Understanding how our mind makes us misunderstand 2 – Misunderstanding ourselves

[Retreat on Instincts, Impulses, Intelligence at Melbourne, Australia]

PPT:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, use the power point when it comes. So, I talked till now about how the mind makes us misunderstand ourselves. So, in this session I will talk about how the mind makes us misunderstand others and I will try to keep this session little short.
We will have some question answers here. I know many of you may be having questions and in the last session we will have more question answers. So, the mind is present inside us and it is a translator of the experiences that we have.
So, we do not just observe the things around us. We observe things as they are processed through our mind. So, for example, what is the mind? It does a in quick fixes as it looks for a quick solution.
So, while dealing with people our mind fixes labels on them. We observe a particular person, we see how they interact maybe a few times and then it fixes like this person is lazy, this person is a glutton and sometimes the mind it is very peculiar. If I over eat, I was hungry.
Somebody else over eats, it is a glutton. If I oversleep, I was tired. He oversleeps, so lazy.
So, the mind has a tendency to reinforce its ideas. That means if I have a negative opinion about someone, then I will always look for whatever will reinforce that opinion and that way we see that label and we reinforce that label again and again and labels can be very detrimental because when we label others at that time, we push them into a defensive mode. I will come to that part of it later, but basically the issue goes off and we are left dealing with the label.
So, you are always processing things or this person like this, that is why they were something like this. So, that label becomes the filter through which we see all the other person’s actions. And when that label is often partial or wrong, then we misunderstand others.
Recently, I got a Google voice on phone number when I was in America and Google voice has a voice transcription facility. I mean somebody sends a voice message. It comes as an audio, it also comes as a voice message.
So, I got quite a few funny messages. So, howdy cash, when is it coming? So, this was a message I got. Actually, the message was that I heard Hare Krishna, when are you coming? So, the second was Hare Kicking, Death Calling, please call as soon as possible.
So, it was Hare Krishna, Dev Calling, please call back as soon as possible. So, Death Calling. So, now at one level, reading the message is much faster.
To hear, you can read a message, a three minute message, I can read it in three minute voice message, I can read in 30 seconds. So, naturally, if it came as a written word, it’s much easier to read. But if in the process of writing, it has come wrong, it leads to complete misunderstanding.
So, sometimes something may be more easily accessible, but it may be less accurate. So, there is accessibility that is important. But there is also accuracy that is more important.
So, generally, the labels that we put on people, they make their behavior more accessible to us. It helps us to make sense, okay, this person like this, because of it, the person will be like that. But sometimes, what we gain in accessibility, we lose much more in accuracy.
So, if somebody comes late, and I may understand, oh, this person just doesn’t, doesn’t come on time. So, we may not take it personally, it’s not that they disrespect me, their habit of not coming on time, this person is not punctual. So, sometimes it may, the labels, if we use them to gain better understanding of people, that may be helpful.
But many times, in trying to fit people according to labels, what happens is, first, based on their behavior, we determine some labels. But then, everything that they do, we try to fit into that label. And then it becomes a problem.
So, what we need is that we separate the label from the issue. And observe the person for who they are, and try to understand why they are acting the way they are acting. So, as I said, giving examples, somebody may be eating a lot.
But again, like I told earlier, our attachments are results of our unmet needs, the misdirected expressions. The same may be applicable for someone else. Some people are very aggressive and abrasive, just speak so harshly.
Now, see, why is this person so harsh? But that may just be that person’s way of, they may have been hurt by someone in the past, and they just want to keep people at a distance. That aggression may just be a facade for protection. So, basically, when people act in particular ways, and we assign labels to them, then we limit our understanding of them.
So, somebody may be lazy, somebody is not doing something. Come on, do this. This is sluggish, this takes a hundred, they take a long time to do, which takes a small time for us.
This person is so lazy. They may not be lazy, they may just lack the confidence. I can’t do it, and they don’t want to admit, I can’t do it, I don’t know how to do it.
And if I don’t do it, maybe you will tell someone else to do it, and I’ll get free from it. So, there is a lot going on when the way people act doesn’t match with the way we want them to act. It is not just that they don’t care for us, or they are of a particular nature.
So, when we want to pursue things, we have to understand that the mind is like this, a Google voice message transcriber. It gives us labels by which we can assess quickly, but often it misunderstands, and it makes us misunderstand. So, if a message doesn’t make sense, if the transcription doesn’t make sense, I may use the transcription, but if the transcription doesn’t make sense, then I have to go back and hear the voice message actually, what it is.
So, I used it for some time, and so many messages were coming wrong, I just deleted the whole thing. I said, let me hear the voice messages only, because every time you get a message, try to make sense of it, and then even after it makes sense, you wonder, is this the right word, or was there something else over here. So, better that we can’t get rid of the mind, but we need to come more, again in our perception of others, we need to come more to the mode of goodness.
So, think, as I said, passion, ignorance. Thinking in the mode of goodness means separating the emotion from the situation. Separating the emotion from the situation means, let’s say somebody was supposed to come at a particular time, and they don’t come at time, and they become angry, and become angry, and then, and finally, we contact them, you are so irresponsible.
Now, all our anger comes out at that time. Now, the anger may be justified, but if you want to resolve the issue, you have to find out what made that person made. So, if you want to see in goodness, it’s not that we have to reject the emotion, but you have to separate the two.
I acknowledge the emotion. Acknowledge the emotion means, yeah, I am feeling angry right now. I can’t wish away my own emotion, but I try to understand, acknowledge the emotion, and then try to understand, okay, what was the reality.
Sometimes, we may be, we may be assigning some motive to someone, because of which that person didn’t come. But, that person may be having some entirely different, different thing going on. I mean, last time when I had, we had the retreat, I mentioned this incident.
How many of you were there for the last retreat, which we had? Okay, very good. So, I can, so you can tolerate my repeating the incident. So, this was quite instructive for me.
So, I was once at the Radha Upanaya Temple, and there was a, there was a festival and a feast, after there was a long kirtan. So, I was there in the kirtan, and I came back for prasad, came downstairs for prasadam. At that time, I found that much of the prasadam was over.
There was a sweet, the sweet had become over, and I was taking prasad. There was another senior devotee, very senior brahmachari who was sitting, and I saw that in his plate, the sweet had been there, the sweet had got over. So, then I was feeling a little bad, I didn’t get sweet.
And then that devotee started asking everyone, sweet hai kya? Sweet hai kya? Is there a sweet? Is there a sweet? And the sweet was over. One server said, oh, sweet is over. Then they asked the second server, sweet, is the sweet? He said, it’s over.
Asked the third server, is there a sweet? They told you there’s no sweet, why are you asking so much? And I was thinking, you know, what is this? So much attachment, you already had sweet once. And finally, because of his very senior devotee, I saw one of the devotees, many devotees, when they serve prasadam, they make their own plates beforehand, and they can take. So, this devotee, young devotee, he actually brought his own plate, and from his plate, he was offering him sweet.
Too much. You already had one healthy, and you’re taking somebody else’s health. And then, as this devotee was about to serve the sweet into his plate, he said, nahi, not for me, for him.
And he pointed to me. He said, he didn’t get sweet, so I wanted you to get some sweet for him. So now, if that last thing had not happened, if the devotee had not come and offered his sweet, and he had not told this, then I would have thought, this person is so attached.
Not just so attached, so shameless. Asking everyone for a second healthy. So, what happens is, yes, I have a feeling, I’m feeling annoyed.
I’m feeling annoyed because I did not get sweet. I’m feeling annoyed because this person is behaving in a particular way. But, I am ascribing a particular motivation.
But that is not the actual motivation. So, we need to understand the situation. I’m feeling annoyed, that’s fine.
I acknowledge the emotion. I may be feeling angry with someone. But then we find out, okay, why is this, why is, try to understand the situation, why is this person behaving in this way? So, when we understand that, then often our perspective changes quite often.
And then, if we analyze the link between the emotion and the situation, that can actually help us understand ourselves better and help us understand our conception of the other person. That means, if with some person, I always ascribe a negative motivation for them, whatever they do. If they don’t do what they promised to do, you don’t care for me.
It may be true, but it may be that some emergency had come up. We don’t know. So, the way we, the motives that we ascribe to others, often they are not just about others, they are about our conceptions of others, based on that.
So, this way, we can get better understanding of ourselves and we can get better understanding of others. So, we cannot suppress the emotion. So, if somebody is not doing what they are supposed to do, we will feel annoyed, we will feel irritated, we will feel angry, that is okay.
We acknowledge the emotion, but then try to understand the situation after that. So, when we fix labels, then what happens? The label becomes like a default explanation. So, we do not actually explore the situation, we make an assumption.
Because of this, only this person must have done this. And then, quite often, the gap between two people becomes more and more and more, because both of them have formed labels. This person is like this, this person is like this.
And with those labels, by those labels, both of them start getting more and more alienated from others. And when they get alienated, then they just, their relationship becomes very shallow, very superficial. So, Woody Allen is an American comedian.
So, he made a joke, he said that, he is talking about a husband and a wife, he says, the husband is saying to a friend, I and my wife, we eat at separate times, we come and go out of the house at separate times, we shop at different times, we stay in different parts of the house, we are doing everything possible to keep our marriage together. So, already a completely distant, that is only physically trying to stay together. So, what happens is that when people have too many preconceptions about each other, then there is very little chance of coming together also, very little chance of understanding each other.
So, the situation is real, the emotion is also real, that means, I am really feeling angry. But is the emotion caused by what I think is the cause, that is what I need to evaluate. So, this person is late, but why are they late, I have a presumption about why they are late, that may not be right.
So, now, when we are in the lower modes of material nature, we perceive things partially. In the mode of ignorance and in the mode of passion, we perceive things not properly, but partially. And when that happens, when I am in the mode of ignorance, I think that everybody treats me badly, people just treat me like a doormat.
And the way people treat me, nothing is in my control. So, everybody just knocks me around. And we go into the zone of self-pity.
When we are in the mode of passion, we think everything is in my control. And then everybody should do what I tell them to do. And so, whereas in ignorance, we feel everyone knocks me around, I think in passion that I will knock everyone around.
Everybody has to do what I tell them to do. I was at a place and this many devotees had some complaints about one devotee. He is very bossy and shouting at us, telling us do this, do not do this.
So, then when I talked with the devotee, the devotee said, if they only did what I told them to do, I would not have to shout at them. So, rather than acknowledging their side, he thought that as if I have a moral right that they have to obey me. Why are they not obeying me? So, in passion, we begin with the assumption that I am the controller.
And this causes a lot of frustration. Every relationship gives us the realization that I am not the controller. Every relationship sooner or later does that for us.
But in the beginning, we cannot deal with that. So, Oscar Wilde was a British playwright. He said that some people bring happiness where they go.
And some people bring happiness when they go. So, what happens is that they are so abrasive, so aggressive, so domineering. And people, when they go away, they will just give you a sigh of relief.
That is what happens when people are in passion trying to control everyone. Now, in the mode of goodness, there is awareness of material reality and there is awareness of spiritual reality. Awareness of material reality means I understand some things are in my control and some things are beyond my control.
So, let me focus on that which is in my control. And as we start practicing bhakti and move towards transcendence, we also understand that that which is not in my control is not out of control. It is in Krishna’s control.
That which is not in my control, in material consciousness, I can see only two options. Things are in my control or things are out of my control. But in spiritual consciousness, I understand things that are not in my control are still, they are not out of control because they are in Krishna’s control.
So, let me entrust them to Krishna. This is a theme which I will talk again in the last session. In bhakti, there are two aspects.
There is dependence on Krishna and there is diligence for Krishna. That means the things which are not in my control, I depend on Krishna. Whatever is your plan, please guide me.
Let me accept it. Let me serve you in the situation. Diligence for Krishna means what is in my control, I should do.
I should do the best of my capacity. If somebody says that somebody has an exam, say an interview or an exam, the student or child has an exam and the parent says, study now. No, I am dependent on Krishna.
That is not dependence. That is a responsibility. If my exam is there, I have to study.
And that is where I have to exhibit my devotion through my diligence. About 20-25 years ago, when I started giving classes for the first time, that time one devotee, senior devotee gave me some guidelines. The last guideline was depend on Krishna.
But in bracket, but only after you have prepared. Depend on Krishna, but only after you have prepared. If I do not prepare and I come in front of a class, in front of audience, I am dependent on Krishna.
The audience will say we are also dependent on Krishna. So, we have responsibilities and we have to be diligent in that. So, the dynamic of dependence and diligence, how does it apply with relationships? When there is maturity relationship, that means I understand some things are in my control and some things are not in my control.
So, in a relationship, the way I behave is in my control. The way the other person is going to behave is I may be able to predict in some ways, but that is not in my control. So, can we change others? We have to begin from within.
That means, first of all, is there something I can do better? Let me stop affixing labels to them. Let me stop judging them. Let me try to become more understanding.
I talked earlier about our part, our misunderstandings about ourselves. And in this case, I will not go so much in that. I will focus on, if assuming that in a particular situation, we are right and the other person is wrong.
This is a big assumption. And quite often, we also have something which we need to improve. But assuming that we have started working on whatever we need to do to improve.
Now, it is the other person. So, what can we do? Now, we cannot change others. We can only inspire them to change.
Sometimes, some doors for security purposes, they are made in such a way that they can be opened only from inside. You have a front door, which may be opened from outside, but maybe at the back door, which cannot be opened from outside. It is open only from inside.
So, if you are inside, you have a key or a latch, you can open it from inside. So, all of us, as individual beings, our heart has a door that can be opened only from inside. The door to personal change is a door that can be opened only from inside.
Nobody else can open that door for us. Now, if I want to change, it is I who have to take the responsibility to change. If I want someone else to change, they have to take the responsibility to change.
Now, I can help them, but it is their decision. So, how much can we influence others? We can. Certainly, every relationship means that there is give and take, and we all want to be influenced, and we all are influenced by others.
But with respect to change, there are, if somebody does not change, they are behaving in a particular way, and somehow they do not change, it is not necessarily our failure. It may just be the way they are. We have to see that something is in my control and something is not in my control.
Say, as parents, we may want our children to become devotees. It is good. We want them to be nice, cultured, responsible human beings who are also devotees.
That is what we want them to become. Now, we want that, but that is not in our control. Now, how every child is a soul, and that child will grow according to one’s own choice.
To some extent, when children are small, we may be able to control them a little bit more. But as they grow older, then the capacity to control decreases more and more. So, what can we do? Basically, one human being can influence another human being only in three ways.
That is knowledge, facility, and example. That means we can provide knowledge. If you do this, this will happen.
If you do not study, then you will not get a job. If you do not get a job, what will be your future? Where will you stay? How will you manage your life? So, if you study well, you can have your facilities, you can have your life. Then you can do whatever you would like to do also.
So, basically, knowledge means we tell about actions and consequences. If you do this, this will happen. If you do this, this will happen.
So, we do have a responsibility to provide knowledge. Of course, sometimes people may not be in a frame to take up the knowledge. I will come to that a little bit later because their receptivity is important.
But our part is we can provide knowledge to them. Second is we can also provide facility. If we want our children to study, but in the house there is always constantly noise going on, then we try to provide a facility where there is no noise.
If we want our children to become devotees, we cannot very easily expect them to come and attend classes which are for adults. Then we have to create some events, some schools, Sunday school for children, some other entertainment events for children by which they can connect with Krishna at their level. So, we have to provide facility.
So, suppose one spouse is a serious devotee practicing, the other spouse is not a devotee. Then we naturally want that our spouse should become a devotee. But then what can we do? We can provide facility.
That means that maybe we can provide them books, we can provide them some information or some programs. But it is not for us to control them. When I initially started practicing bhakti, I asked a senior sannyasi, how can I make my parents into devotees? So, he replied, by letting anyone except you preach to them.
Your parents have a particular relationship with you. And it will be difficult for them, especially in Indian society where society is quite hierarchical. It is difficult for a parent to think that my child is going to teach me now.
So, in some cases, for helping other people to come close to Krishna, the best thing that we can do is get out of the way. Their souls, they also have a relationship with Krishna. We try to provide some facility to connect with Krishna and then let them take it up.
They’ll take up at their pace. So, facility means, so if my father’s of a particular age, a particular generation, then I try to find out, is there any devotee of that age, that generation, that background, try to connect with them, connect them together. So, we find out what facility can I provide, by which I can help in that change.
Then there’s example. Now, if we set an example, a certain example, example can be in various ways. If we want others to become devotees, then we ourselves, if you’re practicing devotion, devotion nicely.
But it’s not only how we’re practicing devotion. It is also how we conduct our life. Broadly speaking, in our spiritual life, we can see there are four dimensions.
There is Siddhanta, Sadhana, Seva and Sadhacharya. Siddhanta is our philosophical understanding. Krishna is God.
Now, the others are Devatas. Krishna is the absolute truth to the person. It’s not impersonal.
All this is Siddhanta. Sadhana is, we chant, wake up, chant a particular number of rounds, follow the principles. This is all Sadhana we could say.
Then there is Seva. We come to the temple and do various services or wherever we are, we try to render practical services to Krishna. And the last is Sadhacharya.
Sadhacharya is how we behave. Now, if somebody is not a devotee, then they don’t care, the world doesn’t care much about our Sadhana, our Siddhanta and our Seva. The world doesn’t care.
I know, I can say, I know all, I have memorized all 700 verses of the Gita. So what? So what? Actually, there is a group with respect to religious affiliation. There are atheists and there are theists.
There are also some people called agnostics. But there is an increasing category of people who identify themselves as apatheists. Apatheist means whether God exists or not, I don’t care.
They are apathetic about it. I don’t care. So people, many people don’t care what our Sadhana is, what our Siddhanta is, what our Seva is.
What they care is how our behavior is. How are we behaving with them? Vishwaprabhupada was asked, how can we know your followers? He replied, they are perfect gentlemen, perfect ladies, perfect gentlemen. So that means, now he could have said, oh, they chat 16 rounds, they do this, they do that.
All that is true. But it is an interview to a public forum. He said, they are well-behaved.
So because a gentleman means there is more of goodness behavior. There is culture, respectful, sensitive. So what if people see that our devotion has made us a better person? If my devotion has made me a better son, my parents will see that and they will be inspired.
If my devotion makes me a better spouse, then my spouse will see that, okay, it has brought positive changes. So unfortunately, we focus only on our devotional practices and we do not focus on how we are behaving with others. I am practicing Sadhana so nicely.
That is good, very good. It is very important. But then our Sadhana, our Seva, our Siddhanta, all this should lead to Sadhacharya.
If that is not happening, then the world is not going to appreciate. Once Shri Prabhupada came to a temple in America, Boston or one of the places, and the devotees were staying in one part of a house and the other part was an old lady. And this old lady thought these people are hippies, they make so much noise, they are so aggressive.
She had a very unfavorable opinion and she was complaining to the neighbors and the devotees said that this lady, devotees are very easy to, especially after we become devotees, we very quickly fix labels on people. Anybody who is not a devotee, demons. So this devotee started speaking so negatively about this.
So Prabhupada had gone for a morning walk and while coming back, Prabhupada just walked over to the house of this lady and they started talking. And for almost 30 minutes Prabhupada talked with her. And the devotees were thinking, we will talk about Krishna, tell her to chant Hare Krishna.
But Prabhupada did not speak one word about Krishna. Just typical old people talking, how is your health, how many children did you have, where are they? And he just talked with her and he left. And the devotees, they did not, he was a spiritual master, so they did not ask directly, but there was a question obviously on their face.
Prabhupada, you did not speak about Krishna. So Prabhupada just smiled and said, sometimes old people feel lonely. And he saw, he went there, now he was an acharya, had thousands of disciples just waiting for one moment of his time.
Old people feel lonely. So he saw that her, whatever way, negative way she was behaving with devotees, that was just her loneliness acting out. And he addressed that.
And she did not speak one, did not speak one word of Krishna to them. But he actually touched her heart. And then after Prabhupada left, when the devotees went again to her, he said, oh, your spiritual master is such a nice person.
You know, if he is so nice, you must also be nice. And she started talking nicely with him, the devotees also started behaving nicely with her. And everything became very amicable.
So sometimes we just need to show a little kindness. Sometimes we have very high philosophy, which is all good, very important. But we need to be, people should, when he set an example, that means people should see that we have become better human beings.
Most people cannot connect at a spiritual level without connecting first at a human level. To attract someone as a human being, oh, this is a nice person. And then what do you do? I would like to know about it.
So we need to set an example for others. Now, if you’re doing these three things, they’re trying to share knowledge, they’re trying to provide facilities, and we are trying to set an example. And this can be with respect to helping others to become devotees, or it can be helping them to, they have some other character trait, which is troubling us, which is troublesome, you want them to change.
And all these things, these are three things we can do. And if after this, they don’t change, then that is not in our control. We can, as I said, inspire others to change, but whether they change or not is up to them.
So how much, sometimes we may push others, come on, come to a temple, you know, why don’t you try this, do this, we can push others. But how much can we push them? There is a need for pushing, because quite often, all of us have some inertia within us. We don’t want to change, because we feel, okay, this is okay, not so bad.
But we may have to push others. But there is a limit. Suppose a car is not starting.
I have not seen this happen in Australia till now. But in India, it’s quite common when the car doesn’t start. There are five, six people who come from nearby.
And they all start pushing the car. Push, push, push. The person from inside is moving the gear, moving the steering wheel.
And from outside pushing, inside maneuvering, they get the car to start. And the car starts moving. But suppose the people are pushing from outside.
And from inside, the person has gone to sleep. Or the person is inside and actively pressing the brake. Then the people outside have to understand there’s no point in pushing.
There’s no point in pushing, because this person doesn’t want to. So similarly, for us, sometimes we may push people to do some things. But if they have no interest in doing it, sometimes we invite someone for a program.
And they say, no, I have to go here, I have to go there. Sometimes the reason may be genuine. But after some time, we can also make out.
This person is coming up with some excuses for not doing it. When we see that, at that time, we just have to understand that this person is not yet ready for Krishna. And end the interaction on the cordial note.
No need to push them too much. Because when you push them too much, they just become very alienated. Anyone who has to change in any way, whether it is to come towards Krishna or to change towards more sattvic behavior or whatever, they have to take at least some steps in that direction.
And if they’re not ready to take, then just hands off. End the interaction on the cordial note and move on. If we do the opposite, that sometimes parents may want their children to do something.
But the child wants to do something else entirely. And the parents may be able to see that this child, what they’re doing is going to be harmful for them, not good for them. But sometimes the child may just be, especially if they become teenagers or they come to youth, they have their own life.
We can’t control them too much. If at that time, what I am telling you is right, you are wrong. And one day when you realize it, you will come back crawling on your knees to me.
Now, if we make that kind of comment, then even if they realize they’re wrong, they will not come back. Because rather than the specific issue, now it has become an ego issue. Are you right or am I right? Or sometimes some people may just need to learn by their mistakes.
It’s painful for us to see somebody do some mistakes and learn from that. But it may well be that is the best way we can serve at that time. So, sometimes some people have to go through certain experiences and think, okay, this is right, this is wrong.
So there’s a, again, Oscar Wilde, he said once that, when I was 15, my father was a fool. Now I am 25 and I am amazed how much the old guy has learned in the last 10 years. What does it mean? He’s thinking that my father has learned a lot in the last 10 years.
It’s not that the father has learned in the last 10 years, it’s rather I have grown up and I have realized that what my father said was right. So the way we look at the world at 15, the way we look at the world at 25, it’s very different. At the age of 15, adolescence has come in and the hormones are running in the body.
There is the urge for one wants freedom. So freedom means that those teenage years are very turbulent years. Because what has happened, all of us need a sense of identity.
And when we are very small children, our identity is related to our parents, this person’s son, this person’s daughter. When we grow adults, we have our own identity. Now I am a software engineer, I am this and that.
In the adolescence, we are not old enough to have our own identity yet. We don’t have a degree, we don’t have a job, we don’t have a position in society. But we are too old to be satisfied with the identity that I am this person’s son or this person’s daughter.
We want our own identity, but we don’t have any basis for that identity. So it’s a very, it’s a phase of great uncertainty and insecurity. And that’s why peer pressure is something which they’re very vulnerable to.
Because, okay, if I do this, I will be considered cool among my friends. And that’s my identity. So the point which I’m making is that sometimes, in some phases in life, people just have to learn through experience.
So if we are pushing the car from outside and press the brake, then better stop pushing. All that the pushing is going to do is simply alienate them more and more. Just leave it.
And over a period of time, as we go through different experiences, people will learn. And they will make wiser choices. So now, okay, let me do this first.
Now here, sometimes some people don’t change. We may say, I told you to do this. I told you to keep the house clean.
Why don’t you keep it clean? So we may sometimes tell somebody to do something, they don’t do it. And we may think this is so irresponsible, so insensitive. They don’t care for me.
There’s a difference between being insensitive and being desensitized. Desensitized. Being desensitized means that some, they just don’t have a sensation.
It’s like say, if I’m calling someone. And I go, Prabhu, please come. Prabhu, I want to talk with you.
Now I’m calling, calling, that person is not paying any attention to me only. I think, oh, how insensitive. Why is he not paying attention to me? But then, I come to know that that devotee has got ear surgery, and right now, they’ve lost hearing right now.
Oh, it’s a whole different picture now. They’re not insensitive, they’re desensitized. They just can’t hear the sound.
Somebody may touch me on the shoulder, but if I have paralysis here, I don’t feel any touch only. I’m touching you. I don’t feel any touch.
But many times, we all are desensitized about certain things. Sometimes some people come for, come in kirtans, and they pick up Kartal, and they start playing. And they are desensitized to music.
So what happens is, they’re simply playing the Kartal, and they’re playing it all wrong. And, now somebody else who is more sensitized to music, you’re playing it wrong. Now what happens is, they are with their closed eyes in bliss, and everybody’s with glaring eyes.
What are you doing? So here, we just don’t have that, don’t have that sensitization. I’m, one of my services is writing. So I try to be very careful about punctuation.
I also make mistakes. But still, when I see a mistake, I want to correct it immediately. But there are many people, especially Indians, who are very desensitized to punctuation.
I am super sensitive. Whenever I get into any room, actually, I look at the notices, and I look at all the spellings. If somebody gives me a magazine, the magazine may have a full-page cover picture.
I look at the caption first, then I look at the picture. So many times, many times in our temples and other places, there are notices, there are spelling mistakes. I tell somebody, this spelling mistake is correct.
People understand. Why don’t you understand? So, for me, sometimes reading notices is like a torture. There’s this mistake, this mistake, but people just, most people are desensitized to it.
As long as you get the message, it’s fine. So now, it’s not that they don’t care for me. It’s just that that, that gene, you could say, is not there in them.
That faculty is not there. So, when people are desensitized, if we assume that they’re insensitive, then that creates a lot of problems. The worst situation is when person A is desensitized in something, and person B is super sensitive about something.
Some people come into a house, and within five minutes, it’s like they brought a storm in the house. Everything is here, there, tossed up. And then, hey, why did you make things so unclean? Oh, is it unclean? I didn’t notice anything.
So, some people, they just, I can find what I need. So, why does it matter where it is kept? Even if it’s here, that doesn’t matter. So, they just don’t have that sensitivity.
So, this kind of situation happens that somebody is desensitized and somebody is super sensitive. The issue itself becomes, maybe very small. Oh, just come on time, keep your things in place.
When you, when you, when somebody calls you, call them back. Remember to respond to messages, whatever it is. The issue may be very small, but the mind can make it very big.
So, if somebody is desensitized, that means they are not having that capacity itself. That doesn’t mean they can’t develop it, but as of now, they don’t have it. So, in some relationships, we may, because the other person doesn’t do what we expect them to do, we may develop adversarial relationships.
Adversarial means that I am trying to, I am looking for faults in the other person. And the other person also starts looking for faults. So, what happens is basically, we get into a battle with each other.
But rather than this, if we spirit, we understand the philosophy properly, our spirituality should make us more understanding, not more judgmental. Now, in normal human dealings itself, there is this dynamic which comes because of some people who are desensitized, but we may label them as insensitive. This is normal human interaction itself.
Now, when we start practicing bhakti, sometimes we have our standards and we may be very proud of our standards. I follow this. So, if in our relationships, we say with other devotees or with other family members who are devotees, if our standards, whatever we are following, if our standards become weapons in our ego battles, that can break, evoke in a relationship.
Now, I follow this so strictly. I am such an advanced devotee. I fast nirjala nikadashi.
Okay, good. So what? If I fast nirjala nikadashi and I fast without water and I look at, you eat so much, you are so attached, you are a sense gratifier. Then if I am judging like that, then what is happening? My body is fasting, but my ego is feasting.
And I want to make much advancement by that. So, our spirituality, if it makes us more judgmental about others, then that spirituality can become like a wall between us. It can actually create more barriers and make our relationships more difficult.
Now, you may say, but are our standards to be followed? We have standards to follow. It is not my standard. The standard is according to shastra.
That is fine. But others may not have accepted shastra or others may not have right now the inclination or the conviction or the ability to follow that particular standard. So, we have to see that our spirituality is meant to make us more understanding, not more judgmental.
How can we become more understanding? That means we see that just as I have my mind and senses, which make me give up my attachments, which make my giving up my attachments so difficult for me. I may be very controlled with respect to my eating, but then I may have a very short temper or I may be very cool and composed, but I am very forgetful. Actually, some people who are forgetful and are very cool, they can be infuriating for others.
You forgot? I forgot. You forgot? Yes, what is the big deal? It is a big deal. So, sometimes some people are very cool and they are forgetful.
And that can be infuriating for others. So, they just seem to be irresponsible at that time. So, when this happens, we have to see that we often compare.
For me, this is so easy. Why can’t you do it? But my mind and senses may allow me to do this very easily. But my mind and senses make something else very difficult for me.
So, I may be fasting, but for me to remember things is very difficult. For somebody else, they may be remembering things very well, but they can’t fast. So, now if we see that we are all battling, we are all fighting a war against our mind and senses.
But all of us, based on our conditionings, we are fighting different battles. So, rather than comparing, I can keep things clean. Why can’t you keep things clean? For me, cleanliness may be a very natural thing which comes.
For somebody else, it requires a lot of conscientious effort to be clean. So, rather than comparing my ease in keeping things clean with others not doing it, you can say, okay, what is it that is difficult for me? For me, yeah, okay, for me remembering things, for me, say, I say controlling my eating, my fasting might be difficult. So, we, when we want to understand others, we have to compare not what is easy for me with what is difficult for them.
To compare what is difficult for me with what is difficult for them. So, just as fasting is difficult for me, similarly, keeping things clean and orderly is difficult for them. So, the mind and senses, they all create different sense sets of difficulties for different people.
So, when we become understanding in this way, it is not that this person does not care for me. It is not that this person wants to irritate me or hurt me. It is just that they just do not have this faculty.
This is difficult for them. So, when you become understanding like this, then actually, we can move forward in developing stronger relationships. So, basically, affection, how is it expressed? There are many different ways in which we express it.
But it is primarily through understanding. I try to understand other person. If you do not understand other person only, then we are simply reinforcing the label that we have on them.
Then we just cannot move closer to each other. Just keep moving further away. Now, this is, now when I talk about being desensitized, something may be very important.
Somebody just, they just spend too much money. So, we have to say, you cannot spend money like this. No, but I like to spend.
Okay, some behaviors need to be changed. But then we understand that when two people are in a relationship, others cannot see our heart and we cannot see other people’s hearts. So, somebody else may be very important to us, but they cannot see our heart.
How do people see whether we value them or not? It is by how much we value what they value. How important we are to others, they evaluate by how important we treat the things that are important to them. So, if I do not have the cleanliness gene within me, but if the other person wants me to keep things clean, then I make a conscious effort to do that.
And I may not like to do it, but I do it because that is how I show that this is what is important. This, you are important for me. That is why although I do not feel this is important, I will do it.
So, this is from the other person’s perspective. From our perspective, we have to stop over-expecting from others. And I say, I am not over-expecting.
This is a basic expectation. But what is a basic expectation may be an over-expectation from them. So, we have to see what is a reasonable expectation not from our perspective, but from their perspective.
So, when both parties try to be cooperative, try to be understanding, this is very important for you, I will try to do this. And okay, you are trying, I will not nag about this. Then maybe once a week, once a month, we meet and we calmly discuss.
And then we try to arrive at a mutually acceptable understanding of how things are to move forward. So, otherwise, just as we have our mind which are troubling us, others have their mind that is troubling them. And unless we learn to deal with people as they are, not as our mind imagines them to be, or as our mind expects them to be.
There are two different things. There is expectation and there is imagination. Expectation means, I think you should keep things, you should always come on time, you keep things clean, you should do this, you should do that, that is the expectation.
And the imagination is the label we have. You are irresponsible, you are insensitive, you are forgetful, you are lazy. So, both the expectation and the imagination, they often distort our relationship with others.
And both of these come from the mind. So, we have to deal with people as they are, not as we imagine they are or as we expect or want them to be. When we do this, then we can move forwards towards closer relationships.
Now, it is not that always all relationships will work out. So, when we have to deal with difficult people, how do we deal with them? It is similar to dealing with difficult weather. If, say, if I come to Melbourne and I find Melbourne is very cold.
Well, I have basically three options. Tolerate, mitigate or emigrate. So, either I change myself and my body develops immune system, I can learn to tolerate the cold.
Or otherwise, mitigate. I make sure that I always have a lot of warm clothes. I make sure that I have adequate heating in my house, in my car.
I mitigate the situation. Or if I cannot do either, then I emigrate. I go to some other place which is warm.
So, similarly, now if I stay on in Melbourne and keep complaining, it is so cold, it is so cold, it is so cold. And that is an old story now. It is cold, we all know it is cold.
Deal with it. So, growing up means we have to deal with reality, not our mind’s expectation or mind’s imagination. We have to deal with reality.
So, now with respect to people, what do we do? Again, there are similar three options. We, if a person is a particular way, they are not changing, it is accepted. This is, I tolerate it.
That is one option. I will explain all of these options in more detail. The second is we mitigate.
We take some action assertively to change the situation or change the person. We cannot change the person, but we can change the situation. I will talk or we may emigrate.
Just leave it. I will go out. We look at this.
The Pandavas themselves exhibited all these three. Initially, when Duryodhana tried to poison Bhima, when they tried to burn the Pandavas in Varna, Kauravas, they tried to burn. Yudhishthira told them, do not speak this in public.
This is a family dispute. Keep it at home. Tolerate, tolerate, and they tolerated it.
But eventually, when Draupadi was dishonored, when the Pandavas showed no reformation or even a remorse for whatever they had done, when they tried to attack and arrest Krishna, then they said, this cannot be tolerated. And they mitigated, mitigated by fighting a war. They fought a war to establish, not to take revenge.
They fought a war to establish dharma. The primary purpose was to establish dharma. Eventually, when Krishna departed from the world, then they also left.
They also renounced the world. So, if we have a mood of service, then any of these three options can be done in the mood of service. So, sometimes we may decide this person is like this.
This person spends too much money. So, then if, if okay, that is one problem, but other things, it is very good. So, then we find some way by which we just tolerate it.
Toleration, tolerance means that we keep small things small so that we can focus on big things. Okay, yes, they do not keep things clean. Okay, then I will keep the things clean or we will find out some way to deal with it.
So, we keep small things small. That is tolerance at one level. So, sometimes some people may have some irritating personality traits, but if you think about it, in the big picture, it does not matter that much.
So, let me stop expecting them to change this direction. I will change myself. I will give up this expectation and I will move on.
That is tolerance. Now, tolerance is for what purpose? We keep small things small so that we can focus on big things. But sometimes if the big things themselves are being stopped, then tolerance may not be the way.
So, somebody has hurt us. So, somebody say in our office is exploiting us, abusing us, labeling us, manipulating against us. Then that kind of tolerance actually may enable that behavior more.
They make them more abusive, make more manipulative, more exploitative. So, at that time, we may take corrective action. When we take action, we may complain, we may take legal action, we may seek legal protection, whatever it is.
We can do it not in a mood of revenge, but in the mood of protection. I want to protect myself. I want to protect others from being similarly hurt.
And ultimately, I want to protect this person because if they are going to keep doing this, the karmic reactions are going to be there. So, we may take strong action, but we do it not in a vengeful mood, in a service mood. And third is we decide this is too messy and I have better things to do in my life.
I am just going to get out of here. I have better things and we move out. So, if we have, again, if we consider say in a company, I have a boss who is very exploitative.
But if I try and nothing works, then I might just go to some other job. So, this can also be done in the mood of service. This is, I can deal with this issue.
But this is taking too much time, too much energy, it is not worth it. I have better things to do. So, we move on.
Similarly, with respect to our relationships, we can choose any one course of action. The real problem comes when we choose one course of action and expect the fruits of the other course of action. That means I walk away from a relationship and I expect the fruits of that relationship.
It is not going to work. If I decide to tolerate and I expect the person to change, well, that may not happen. So, if we choose a particular course of action, then every choice requires a certain commitment.
It has a cost and it also has a reward for it. But we have to choose how I am going to function. Now, which choice to make when? That requires, again, intelligence.
We have to pray to Krishna. We have to cultivate the mode of goodness. And based on that, we can decide, okay, this is what I can do.
This is what I will not do. And now, when we work with, I will talk in the last session more about how we identify ourselves. We have to first and foremost identify ourselves as servants of Krishna.
That I will talk about later. But when we have that attitude of service towards Krishna, then many situations we will find that we can deal with them more maturely. And yes, I can tolerate this.
This is not a very big thing. Many times the mind makes things much bigger than what they are. Either the mind makes it bigger by making us over expect from others and then we get frustrated because they are not meeting the expectation.
Or the mind makes things bigger by our ascribing motives to people where the motives are not present. Okay, this is the way the person is, but they have got nothing against us. Many times when people, how people behave is more often a reflection of who they are than who we are.
Sometimes somebody is very angry. They may not be angry with us, their anger is just coming out at us. They may be angry about something else and then this comes out at us.
So, I will conclude with one point. This will lead to the last session and this is a little sobering point. But for us to function sustainably in any relationship, we have to begin with the right foundation.
And the right foundation is understanding that ultimately we are all alone in this world. We come alone, we are born alone, we face our own karma alone and we die alone. This does not mean that relationships are not important.
They are very important and when some karmic reactions come, our loved ones can help us deal with the reaction. They can shield us, they can support us. But the foundation is that we are alone.
We have a relationship with Krishna and that will be the last part of this series. But the point is that we have to accept that I am alone in the world and I should be able to function alone. That does not mean that I do not value relationships.
It just means that my foundation is that I am alone and I am ready to do it alone. If I do it with others, it is more joyful, it is more fulfilling. But only when we accept our existential loneliness can we go about transcending it.
That means there are broadly three kinds of people inside psychology. There are dependent people, there are independent people and there are interdependent people. It is all relationships involve some amount of interdependence.
I do something, you do something, we work together. But it is only independent people who can be interdependent. Dependent people cannot become interdependent.
They are only dependent. So, we have to accept that I am alone in this world and I as a conscious living being choose this relationship. Although even if that relationship has been formed already, but still I choose to commit myself to this relationship.
And that relationship will come with its strengths, with its weaknesses. So, when we begin with this foundation that in this world I am alone. Ekastu, the Bhagavatam says.
We are all alone in this world. Then we do not become overly dependent on others. When I am overly dependent on someone, then a small action of that person can shake me.
Now, if somebody speaks harshly to me, if my whole identity is dependent on that person, why did he speak like that to me? So, if we are too dependent on someone else, then we take every small thing that they do very personally. Must have spoken like, they do not care for me. He does not care for me, she does not care for me.
That is why they do like this. Well, it is not necessary like that. The unpalatable truth in life is that all of us have a movie going on in our head.
And in that movie, we are the heroes. In my movie, I am the hero. In your movie, you are the hero.
And in this movie, which is going on in our head, everybody else is basically an extra. Now, some extras may be very important, but they are extras. So, the reason I am saying this is that actually, we, people have, everybody has a lot going on in their head and in their life.
And the way they behave is not so much a reflection of who we are, it is a reflection of what is going on in their life. So, if somebody is watching a movie, and we are sitting next to them, but we are not watching that movie. And suddenly, they start shouting, they start dancing.
What happened? And suddenly, they start crying. So, what happened? Suddenly, they start punching. What happened? They are watching a movie in their own head.
And they are responding to that movie much more and we are spectators. Are you angry with me? Are you upset with me? Now, they can give us entry into that movie. And all relationships mean that we give each other entry into the way we look at the world, we look at things.
But ultimately, everybody is dealing with their own issues. So, we wouldn’t, when somebody acts in a particular way, we often tend to take it too personally. Now, you don’t care for me.
But they may be having 100 other things to care for, which we don’t know. And that’s why they forgot this. So, we don’t have to, we don’t have to take others actions too personally.
Yes, there are certain actions which are important, and they need to be taken care of. But there are 100 small things that happen in life, which are just incidental. And we don’t have to make them very big.
We have a relationship with Krishna, they have a relationship with Krishna. We have a mind and senses, they have their mind and senses. And we are all dealing with our issues.
So, to the extent we start, we can learn to take others incidental actions. There are actions which are intentional, there are actions which are incidental. Sometimes, we meet someone, and we say, Hare Krishna, person doesn’t even look at us and go.
Now, how disrespectful, how inciting. But they may be having something, they may have lost their job and they are so worried about it. We don’t know what is going on in their lives.
So, now, this, they have lost the job is quite a dramatic thing, tragic thing, whatever. But my point is that we, if we start taking everything that other people do very personally, then we will open ourselves to unnecessary hurt. And we will bring unnecessary insecurity in that relationship.
So, if the same thing is happening again, and again, and again, and again, and we can see that it’s not just incidental, it’s intentional, then that’s different. But I said tolerance means to keep small things small. And one way of keeping small things small is to recognize that many of people’s actions with us are not about us.
They may be forgetting to greet us, they may forget to talk with us, but it’s not about us. It’s about them and what is going on in their life. So, when we see that way, then Tamsa teaches about it.
It’s not such a big deal. Tolerate. So, how we can tolerate sometimes this incidental, incidental indiscretions of others by strengthening ourselves in our relationship with Krishna, I will talk in the next session.
I will summarize here what I spoke. I spoke today about how our mind makes us misunderstand others and how we can correct that. So, in that, I started by how the mind tends to label people.
We observe their behavior sometimes and we fix labels on them. Labels may make things process, processing things easier for us, but they can also mislead. Like say, Google Voice is a transcript of a voice message, but the transcript may be completely wrong also.
So, our labels can help us, but they can also mislead us. So, it’s better to learn to put aside the labels and observe situations as they are. So, I talked about thinking and observing and acting in goodness means that first we separate the emotion from the situation.
Yes, I am angry. I acknowledge the emotion that I am angry, angry, but then I move forward to understand what the actual situation is. Like that devotee was asking for sweet, but that was not because of greed.
That was our concern form. So, try to understand the situation and then try to explore the link between the emotion and the situation. That will tell us our preconceptions about others and that will tell us about ourselves also.
We learn more about ourselves. Then in any relationship that we have with others, if it is true that we have done our part to change ourselves and we want others to change, then how do we go ahead with it? In the mode of ignorance we feel, we have no control, we cannot do anything and we let ourselves be pushed by others. In the mode of passion, we expect everyone to do what we are telling them to do.
We expect others to push others around and then people get pushed away by that and then they go away. In goodness, we understand what is in our control and we focus on that. In transcendence, the faith in Krishna, we also understand that which is not in my control is in Krishna’s control.
So, in goodness, we discussed if you have to change others, the door to personal change can be opened only from inside. So, we can help others to change by providing knowledge, by providing facilities and by setting example. So, setting example is not just about how we practice bhakti, but how our seva, siddhanta, sadhana, that translates into our sadhachara, how we become better human beings.
Most people need to connect at a human level before they can connect at a spiritual level. And to encourage others to change, we can push them, but within reasonable limits. It is like if a car is not moving, we push it.
But if the person inside does not want to move the car, we just stop it. So, if we make changing others into our ego project and we consider their unwillingness to change as a personal failure, then we put unreasonable terms on that relationship. They are who they are.
And we can inspire others to change, but we cannot force anyone to change. So, if some people are not changing at all, then rather than labeling them as bad, we have to see sometimes they may be desensitized. So, it is not that they want to hurt me, it is not that they are neglecting me, it is just that they do not have that sensitivity.
Some people may not have musical sensitivity, some people may not have a cleanliness gene, some people may just not be punctual. So, it is nothing against us, it is just who they are. So, our spirituality should make us more understanding, not more judgmental.
If we are able to do something very well and we judge others as bad because they cannot do it, then we are misunderstanding the purpose of philosophy. We are all fighting against our mind, but we are fighting different battles. So, rather than comparing what is easy for us with what is difficult for them, we compare what is difficult for us with the thing which we find irritating with them.
And then we can become more understanding. Now, if one person is super sensitive and other person is desensitized over something, then there has to be stepping closer from both sides. The person who is desensitized, they have to recognize that this is important for the other person.
So, I will make efforts to conscientiously give this importance. People feel that we value them to the extent we value the things that they value. So, on the other side, if I am super sensitive, I have to decrease my expectation.
And in relationships, like in social weather, we have three options. We tolerate, mitigate or emigrate. So, tolerance means this is a problem, but it is not a big issue.
I can live with it. There are many other things which are good. So, let me move on.
Mitigate means that this is becoming abusive, this is becoming exploitative. I have to take action against it. And we take action not out of revengefulness, but out of protectiveness, to protect ourselves, to protect others.
Emigrate means this is not working and it is too entangling. I do not want to get involved in this. I have better things to do.
I will walk away from this. Again, we do it not out of frustration over here, but because we have, with our service attitude, we have more important things to do. And in today’s world, it may be very easy to try to just break and emigrate.
That is the tendency in today’s world. So, tolerance is very important. So, we need to keep small things small.
And to do that, we have to begin by understanding that we are all alone in the world. And everybody has a movie going on in their head in which they are the heroes. And most of the actions that people do, even with us, are not about us.
They are responding to what is the movie that is going on in their head. So, if you do not take small incidental indiscretions too seriously, then we can tolerate. So, if we are over dependent on someone, then every small action of theirs becomes too important for us.
But if we are not over dependent, we are independent. Then independent people can become interdependent and then they can have a mature relationship. So, we can develop independence by strengthening our relationship with Krishna, by becoming dependent on Krishna for our self-identity and self-worth.
How we can do that, that I will discuss in the last session. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
So, now we have a time. This is the last session. So, the next session will start at 3.30. There are wonderful quotes over here on Geeta Devi website.
Prabhupada writes inspiration, purpose to Prabhupada verses, Adiyas on Bhagavad Gita. So, if you can please spend 10-15 minutes over here, look at the quotes and then go outside to Pracharan. It is requested that we should not make place over here.
Pracharan is not allowed in the hall. And please carry your water bottles and you can refill it outside. So, we will see at 3.30.