Is minimizing distress not like pushing problems under the carpet?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
open our heart, he will give his mercy to us. Last question. So, Lord Ram minimised the distress of everyone when he was exiled.
So, is minimising distress like pushing the problem under the carpet? Sometimes issues have to be addressed. No. When I talk about minimising distress, let me give a medical metaphor to illustrate this.
Say if a patient is in pain, and the doctor says, the doctor becomes horrified. My doctor says, you have got cancer, you want to die in one month. Now, if it’s serious, the doctor has to tell that.
The doctor also has to tell it in a way that doesn’t crush the spirit of the patient. And the patient, the disease is curable, but it is serious. The doctor has to communicate the gravity of the disease.
At the same time, the doctor also has to encourage the patient. So, pushing the problem under the carpet means is denying that there is a disease. But being a distressed maximiser means that, you know, increasing the panic of the patient.
So, the patient, we have to communicate to the patient that the problem is serious. But you have to communicate in such a way that the patient doesn’t feel hopeless. The patient feels hopeful.
So, when we talk about in practical real life, minimising the distress, that means that say, somebody comes and complains, you know, oh, this person did like that to me. Now, yes, we have to understand, yes, I understand that you’re feeling distressed. At the same time, if I say, like that only, you know, so all people, people are just rotten.
If you say like that, then what will happen is, you know, how are we going towards the solution? We understand their pain. It’s not that we deny their pain. At the same time, see, when Ram was telling Kaushalya that, you know, Ram did not tell Kaushalya, you know, you should not feel pain.
He was simply, what he was trying to do is, don’t feel angry towards Dashrath. He was not telling Lakshman that he should not feel pain. He said, don’t feel angry towards Lakshman.
Dashrath is not doing it because of infatuation. He’s also obliged. He’s doing it reluctantly.
So, minimising others’ distress means that we respond in a way that helps to solve the problem or helps to at least not aggravate the problem. So, if we can understand someone else’s perspective, help them to see from their perspective, so that the feeling that there is a victim-victimiser relationship, this person is so bad and I am a victim, that feeling can be minimised. So, it’s not that we deny the problem.
It’s not that we push the problem down the carpet. There was once a senior leader in our movement who fell away. Satyarupa Maharaj writes in his Life with the Perfect Master book that he was a very prominent leader at that time and many in the devotee community were disturbed by that.
Satyarupa Maharaj said, I am also disturbed. And then I was thinking, how could he have done that? He used to give such classes and he could do this. How could he do that? And when he went to Prabhupada and Prabhupada heard it, it was very great.
He says, the illusory energy is so powerful. So, Prabhupada took the focus away from the person to the principal. Rather than thinking, how could he have done like this? Prabhupada said, the illusory energy is very powerful.
We all have to be cautious. So, that way, he did. So, he said that instead of seeing that as just a person-to-person issue, that the same maya which made him do that, maya is there.
We have to protect ourselves from maya. The tactic shall try the process of bhakti, whatever it is, whatever aspect is required at that point. But that way, basically, when we say minimize the distress means that we don’t function at the same level of consciousness, the level that they are, and aggravate.
We actually help them to see from a higher perspective. So, somebody’s rajoguna, tamoguna, you know, we also descend into rajoguna and tamoguna, and we make problems worse. By sattvaguna, we understand them, but we also help them understand what is happening.
That’s how we can maturely deal with the problem. Does that address your question?