna so in our situation, in our place whatever connects us with Krishna, we should be doing that but some devotees do feel that they are being faithful to Prabhupada by being cutting and when that happens then then it becomes very difficult I remember this in Texas, I saw on a car, a poster probably put by the atheists on their car bumper oh God please save me from your creatures so when the creatures become self righteous it becomes very unfortunate normally God saves us through his creatures save me from the creatures so I would say that just have to recognize that there is a large variety of people who are serving Krishna and rather than seeing how can somebody serving Krishna be like this I think you know how can Krishna, how wonderful Krishna is that he accepts service even from a person like this rather than shifting from that person we shift the focus to Krishna I think how wonderful Krishna is that he can accept service even from a person like this but that doesn’t necessarily mean we all have to become like this or that person is a standard we have to see what inspires us and we have to see what is the best for getting people closer to Krishna but it’s best not to best to shift the focus from that person to Krishna’s accommodating nature not their cutting nature and we move onwards in our work otherwise it can be if we don’t have this kind of discrimination then we can either become insecure am I not doing the right thing should I also be doing like that which we just can’t do if that is not our nature or we become judgmental and become offensive why they are doing like that but I felt that it’s just that they are doing it because that’s what they are convinced this is the way I am being faithful to Prabhupada this is the way I am being faithful to Krishna and they can draw from Prabhupada’s example certain codes by which they can justify that and there are people who are attracted by that kind of presentation also so I would say that I see such people as evidences of Krishna’s all attractiveness and be satisfied with that