When someone hurts us how can we avoid becoming vengeful and stay focused on Krishna?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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patient and enthusiastic in our devotional practices when we want to do something and it doesn’t work out when somebody hurts us instead of meditating on Krishna we meditate on taking vengeance against that person similarly frustration of desire causes our thoughts to go in that direction instead of staying fixed on Krishna at one level our emotions are just natural occurrences so when when something goes wrong we feel frustrated that’s natural so we are conscious beings as conscious beings we feel some emotions so emotions are just natural inevitable occurrences the problem comes when we let those emotions control our actions say for example I am sitting on this chair and now if there is say a thorn on this chair it will hurt me now I will feel that pain or if there is a nail protruding from that chair if I was sitting on a chair while I was travelling in a train there is a nail protruding from there so now that will hurt me but if that is the only seat that is available and if I give up that seat I have to stand then I may decide I will just move myself a little bit and I will keep sitting over there but if I just give up that seat at that time then okay I might be getting into bigger trouble so just as we will feel physical pain but we don’t let physical pain alone determine our action when a weightlifter tries to lift weights, now lifting a heavy weight causes pain but the weightlifter tolerates that pain because the weightlifter wants to strengthen the muscles wants to achieve a medal so like that just as physical pain is a sensation that comes but with some higher purpose we feel that sensation but we tolerate that sensation the same applies to emotions when things go wrong we will be frustrated if I am lifting a heavy weight somebody tells me your muscles should not feel pain, how can it not feel pain it’s heavy, it’s going to feel pain so like that if something we want to do something which we are really invested in it doesn’t go, it goes wrong don’t feel frustrated, how can I not feel frustrated you know obviously I spend so much time and energy in it it’s frustrating when Prabhupada writes when he was when he was distributing back to Godhead in Indian streets and at one time a cow came and hit him Krishna, why is this happening so you know that was the reaction that came even to Sri Prabhupada but the test of Sri Prabhupada was he continues serving Krishna so though our emotions are just natural responses to life situations the problem is not the emotions the problem is letting those emotions control our actions just as we can tolerate physical sensations by the power of a higher purpose similarly we can tolerate emotions by the power of our higher purpose now the difference however is that sensations because they are physical I will tolerate this and I will move on but because emotions are internal we think I am those emotions so identifying with the emotions happens much more frequently and much more below our understanding level below our perception level subconsciously than identifying with sensations but if we are analytical now this person did like this I am angry with this person I am resentful of this person I want to get even those feelings are fine but you know when there are different there are different anarthas which tempt in different ways lust tempts by promising pleasure anger tempts by promising power if this person did like this I will show them right now beat this person up verbally lash out at the person put them in their place but what happens often anger makes things worse it makes things worse for that person and for me so suppose a snake has bitten me I am feeling pain in my leg at that time I decide how dare the snake bite me the snake is slithering away I run after the snake to pound it to death even if I succeed in pounding that snake to death the poison is spreading in my body and I am going to die so when I am bitten by a snake my priority should not be to get even my priority should be to get safe first I have to remove this poison from my body now after that snake is a danger and it has to be dealt with but afterwards similarly when we are overwhelmed by emotions and the emotions impel us towards a particular reaction our first purpose should be to get back in country to get get safe don’t let that emotion overwhelm us this doesn’t mean we neglect the emotion if that snake is a menace it has to be dealt with but not at the expense of the poison running through my body so first when the emotion comes instead of acting on the emotion we get safe that means we connect with Krishna we pray to Krishna we do some activity which enables us to become absorbed in Krishna it raises us above the control of the emotions after that we acknowledge this has hurt me, this has angered me and we evaluate if what that person has done is wrong we may have to do something to correct it how specifically to act, that is secondary but we need to first set ourselves right with Krishna so rather than letting our emotions govern us we stay in charge we stay in our position as servants of Krishna and then act appropriately in response to the situation that induced that emotion we can acknowledge emotions without acting on the emotions this is the way the emotion wants us to act we may act in some different way for that we need our intelligence so when if somebody comes and starts taking too much of our time, we are talking we are gone somewhere and that person just hangs on to us and says, I don’t have so much time we may be a little polite but we will be firm, I can’t spend so much time on you so we will be quite curved or we will be quite firm if somebody is eating too much of our time physically but when that same person starts eating our time mentally we keep thinking of that person, why did he do that, why did she do that, how could he have done that no, we should think does this person deserve so much of my mental time we think, no I have so many more important things in my life this person has hurt me and I may have to do something to settle the issue but this person doesn’t deserve to monopolize my mental time we think of it that way I have many more important things to do in my life that’s why we won’t we will break that monopoly and we will make sure that we focus our energy on doing that which is important for us so three things I said first is emotions are natural reactions but just as we can tolerate sensations for a higher purpose similarly we can tolerate emotions also for a higher purpose and specifically when the emotion of anger comes at that time, rather than getting even, we need to get safe so we connect with Krishna and then we get safe by that similarly whenever an emotion comes up first we get connected with Krishna, get ourselves right then we acknowledge the emotion and act appropriate not act simply the way the emotion impels us to and lastly if a particular circumstance a particular person is just bugging us we have to think, does this deserve so much of my mental time the answer will be no then we can just fix our mind on something else with a strong purposeful intention Thank you very much Shri Prabhupada Ki