If we can do a service well and see others doing that service poorly, should we stay uninvolved to avoid becoming proud or critical?

Transcript

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the service in a ineffective way trying to keep too much control and not letting things happen also then we become more critical about them and what to do at that time. See yes sometimes when we do a service well that may bring pride but the nature of the mind is if I say and it’s not only brings pride sometimes you get things done we have to be a little pushy and we have to sometimes tread on people’s toes for that you want to avoid it but sometimes we have to so we feel I don’t want to do all this so I stay away from it.
The nature of the mind is that it’s not that uh that pride goes away it’s just like lust it is there in our hearts already when I see some attractive person it’s not at that time I have become lust at that at that time the lust surfaces is already there so similarly it’s not that pride is not there with us pride is already there and when we do something laudable that time we feel that at that time we express the pride otherwise we not express it but because of so by not doing a service the pride is not going away all that is happening is its expression is not coming because I have not done anything worth being praised but because that pride is still there it will come out in an ugly way as envy you know our envy or along with envy is fault finding so now if somebody so basically we won’t be able to appreciate others for what they’re doing and it’s easy in this world to find fault with others especially if we are good at something then and we can see even if other people are good at something we can still say this is not been well this is not done well like if I am a good writer even if somebody else is a good writer I can find flaws in their writing others may say it’s very good but no I can find flaws if I want so the so by staying out of things we won’t be able to deal with the negativity within us one level the negativity is there because I was not involved second level negativity also comes up because these people are doing a mess of things and then because we felt sidelined we at a certain level want to get back at them and sometimes utterly or glossly we will speak some words you know you this did not happen properly this did not happen properly so it’s best to to avoid these things it’s you know even if you have to sort of get onto some people’s toes a little bit unless we are able to be completely uninvolved and then we have our own project which we are doing and we get some fulfillment in that otherwise we have to deal with this so it’s a it’s there’s an existing project and I’m working in that then I’ll have to negotiate with the different people who are involved in that project and I love to work with them otherwise but you can’t work with them at all then not doing anything is not a solution for people who have that zeal to do they have to create some other project for themselves and then they get the sense of achievement in doing that otherwise that mind will take us in a very critical mentality of those who are doing something in writing circles they say that there are some literate some books in books when books are reviewed so there are some critics some book reviewers book is also big well-paid job some reviewers are like constant critics whatever book they read they’ll find this fault this fault this fault so there’s one author he said those who can’t write books they review books so reviewers are basically frustrated authors it’s not always true but that’s the point sometimes you will not be able to appreciate um how it’s like service in this world is the service itself is pure because we are doing it in the world which is contaminated it comes with a lot of other things and we have to deal with that that’s why Prabhupada said that we need brahmanas with the kshatriya spirit we we can’t just have brahmanas those are simply brahmanas they will not be crushed they’ll not be very effective the brahmanas mood would be that you know i’ll just speak because whoever wants to come they can come those who don’t want to come it’s up to them brahmana either brahmana has to have kshatriya spirit or the brahmana needs a kshatriya i say if if i’m going to give a class at one level i can be satisfied whoever comes on the program but if very few people come for the program i need to know why didn’t people come you need to follow this up did this happen did this happen but that getting things done is somewhat of a kshatriya spirit so if we don’t have the kshatriya spirit our our whatever we have to offer to the world that will not reach the world so some devotees may have more of a kshatriya spirit some less but we can’t be completely like brahmanas in today’s world so brahmanas are what those who have the change consciousness or those who have the vision to change other’s consciousness but kshatriyas are the people who do the things by which systems are created and changes are actually affected at a practical level so sidelining letting ourselves get sidelined and then subjecting ourselves to negativity it is it is not a it is not a palatable option and it’s not a sustainable option for most people so then it’s better that we get involved and have our voice over there and over a period of time we will find out there’s some kind of with some people like we have to understand the different people are different nature so like if a brahmana from brahmana shouts at you and then you stay silent the brahmana himself will feel hey i did not do the right thing then after that the brahmana will come sorry i spoke like that to you and okay let’s work this out but somebody like a kshatriya or a vaisya they’ll shout at you and then they’ll not feel anything and if you just shrink and go back they will feel victory it’s not that we have to get into a shouting fight but i’m going to shout as a metaphor that you know for some people uh the way they respect someone else is when you throw your weight around we don’t throw our weight around in an egoistic way but you know i can also do these things we have to take a firm stand sometimes the prabhupada did that at times you know when prabhupada wanted his god brothers to also help in this call he said that we’ll form a governing body and like a managing body and he said he wanted his god brother he wanted shridhar maharaj and others to be there but then he said that he said that what we will distribute on the streets is his books other books can be read by devotees then prabhupada initially they said no then after many years when the score became very big when they said yes we should we can do it and prabhupada said that prabhupada said that you know now it’s like he had done all the hard work he had made the whole system and now they were simply wanting to enjoy the results so prabhupada said that very intelligent prabhupada said that yes we can have a managing body for managing all the institutions that are under and he said that we can have 10 members he says since iskcon has spread so much so we will be now i’m just paraphrasing probably not use the exact word prabhupada said that uh we’ll see which organization how many numbers and based on that we’ll have proportionate system so he effectively how it came out is there will be nine members from iskcon and one member from all the gaudiya combined together and they couldn’t accept that so now prabhupada did this not because he was not he was hungry for power he realized that he had to protect what he had created so it’s not that his godbrothers had any bad intentions but they had different moods and you know he had traded this happens in a particular mood so prabhupada was shrewd when he dealt with people so i feel that for functioning in the world we also have to learn a certain level of uh it’s more of being rather than using the word political it’s more of being diplomatic what is that subhashita subhashita he said that speak the truth but speak it palatably if there’s unpalatable truth don’t speak it and don’t speak palatable untruth so there is if palatability is one circle truth another circle we don’t go into the circle of falsehood but you also don’t want a circle unpalatable truth so while dealing with people we may they may have certain features we don’t like but speaking about that is only going to aggravate them so speak about the features that which which are palatable and get to work with them from that way we it is difficult i always had this question this is krishna in 9.14 is describing that these are pure devotees they have no other desires their mind itself doesn’t go to anything else but and they are serving krishna but they endeavor with great determination putting in great effort so i was thinking why do they need any great effort for us we have our mind we have our senses we have our ego we have to fight against all of effort but why do these devotees who have conquered all this need to put in great effort that’s because they want to serve krishna in this world and if they are to serve in this world they have to deal with other people’s mind and senses and they have to manage this so for doing anything practically in this world endeavor is required even if there is no endeavor required to battle internally still endeavor to require to execute externally so brahmana with a kshatriya spirit we don’t want to become a kshatriya primarily we don’t want to be only a brahmana going to be a brahmana with a kshatriya spirit