Maturity in relationships – Four principles – 2. Ascertain

[Seminar in Sydney, Australia]

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
So, welcome back. We will continue with our discussion on these four principles. In the first session, I talked about except.
how when some situation in our life or in our relationships doesn’t turn out to be the way we expected it to be. So, maturity means that we just don’t cry physically or mentally, but we accept the situation. So, accepting is not condoning or capitulating or approving, accepting simply means we call off our war with reality.
So, that we can focus our energy on dealing with the issue that actually is there, rather than dealing with our frustration about how it is not the way we wanted it to be. So, before I move on to ascertain, I would like to give one more example. Let me start with ascertain.
Suppose, say we were going from a place A to place B, we are driving and we just have enough fuel in the car to get from place A to place B. At that time, before we start our journey, if we put a hole in the fuel tank and then that fuel as we are moving forward, that fuel is leaking out and the quantity of fuel we have, it will run out half the way maybe. So, if we have finite amount of fuel, then we want to use all of it to get to our destination. So, that fuel is like our energy.
We all are finite beings and our energy is also finite. So, whatever energy we have, we would like to use it to deal with the situation that we are facing. But when we refuse to accept, when we resent the reality, then that is like inside us itself, the energy from within which is going to come out, there is a hole in the fuel tank and that energy is getting dissipated within us.
So, our resentment is like a hole in our inner fuel tank which does not allow the energy to be used by the vehicle for driving, it just gets wasted. So, like that we need to save our energy. Now, first step is, this is how it is.
Now, as certain means, now why is it like this? Why is this person like this? Now, some people are very insensitive, very irresponsible, very lazy, very whatever, they may be frustrating our expectations in various ways. Now, in the case of relationships, especially in dealing with people, why people act the way they do, that is not so easy to understand. So, that is why as certain means that we are actually trying to find out what is going on.
Can you go to the next slide? So, value judgments we often make about others and they cloud our inner vision. Value judgments means, this person is irresponsible, this person is lazy, this person is uncultured, this person is like this, this person is like that. These are all value judgments that we pass about others and they cloud our inner vision.
Suppose now, let us do a simple exercise. We are sitting now, spread out your hands. Can you do this? Spread out your hands and then bring your hands right in front of your eyes, as close to the eyes as possible.
Now, let the hands cover your eyes and now try to look ahead. What can you see? Practically nothing. No matter how much you try to see, if I tell you, use your will power, see properly.
It is of no use. Now, just move your hands aside. Now, see.
Now, you can see very easily. So, now hands are physical device, physical things and they are blocking our vision, we can easily understand it. But just as our eyes can be blocked by the hands in front of us, similarly our inner vision can be blocked by our value judgments.
When we make value judgments about others, we don’t see people as they are. We see people as we think they are. We have got certain opinions about others.
This is a psychology, it is called as ascription error. Now, we see certain behaviours and we ascribe certain motivations for those behaviours and we ascribe certain personality traits based on that behaviour. What do I mean? Say, if we think, if we have a negative opinion about someone and we see that person eating a lot, then it is such a glutton.
Now, if somebody we like and we see them eating a lot, say, they must have been hungry. Now, if we see somebody who we have negative opinion, we see them sleeping, such a lazy person. If somebody we like, we see them sleeping, maybe they are tired, maybe they are sick, we don’t know.
So, what happens? The action itself remains the same, but we rarely see the action as it is. We, along with the action, there is some judgement, some evaluation that we do and that evaluation does not necessarily arise from the action alone. That same action, we could arrive at different inferences.
Somebody sleeping, they are lazy, that could be one inference. They are sick, could be another inference. But what happens is, based on our preconceptions, we arrive at certain inferences and those inferences, after some time, we start affixing them on people and then everything that they do, we start evaluating from that.
Suppose, we have decided this person is very rude and then one day they start talking very politely with us. What does he want from me? Maybe he wants something, that’s why he is flattering me now. He is speaking so sweetly to me.
It may be like that, it may not be like that. It may well be that one or two times when we met them, somehow they were under a lot of pressure and they spoke something which we thought was rude. But maybe they are not habitually rude.
Maybe what we are seeing them right now is the way they are. We don’t know. So what happens, once we make a value judgement about someone, all their actions we start seeing through that filter.
And that causes a lot of problems. The Bhagavad Gita in the 16th chapter says that a characteristic of the godly people is Apaishunam. Apaishunam means aversion to fault finding.
They don’t like to see faults in others. But quite often, we not only see faults, we see only faults. Even when somebody is doing good, once we have got a negative opinion about that person, which is good also, some bad motive must be there behind it.
That’s how we start seeing. And sometimes we may completely off track when we have, when we make these kind of value judgments. At one time, many years ago, 10-15 years ago, I was in Radha Gopinath temple and there was a festival.
So after the festival, there was a feast. So after the festival, there was Kirtan and a lot of people were talking. So I was talking with people and after that I came for prasad to the prasadam hall.
And I came quite late. So I saw that there was a sweet over there. The sweet was over.
So the whole bucket was empty. I felt a little bad about that. And then I saw that there was another senior devotee sitting over there.
They had their sweet in their plate and he had finished his sweet. And then he started asking, is there any more sweet? And he asked one devotee who was serving. He said no, no, there is very senior devotee.
So he said, no, no, there is no sweet. Sorry. Then he asked another devotee, sweet is there.
I was thinking, what is this? You got one devotee helping. Because all the other servers were much younger to him. So when he asked sweet, they all started, sweet again, sweet again.
They all started looking. Is there sweet? Is there sweet anywhere? So then he asked the second server, the third server. Fourth server said, enough.
We told there is no sweet, there is no sweet. You already had once. And finally, many times when devotees serve prasad, sometimes they make their plates in advance.
Because in case the prasadam gets over, it becomes a problem. So some devotees have made their plates in advance. So one devotee brought sweet from his plate to give to him.
And I started thinking, this is too much. You already had one helping. Now you are actually taking somebody else’s helping.
And then as he was about to serve the sweet to his plate, I said, I don’t want. Give it to him. He didn’t get sweet.
And he pointed to me. So he was asking sweet so fervently, that was not out of a sense gratificatory attitude, it was a service attitude. And if that devotee had not come with his plate to give that sweet, I would not have come to know also.
Why he is asking that? So now you could say it is a logical inference. Somebody is asking for sweet, they wanted themselves. But we don’t know what is going on in someone’s mind.
So we see an action and we assume a motivation. And that motivation may be right, may not be right. So as certain means, when some people are behaving in a particular way, why are they behaving like that? If we don’t try to understand it.
In this case, it is a simple behaviour and it is a simple understanding. But different people go through different situations in life. And we really don’t know people, what they have gone through in their life or what they are going through in their life right now.
So instead of simply assuming that they are doing like this, that means they are like this. We can give them the benefit of doubt and try to find out. Can you go ahead? So once we understand this point that value judgments cloud our vision, then we try to see people separate from the value judgments.
And what does that mean? Means we try to understand people’s background. To understand people’s background means to understand what is on their back and what is under their ground. Sometimes when we want to understand people’s background, sometimes what we want is, that person is a very nice person now, but maybe did some bad things in the past.
I will find that out and then I will tell everyone. You think such a great devotee, but you don’t know what he did in the past? So Bhakti Sadhguru would say, there is a story of naked Pancho. Naked Pancho means, he said that there was a boy when he was in many traditions, when children would be small, they would just run around and play unclothed on the streets.
So he said that this boy would play around unclothed and then his friends would be there and then this boy eventually went on to become a high court judge. And his childhood friend, whenever he would see this judge, he would tell everyone, you know, I saw him without clothes. That was maybe 30-40 years ago.
What does it make any difference now? But sometimes we want to go to people’s past to know the salacious details of their past. But that’s not empathic, that’s not compassionate, that’s not kind. To know people’s background means to know what is on their back and know what is under their ground.
Can you go ahead and explain what this means? So what is on their back means, what problems they are going through, what burdens they are facing. We just don’t know that. If somebody were walking twisted, you will find it a little strange.
But then if you saw them carrying a huge weight on one side because of which they are twisted, then you will understand, yeah, they are carrying a big weight. So physical weight can be seen, but mental or emotional weight can’t be seen. Everybody has various problems in their life.
And if we could just understand what problems they are going through, then we will understand, you know, if somebody is very irritable, well, why are they being irritable like that? Maybe they have gone through some big tragedy in their life. Sometimes you may know if somebody has gone through something, sometimes you may not know. In the Chetan Charita Amrit, there is a description of how Shrikant Sen, he was the nephew of Sivananda Sen.
And once Nithyananda Prabhu got very angry with Sivananda Sen and he spoke harshly to him. So Shrikant Sen was the nephew and he couldn’t tolerate it. He said, Sivananda Sen is also a great devotee, he is also a great associate of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.
How did Nithyananda Prabhu speak like this to him? He felt very angry and with a disturbed mind, all the devotees were coming from Mayapur to Puri to see Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So he just came ahead. He said, I don’t want to meet Nithyananda Prabhu.
He just came ahead. When he came ahead, in advance, he met Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. So he met Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and he offered obeisances.
Now, at that time, the traditions were that the etiquette was men would have anga vastra, a cloth above. And if they are going to offer respects to some respectable person, then take off the anga vastra and then they offer respects. That was the etiquette.
So when he saw Chaitanya Mahaprabhu offering obeisances, he forgot to take off his anga vastra. And Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s servant who was there, he told him, no, take off your anga vastra. So as he was about to tell him like that, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu told him, stop.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu said, he whispered to him, by looking at his face, I can see that he is disturbed. So he is disturbed, that’s why he has forgotten this etiquette. Don’t disturb him further now.
So okay, etiquettes are to be followed. But if somebody is very disturbed in their minds, just pointing it out, harping it to them, will only annoy them further. So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu exhibited this sensitivity.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is of course God, so he knew what was happening. But even if we don’t know, sometimes people are behaving in a particular way which is uncharacteristic. People are just normal, nice, gentle, polite.
But suddenly they start becoming very rude or arrogant or very abrasive. Then, rather than thinking, why is this person behaving like this and judging them, maybe they are going through something which we don’t know. So the nature of life is that sometimes, sometimes problems come in like, they come in bunches.
One after another, after another, after another. Sometimes what happens, you know, we speak something to someone and suddenly they explode. A small thing, can you just clean this up? You always find fault with me, just go on a tirade.
What happened? What did I do? Now if you go back, maybe they had a bad day, 10 things went wrong in their life and the 10 things they were tolerating and this was the 11th thing and the 11th thing, you know, all the accumulated frustration of the 10 things came out here. So we don’t know what is on people’s back, why people are acting the way they are acting. So it’s best to give them the benefit of doubt.
In the Ramayana, when Maricha, in the form of a deer, took Sita away. Sorry, took, allured Ram to go away because Sita said, please catch this deer for me. Then after that, when Maricha was shot, he screamed loudly in the voice of Ram, Lakshman, Sita, help.
When Lakshman heard it, he said, this is a demon, Ram can never be in danger. But in Sita, she was so aggrieved, so agony struck, so panic, panicky, she said, Lakshman, go and help your brother. He said, no, Ram is in no danger.
No, he may be in danger, go and help him. So now at this point, Sita was so beside herself with anxiety. If something happens to Ram, please go.
She somehow wanted to make Lakshman to go. So at that time, she spoke words that cut Lakshman more than the arrows in the toughest of battles that he had fought. He says, I know why you are not going.
You have an evil eye on me. You want to enjoy me for yourself. And that is why you came with your brother.
He was just waiting an opportunity. Now that Ram is in danger, you think you will be able to enjoy me. But I would rather die than be touched by you.
When Lakshman heard it, such a thought had also not entered his mind. Shocked. He said, you don’t know what you are saying, Sita.
And he said, I cannot stay with you when you are speaking such words. And he left from there. He met Lakshman, Rekha and he left.
But eventually when he came to Ram, Ram was just running back. Ram realised it was a conspiracy. So Ram was running back.
Why have you left Sita? So then Lakshman told what had happened. He says, you know, she was just anxiety. Why did you take her words so seriously? So then they both realised it was a conspiracy and they came back.
But by that time Sita had been abducted. Now eventually, when Sita and Ram were reunited, Lakshman was reunited, Lakshman did not tell Sita, you spoke like that to me, apologise to me. He didn’t hold it against her.
Sometimes in tension, people speak and do things which is not characteristic to them. So there is, we don’t have to see intention in things that are done in tension. When somebody says or does something in tension, there is a lot of tension, a lot of pressure.
So don’t see intention in that. Sometimes things happen. Sometimes in relationship it happens.
Sometimes I do some mediation. I don’t do so much, but some of my friends do a lot of mediation. They say sometimes people, we meet people and say, 25 years ago in that conversation you said that to me.
25 years ago. Now what happens, I’ll talk about this part in the next session when I talk about appreciate a little bit. But the point is that sometimes something might just hurt us so much and that thing may not even register in their minds.
So what happens, if they had no malicious intention, there is no need to hold it against them. So if we understand that, so Ram helps Lakshman understand that Sita, she did not have that kind of suspicion about Lakshman, but at that time she was in such anxiety, somehow Ram should be protected. She wanted to goad him to go out.
So if people speak certain things under certain pressure of certain situations, they are having a lot on their back at that time, no need to hold it against them. No need to hold it against them. So if sometimes we understand that some people are vulnerable to certain things.
Some people, they can, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, some people love to do multitasking. The more things that are going on in their life, they feel life is stimulating. Some people feel, ok I’ll do one thing, then I’ll do the next thing, then I’ll do the third thing.
So now some people, if there are just too many things to do, not now, I’ll do it afterwards. So let me just come off a little gruffly, that has got nothing to do with who we are. Sometimes we take other people’s actions very personally.
But it’s not always about us. Sometimes, one time one devotee came to me and he said, are you upset with me? I said no, why, what happened? He said, you know, last time I came to the temple and you were going to give the class, I greeted you, but you didn’t greet me. I said, really? I don’t even remember.
He said, do you know you were walking along that way? I said, oh no, that time, it was just like the hall was here, the assassin was here, he said open the door and I was going to go inside. So my whole conscience was I had to give the class now. He greeted me, I didn’t even notice it that time.
So what happens is, there’s no need to judge people based on some incidental actions. So we don’t know what people are going through and occasionally if somebody acts in a particular way, just accept it. All of us have difficult moments.
Sometimes we ourselves may act uncharacteristically when we have difficult moments. So what’s on the back is one thing. Sometimes if we, instead of judging people, if we just try to hear from them, try to learn what is going on in their life, then we will become more understanding of why they are acting in a particular way.
Second point is what is under their ground. What is under their ground means what has shaped their conceptions about themselves, about others and about life at large, about the world at large. We all are shaped by our upbringing, by our association.
So many things have shaped the way we perceive the world. And it’s not, it’s very easy for us to, from our perspective judge others. So a few years ago when I started travelling abroad and I went to America, I found that in India often we make jokes about how people in the West are so attached to their dogs.
Prabhupada would say if you don’t serve God, you will never serve dog. So people are very attached to their dogs. So I would often hear that kind of jokes in my classes.
When I went to America, I found that many devotees also have dogs. So I was a little taken aback. But then there was one devotee, you know, for him I saw his dog would go with him everywhere.
Now practically the dog was right next to him. I was thinking he is so attached. So then I saw when he went to the restroom, the dog went with him to the restroom also.
Hey, what is going on, I said. Then I finally, because we are a little close to each other, I got a little close to him. Very intelligent devotee, very senior, very learned, very respected devotee.
Then I asked him, you know, why is this dog there with you always? So he told me that he has got epilepsy and he gets fits. And this is a trained seizure dog. Seizure dog means that if you get fits, the dog anticipates and then the dog starts barking or the dog comes in the way to cushion the fall and then the dog also barks and alerts others.
So if that dog has a band around its neck and if a seizure dog is barking loudly, then the neighbours see and they call 911 or something. So he said this dog has saved my life twice. So the doctor has told me that you can get the seizures at any time.
So always have this dog with you. So this gives a whole completely different spin. I had no idea that there could be something like seizure dogs also, therapy dogs.
So we, one of the things which I have learned is after travelling across the world, I have come up with my own understanding of humility. Humility means to acknowledge the complexity of reality. Humility means to acknowledge the complexity of reality.
We come from our perspective and we think this person is behaving like this, it must be like that. But what is their background? What is their situation? We don’t know. So often when we start interacting with people, we start maybe living with people, working with people, we think we know them.
But actually, even if you have lived with someone for many years, still we don’t know them much. We don’t know everything about them. We don’t know what all is going on in other aspects of their life.
Even if they share their hearts, though they share all of their hearts, or even if they are sharing their heart also, still they may be influenced by certain things which even they themselves may not be understanding. So in general, if somebody is behaving in a way that is annoying us, that is troubling us, that is irritating us, we can’t wish away our annoyance. We can’t wish away our irritation.
We are being troubled. But we don’t have to assume that they are doing it intentionally. We don’t have to assume that they are bad people who are out to hurt us.
See, it’s obvious. It’s obvious what they are doing is hurting me. But no, it may not be obvious to them or so many other things may be going on in their life that they may not be thinking that this is actually hurting us.
So this is not to in any way say that what they are doing is right or that we should just bury our hurt feeling. It is just that between our hurt feeling and their hurtful intention, there is a big jump which may not be true. It’s said that sometimes people do high jumps, long jumps.
Some people do high jumps, you may fall down and you may injure yourself. So jumping from too high or jumping too long might be injurious. But the most dangerous jumping is jumping to conclusions.
So when we see a certain behaviour and we assume this person is like this, that kind of jumping to conclusions can ruin relationships. So how do we assert and try to understand why is this person doing like this? So actually it is a very deep human need to be understood, to be understood. It’s just as the body needs oxygen, the heart needs understanding, especially in close relationships.
And if somebody is not getting oxygen, they may do anything at that time. Because it’s a matter of life or death for them. To get oxygen, they may do anything.
They may just grab something, pull something, tear something down. Somehow they do get oxygen. So like that people feel choked when they feel they are not being understood.
So what happens? We are here, they are here, what we see is their actions. But why they are doing those actions, we make some assumption about their motivation, about their character. But people need to be understood.
So if we just, in our relationship we just learn to hear. If somebody has done something, how many times do I have to tell you to do the right thing? If we start a conversation like that, what is going to happen? That means we have come to that conversation already, the trial is over, the judgement is done, now only the punishment is to be delivered. How do we expect that kind of conversation to lead to anything constructive? It’s like in any court of law, there is a defendant who is given a chance to have their hearing, and the plaintiff says this, and then eventually it assails me.
But many times we come into a particular situation and say, I knew I could never count on you. When people see this attack on themselves, then what happens, it’s quite, if we see it objectively, it’s humorous. But when it happens to us, it’s not humorous, it’s terrible.
It’s like, issue X has happened, and from issue X a person makes a character attack Y, and then this person gets angry and then Y makes another character attack Z, Z, you do like that, you are like this. And then that issue is forgotten and there is a world war happening over something else entirely. So instead of rushing to, jumping to conclusions, if we just learn to hear.
Now hearing does not mean agreeing with people. It just means letting them have their say. Just like a judge will let the defendant have his say.
Now the defendant may be completely wrong. Defendant may be spinning a story by which they are trying to rationalise what they have done. They are trying to justify what they have done.
That’s okay, that can be evaluated later. But the similarly, we have to hear and hearing also has to be without evaluating. Sometimes when we are speaking with someone, even before we complete our sentence, that other person is starting to reply.
That means, in such a situation, they are not hearing to understand. They are hearing to respond. So it’s like a war is happening and the conversation is actually meant to be for communication.
It is not meant for fighting a verbal war, especially when it is between people who are working together. So as soon as one person completes a sentence, immediately the other person speaks, even before they complete. That means their idea is, okay, this is the sword that has come to hit me and here is my sword to hit back.
I am not only going to hit back, defend myself is going to hit them back again. So hearing to understand is very different from hearing to respond. Now it’s not that we shouldn’t respond, but we focus on understanding.
I was at a temple in America. There is a GBC and there is a president. So the president was telling me that I am working on this art of hearing.
This has made a dramatic transformation in my life, in my management skills, in my relationship with others. So then I was talking with the GBC over there. He said that I was called for a meeting and one of the temple council members said I want to meet.
So then when I came for the meeting, I found that all the temple council members were there except this president. And they all said we have complained about this, this, this, this, this. And they all said either that temple president goes or we go.
So the temple president was actually very competent, very, very competent person, but little bit domineering. So then this GBC told me that you just have to improve your people skills. That president said I am already working so hard.
I am working so hard to make this temple. Why are people so ungrateful? He said no, no, people are not ungrateful. People see you as too demanding.
He said but I am doing all this for Krishna. They are also doing it for Krishna. He said no, but I am working harder than them.
Yes, that is true, but when you are working, the temple president was more like full time devotee, working for the temple. Others were volunteers. He said you are working hard, that’s true, but they are also working hard according to their situation.
So he said just don’t defend yourself. Try to understand. And then this temple president told me that, I went and talked with that, talked with all the devotees and spent about, because some people are just like fix it, you know, do this, do this, do this, do this, just give orders, do this, do this.
He says I had about, there were four members in the other council and they had, I had one and a half hours talk with all of them. Since it was one and a half hours, I spoke less than five minutes. And this was the opposite of my normal talks with them.
Because I was the planner and I thought I am the planner, they are the executors. You do this, you do this, you do this, you do this. I think things are moving nicely.
But he said that, just, okay, so when I did like this, you felt that I was disrespecting you. Yes, exactly. When I did like this, you felt that I was sidelining you.
Yeah, I have been in this temple longer than you. Actually, the temple president told me that they didn’t have to make any change. Just hearing them changed the attitude.
And after that, things are going on so much, so much more smoothly. So it’s not that ultimately if one person is taking a lot of responsibility, people also know that this person is doing a lot of work. It’s not that people resent the contribution that they are making.
But people want to be heard. And if you just give them some hearing and non-judgemental, okay, this is what your feeling was. Now, I am not agreeing with your feeling.
I am not saying, okay, I will change everything. That is later. But just if people feel understood, that itself is actually a big, big way to avoid confrontation.
So, sometimes there are devotees, you know, we throw spiritual solutions at everything. If there is a conflict between two people, just chant Hare Krishna, everything will be alright. Well, yeah, chanting Hare Krishna is good.
But are you chanting Hare Krishna? Two people have a conflict and they are saying Hare Krishna. You know, this rascal, Krishna, Krishna. This fool, this idiot.
So, we are not chanting Krishna at all. We are actually simply having that mind replaying this, this, this. Just sit and talk.
Let the other person speak. Just hear. Quite often, lot of issues, not all issues, some issues just cannot be resolved and some people might be such that they just try to defend themselves.
And then there are other things to be done. But this is, when we try to understand people, we might feel that some people are so obtrusive. Whatever I want to do, you come in the way.
You don’t help at all, you just come in the way. But they may be coming in the way, not because they want to come in the way, but because they just, they also want to, they also want to be valued for what they are doing. We had the story of, in Ramayan, of Hanuman and the squirrel.
The squirrel was doing very little and the Vanaras were doing much more. So, they felt the squirrel is coming in the way. But what Ram saw was that you are serving according to your capacity, the squirrel is serving according to its capacity.
So, I accept everyone’s service. So, of course, we cannot sit for hours and just become like a receptacle for people’s mental garbage to be downloaded. That is entirely different.
We know some people just keep talking, talking, talking, talking. Then we have to be polite and at the same time we have to be firm. But some situations, where especially if our attitude is just fixing it, do this, do this, do this, then sitting and hearing can resolve a lot of issues.
And people may not be obtrusive, people may have some other issues which you may not come to know. Next slide. Yeah.
Can you go ahead? I don’t think this is the one. Can you go ahead? Yeah. I said this is the one.
Slight mistake. I’ll conclude with this slide. There is a tragic story in the Ramayana of how Vali and Sugriva were best of friends.
They were brothers and best of friends. Both of them were ready to give up their life for each other. But somehow and this demon Mayavi came to attack them, came to challenge Vali.
So, Vali and Sugriva both went out. The plan was that Mayavi might have some associates and they might together attack Vali. So, Sugriva would be there to prevent such treachery.
So, Vali was trying to have one-to-one fight. But when Mayavi saw that, oh, these two big people have come. One of them just fled.
And then he went into a cave, which is a catacomb, deep inside. So, Vali said, I will go inside, you stay near the door and you guard the door. Sugriva said, no, please let me also come.
He said, no, you stay here. Stay here, don’t go away. Guard this entrance.
And Vali went inside and for a long, long time he was gone. And finally, Sugriva was getting more and more worried. And then he heard the demon screaming.
He did not hear any sound of Vali. And then a complete silence. He thought that the demon has killed Vali.
I think Vali is much more powerful than me. If the demon has killed Vali, will I be able to kill the demon? And if I couldn’t kill him, he will break havoc in our kingdom. Thinking like this, he said that I have to stop this demon.
And he found a giant boulder. He used all his energy and he covered the boulder, covered the cave. He came back to the kingdom, told the citizens what had happened.
There was a statewide period of grieving. And they all said, now you have to become the king. Vali’s son was very small at that time.
And Sugriva reluctantly, with a heavy heart, accepted that. And after a few days, Vali came with red eyes, dishevelled body, fury on his face. And when he saw Sugriva on the throne, charged him, you traitor, you wanted to seize my kingdom and that’s why you trapped me.
Sugriva was so happy to see Vali alive. And he got up from his throne to offer him respects. But Vali started pounding him.
Sugriva tried to speak to him. But Vali just started beating him. And Sugriva thought Vali is so angry.
Vali was known to be short tempered. So he said, let Vali cool down. Then I will talk with him.
So he said, but Vali was beating him so severely that Sugriva would have died by that beating. Sugriva fled from there. And when Sugriva fled from there, for Vali, that confirmed Sugriva’s guilt.
Why would he flee if he was innocent? And then afterwards, he started thinking, Sugriva tried to kill me once. Again he may try to kill me and take the throne. So better I only try to kill him.
And he started sending various agents to try to kill him and Sugriva had to go all over the world to try to find some place to hide. And finally he came to Kishkindha which was the area where Vali couldn’t come because he had been cursed to not enter that area. And he stayed there.
And eventually Ram came and then Ram arranged with Sugriva told the whole story about how he has been banished, how his kingdom, how his palace has been taken, his wife has been taken, he has been deprived of everything. Ram felt very angry by this injustice. And then Ram arranged for Sugriva to get back the kingdom.
So when Vali was shot by Ram, at that time, Vali was initially angry. He says, no, why did you kill me like this? So there is a whole analysis of how Ram’s killing of Vali was fair. But the important thing is, at that time, Ram said, you know, you were an aggressor against Sugriva and aggressors deserve to be killed.
So at that time, he spoke, Sugriva was your brother, he served you with his life, how could you treat him like this? That time Vali realised when his ego had been pound to powder by the arrows of Ram, by the arrow of Ram piercing through his chest, and then the arrow like words of Ram also penetrated into him. And he realised he had committed a terrible mistake. And then he reconciled with the Lord.
By then, it was too late. Now, in this case, we see that both Sugriva and Vali jumped to conclusions. Sugriva jumped to the conclusion that Vali was dead.
And Vali jumped to the conclusion that Sugriva betrayed him. And both of them, their conclusions were wrong. However, in a sense, both of them were wrong in jumping to conclusions.
But there is a significant difference in two cases. In the first case of Sugriva jumping to conclusion, he did not have the opportunity to see the clarification. The demon would come out, it might be just too late to stop the demon.
But for Sugriva, for Vali, that situation was not there. Vali could have sought clarification. Vali could have let Sugriva speak.
So Mayavi, Sugriva suspected that he was more powerful than him. But Vali was more powerful than Sugriva. Everybody knew that.
Sugriva also knew that. So in that sense, Vali did not have that much danger from Sugriva. But he did.
So without ascertaining what is the motive, he acted. So this is one of the surest ways, if you want a formula for ruling relationships, this is the formula. Judge without understanding.
Judge without understanding. And especially we succumb to this if we are very intelligent. If we are intelligent, we think I understand things.
And we look at a situation, immediately we think, I know why this person is doing like this. But it may not be like that. I will talk in a later session about how if we have judged without understanding, how we can make amends.
But here the thrust of the session was we have to ascertain. We have to better give people the benefit of doubt and understand why they are doing what they are doing. So I will summarise.
Now when some unwanted situation has come, some person is behaving in a very unpleasant way, unpalatable way, at that time the first step is we accept it. And then we have to ascertain why they are doing the way they are doing. So often we see an action and assume a motivation.
We make value judgments about why people act the way they do. And those value judgments cloud our inner vision, just as say our palms would cloud our eyes. And if we have decided that somebody is lazy, somebody is rude, then no matter how politely they speak, we see their politeness also through the filter of that rudeness.
And we don’t see people as they are, we see them as we think they are. So sometimes people may behave in a terrible way, but that may be just uncharacteristic. So to understand people’s background doesn’t mean to know salacious details to defame them, like the naked Pancho, but it means to understand what is on their back and what is under their ground.
What is on their back means what is it that they are going through right now, what problems they are facing. Then they have gone through ten bad things in a day and we happen to be the eleventh, they may do small things, they may explode. So what is done in intention, we don’t have to assume intention in it.
It’s like Lakshman did not hold Sita’s words against her. And what is under their ground means what is their worldview, what has shaped their self-conception, what is it that they are, what are they going through actually in life. Not just going through their life, what has shaped their conception of themselves, of the world.
So I talked about how seeing a dog with someone constantly, he is very attached to the dog, but then it’s a therapy dog, seizure dog. So we don’t know. So humility means to acknowledge the complexity of reality.
Not thinking that because this action, that means this must be the intention. We enquire. I talked about how just as our body needs oxygen, our heart needs understanding.
So if people don’t feel, not understood, then they may just go wild and do various things. So if we just sit and hear, non-judgementally, not hearing to respond. It’s not a verbal war that you have spoken, you have thrust this weapon, I got this weapon to him back.
No, just hear to understand. If we do that, we find that we may not have to make major changes, but people will become less obtrusive. People will travel less because they have a need to be understood.
Just hearing someone is also valuing that person. And then I talked about how if we don’t take the time to ascertain, we may judge without understanding and that may lead to disaster. That may lead to, it’s like Wally and Sugri were best of friends, but they became the worst of enemies and eventually Wally had to die because of that.
So for us, if we learn to ascertain, not judge without understanding, then we can avoid potential misunderstandings and we can reconcile even when misunderstandings do happen. So in the next session, I will talk about appreciate. But before that, are there any questions or comments? Yes, please.
They want to… Can you move the mic a little bit behind? No, no, move the mic a little. So they both want to understand, basically want everybody else to understand them. So both of them, as you said, right, when… Okay, so you are saying that when two people are having a conflict and both of them want others to understand them.
So what do we do in that situation? Yeah. If two people are having a conflict and at that time both of them feel that I am not being understood, both of them try to understand, try to come, say, start speaking to clarify their position. So what do we do in that time? Yeah, it’s a very difficult situation in general.
There is one principle Chaitanya Bhagwat says at one level that if two very great Vaishnavas are having a difference of opinion, then don’t take sides. But this doesn’t mean that we always stay uncommitted. There he is talking about, if there are two very exalted devotees, at that time somehow after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu departed, the followers of Advaita Acharya… Advaita Acharya and Nityananda Prabhu got on very well.
But the followers of Advaita Acharya and followers of Nityananda Prabhu, they would sometimes have conflicts. So Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is addressing them that don’t think that they may have transcendental conflicts, but don’t ascribe that. Don’t create conflicts among themselves based on their transcendental conflicts.
So that is one principle. But that is not necessarily to be applied every time. We have to see the three broad situations or three broad circumstances.
One is that if we are in a position of authority and there are two people who are speaking out their side of the story, then we need to give a fair hearing to both. And then we have to take a proper decision. And even when the proper decision is taken, it has to be properly communicated.
In general, in the devotee community, what is right and what is wrong is not as important as what is uplifting. I’ll talk about this again in act if I get time, but let me bring it here. There is a principle of right and there is a principle of right beyond right.
Right beyond right means that from the facts, I am right and you are wrong. That may be true. But what is beneficial for people? What actually helps someone to grow? What helps to resolve the situation? That’s what we should focus on.
So in the 4th canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam, there is a story of how when Prithu Maharaj was performing yajnas, he performed 99 yajnas. And then he also performed the 100th yajna. At that time, Indra came in various ways and tried to interfere, to stop, disrupt the yajna.
And finally, Prithu tolerated for a long time. Prithu said, you know this imposter, I am going to kill him. He came with weapons to shoot.
At that time, Brahmaji came. And Brahmaji told him that, just forget it. Indra is attached to the reputation of having 100 yajnas.
So you just have that reputation. You just be satisfied with 99 yajnas. It’s very difficult at that time.
I am on the verge of making a record. At that time, it was a matter of religious prestige to be able to do 100 yajnas. In India, about 10-15 years ago, there were two prominent cricketers.
One of them was a captain. Both of them were very good batsmen. So there was this other batsman who was a champion batsman.
One time, there was a test match going on. He was on 190s. In 190s he was.
At that time, the other batsman declared. He said, you know, I wanted to make a double century. Why did you declare? He said, for months upon months, the second batsman didn’t talk with the first batsman.
He said, you know, you have hit so many double centuries. Here you wanted to have enough time for the bowlers to get the other team out, batting team out. He just couldn’t take it.
He said, I want to set this record. So people are very attached sometimes. But the point is that he, Pruthu, accepted.
Pruthu could have said, you know, I am doing dharma. I am doing the yajna. And he is doing our dharma.
So why don’t you stop him? Why are you stopping me? I am right, he is wrong. Why don’t you stop him? But Brahma, that was Brahma’s understanding. Pruthu also understood that.
Actually, Indra is immature. Indra is attached. If you tell Indra, he is not going to listen.
So Pruthu, you take the mature stand. You listen. The world is a very big place.
If two people are having a conflict, and the conflict is becoming ugly, it’s best, let one person take the step back. You say, no, but this is so important. This is a valuable service.
I have done so much. Yes, it’s true. And if you have been invested in something for a long time, then it’s difficult to step back.
But we want to maintain harmony in the community. So it’s amazing what happens afterwards, that normally when the yajna is completed successfully, and if it’s a splendorous success, then Vishnu comes, appears in a visible form. Actually, normally when the yajnas are done, the devatas simply accept the offering.
Sometimes the devatas are visible. On very rare occasions, Vishnu is visible. Here Pruthu renounces the 100th yajna.
And then Vishnu comes. The yajna is unsuccessful, but the purpose of the yajna is successful. He is able to please Vishnu.
Sometimes in a conflict, the conflict is just becoming too ugly. One person has to become a little more mature. Stop it.
Stop it. Even if people think you have won, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter so much.
Now Krishna will see that we are trying to maintain harmony. And the world is a very big place. There are so many different ways in which you can serve Krishna.
You don’t have to… So if we are in an authoritative position, we try to make a fair judgement, fair assessment. If we are not in an authoritative position, then if we are in a position where we are able to guide either of them, then this is the second case. We guide them, and we… not in a guide in a superior kind of sense, but just in a friend kind of sense, just take a back position now.
Yes, people may think that you failed or whatever. But eventually, how a person has lived throughout their lives, that matters much more than what is accused in a particular situation. Accusations come, accusations go.
They are like… They stay in a part of our memory which is like a sensational memory. We all want some controversy, we all want some masala, we all want some sensations. But the memory about the masalas doesn’t last for very long.
The memory of controversy is such that whatever the latest controversy, everybody talks about them. But after a few months, some other controversy comes up and the old controversy gets forgotten. So… So if we are in a position of being a friend, then we can try to tell them that.
If we are not in the position, if we are just part of the general community, and we don’t have either the influence to assess and judge, or even to guide, then it is best that we don’t talk too much about it. No. One definition of gossip, prajalva, one definition of gossip is to talk about things which we can do nothing about.
You know, he did like this, you know, she spoke like that, you know, this happened, that happened. Okay, so what? We have come here to practise Krishna Bhakti and go towards Krishna. If… Yes, if we can, by talking, help someone, then that is good.
But if we are not in a position to help, okay, we get some information, okay, you know, it’s very difficult, in general, to know what has happened. You know, I was… I currently… Some devotee that asked me to write a… I write… Somebody asked me to write a history of ISKCON. You know, we have a history of Prabhupada’s life, but history of ISKCON is not there.
So then there are many scholars also who have been trying to write it, but nothing has happened. So then I started studying it, and I started studying how history is written. And then I realised one thing, history is like permanently disputed territory.
Permanently disputed territory. Okay, this happened like this, or that happened like that. Sometimes the winners and losers have two completely different narratives of what happened.
Right? And who is right? Unless we are completely into the field, applying ourselves, we need to have some investigative, historical skills to understand what is the reality. It’s very difficult to know. So we in that situation simply think, how best I can serve Krishna in this situation.
And if we can be of some… If in resolving that situation, or in giving some support and strength to some devotees who are burnt by the situation, we can be of some help, we can be of help. But otherwise, just talking about it, it simply drains our energy, decreases everyone’s morale, and diverts everyone from Krishna Bhakti. Okay? Thank you.
Hare Krishna. Yes, Mataji? Hare Krishna. When we are in conflict with someone, and we want to find out what their… I mean, a lot of times in our culture, we are afraid of confrontation, because we don’t make the relationship work.
And, for example, my mom always used to say that, you know, she keeps it to herself. So there’s that philosophy in the early days, that you keep your life to yourself, and you just take it, and you try and be stronger, be stronger. But then not everyone can live by that philosophy.
Okay, yeah. They want things within themselves, and that’s without being responsive to anyone. So, also if we address some issues with someone directly, sometimes people get taken aback, because they’re not used to talking about specific things.
That’s true. Yeah, that’s a good question. So, if you want to understand people’s background, what is on their back, and what is under their ground, how do we go ahead and do that? Sometimes people say that, even if you’re hurt, just keep it to yourself, and move on with life.
Or if you directly ask them, they may just feel it’s a bit too intrusive in their life. Yeah. Let’s say that, there are two parts of the question.
First part is, should we just let hurts go by? It depends on what the kind of hurt is. So, there are certain situations when small things happen, you just tolerate it and move on with life. If a person is normally courteous, one day suddenly they speak rudely to us, okay, that happens sometimes.
Everybody has their weak moments, everybody has their bad days. So, this depends on what the action is, how serious it is, and how seriously it is felt by us. Now, different people have different capacities to tolerate pain also.
So, some people, you know, if they, like, I was in America, I was in Phoenix, and I was going from one place to another, I was at the airport, I was taking some prasad, and I was taking the prasad, it was soft, but in between there was a date seed. I suddenly chewed on the date seed, it was so hard, that along with the date seed, my tooth came out. It just popped out over there, you know.
I was bleeding, so I was alarmed, then I called the devotees over there, and then I took a photo of that, and then I, in America, in the western world in general, health is very expensive, even if you have health insurance. So, we went to, when I reached the destination, it was a one and a half hour flight, we reached the destination, we went to a doctor, he said that just to, it was, some injury was there, he said, take little thousands of dollars to deal with it. Then I sent to one devotee in India, who was a dentist, and he said, how much pain are you feeling? It is looking very alarming, but I am not feeling much pain.
He said, then, I was going to come back to India in 15 days, we will deal with it at that time. He said, I will give you pain medicine, and you take the pain medicine, depending on how much pain you feel. Now, you tell me, should I take the medicine? No, no, this is subjective.
Different people feel pain differently. Different people have different thresholds of pain, different people have different bodies. So, just as, in some cases, for some people, the same injury, the pain may be so much, that they need a painkiller.
Now, that does not mean that they are weaker people, or anything like that. It is just their body is shaped differently. So, just as, different people’s bodies are shaped differently, and they may need different dosages of painkillers, or different prescriptions at all, whether they need painkillers or not.
Similarly, with respect to emotions also. Some people are emotionally very sensitive and vulnerable. Small things hurt them a lot.
And some things are different. Sorry, some people are different. They just, okay, these things happen, move on in life.
So, it’s a person who can tolerate pain without a painkiller. Like that person telling, you know, you also don’t need to take it, just tolerate it. But they are feeling unbearable pain.
So, we can appreciate the principle, but we have to work with the body and mind that we have. So, if we are feeling very hurt by it, then we have to process it. We can’t just neglect it.
So, that’s the answer to the first part. It is a valid point that small things have to be neglected. But what is a small thing, is not objective.
Something may feel very small to one person, something may feel very big to another person. We can say our mind has a tendency to make small things big, that is true. But some things may just be so big that we can’t wish them away.
We can’t just neglect them. Having said that, the second part is that, with respect to dealing, with trying to understand what is their background, there are three broad ways to do it. One is, just that, we start a conversation with the person, about whom we have some questions.
And we just ask some gentle, or general inquisitive questions. General questions of enquiry. And depending on their response, we can decide.
Maybe we can ask more questions. Like before we swim, we put our foot in the water to see how cold it is. So, sometimes people, when people speak words, actually they are opening the door of their hearts.
And they are sharing what is in their heart. So, some people are very guarded. And they will also see how our response is.
If they see we are being very judgemental, or we are going to use that knowledge against them, they will not speak. But if we are seeking to understand, there is a language the heart understands. When we, when somebody actually, comes without any agenda, to learn, people feel, I want to open and I want to speak.
So, sometimes, just starting with some basic enquiry, not directly confronting the issue, then it may help. Second could be that, we could talk with some other devotees, some other people who know them. Not in the gossiping sense, but in the understanding sense.
Sometimes there are some people, you feel this person is a terrible person. And then there are some other people, you feel he is such a wonderful person. What do you see so wonderful in that person? I don’t see anything wonderful.
Then when we ask them, not for gossip, but what do you find so nice about this person? Or just politely ask that, what inspires you about them? And then they start telling. Then we get a whole different understanding. And then that time, they may also tell something about, about that person’s other, other thing in their background also.
And, third is of course, there is always, in every community, there is a gossip mill. There is a, there are humour mongers, who keep sharing things. Now through that, we might come to know about some things, about someone.
And, at that time, if that is affecting us too much, then we have to clarify it. Even if it leads, even if it leads you to misunderstand. The third way is actually quite unreliable way.
But, if somehow we already got some information from there, then, that is just, that becomes like a, that haunts us constantly. Maybe, did this person do like this actually? I heard this about this person. Then we have to clarify.
We can do it in a non-judgemental, gentle way, respectful way. This is what I heard from somewhere. I would like to know what the reality is.
So, then, people will open their hearts. So, I would say the first or the second is the safest way. But, if the third has happened, but, whether we go the first or second way might be optional.
But, if third has already happened, is troubling us, then the first, one of the, then first or second, we have to choose, and find out. Okay. Thank you.
So, one last question, and we will have our lunch break. Okay. So, two questions we have.
Okay. The mic is coming. The question is, sometimes in a relationship, one, one person’s maturity, or higher acceptance, tries to violate the other.
Yeah. That is true. Now, if somebody is more matured, then that may lead to the other person continuing their immaturity.
Yeah, this is actually a phenomena called as in co-dependency also. One person is an addict and that person makes a mess of their life and their partner, their some relative, they create a mess and the other person keeps settling that mess. And that way this person keeps doing that wrong thing again and again.
And this co-dependency is damaging both the addict as well as the relative of the addict. So, that is always a possibility. I would say that again there are two or three different situations.
One is that person has some weakness in some area and the other person is good in that area. Now, sometimes some weaknesses are such that it is very difficult to overcome them. Some people are just not very good at managing money.
They just keep a mess of their life and they try all sorts of things and they can’t do it. It doesn’t work for them. Then they may say, you take care of monetary matters, I will take care of this.
So, then instead of saying that this is simply facilitating their immaturity, it might just be a complimenting them. It is an issue, but it is not really a serious character flaw. Co-dependency is like a third case, an extreme, where the person is doing something which is very damaging to them and damaging to others and the first person is letting them do the damaging thing.
So, that is unhealthy and that should be avoided. The co-dependency is that this person has to reap the consequences of their actions. Only then they will reform.
If you keep shielding them from the consequences, it is you who will be hurt and they will never reform. So, the third extreme, third situation is not good. At that time, somebody has to intervene and tell this person, you step aside.
Then the first case is where it is just a weakness, it is just some ability which they lack. Then you can compliment and often that is how relationships work. All of us, if I have some weakness, somebody else has some strength, then they take care of my, they manage the area of my weakness and I manage the area of their weakness.
So, then we compliment each other. So, in that case, it is not facilitating immaturity, it is just balancing because nobody is good in everything and we all can work together. The in-between situation is where, so in this situation, the other person also acknowledges I am weak and appreciates the other person for supporting them over there.
And I was at a place and there was a devotee who had come to meet me and the devotee was leaving. So, his wife called him. Have you taken your bid bag? Have you taken your wallet? Have you taken this? Yeah, yeah, I have taken all this.
He said, look at all this sitting here. So, then I was going to record his update. He told me that.
He himself told me, I keep forgetting things. So, whenever I am going from one place to another, my wife calls me and asks me, are you taking everything? So, I told him, you know, is it really funny at all? He says, no, no, we all got used to it. It is better that I not forget things and then have to run around to find out where they are.
So, we do this and move forward. I appreciate his humility in accepting that publicly. Not publicly, just in front of me he told that.
But, you know, it is just, he is valuing her for doing that. But the second situation would be that somebody else compensates for our weaknesses and we take them for granted. So, we start dumping it on them and we start demanding it from them.
There, it may not, there is some, something we have to adjust. What has to happen is, either we or someone else has to tell them that. You cannot just expect a demand from others.
This person, even if it is a close relationship, everybody is an individual, everybody has their responsibility. So, then I will talk about, you know, appreciating each other in the relationship. So, sometimes we just have to compliment each other.
But if we value what the other person is doing, then that complimenting does not seem like a burden. It is just a service we are doing. We do something for them, they do something for others, they do something for us.
So, if it is the second situation, then through some way or other, there has to be a greater appreciation of that fact. And so, it is not that being unable to do something is immature. That could be, but the real immaturity is not accepting one’s limitation.
It is not accepting one’s limitation and not learning to live with the limitation or not learning to work with, either to work with the limitation or work to rectify the limitation. Just thinking everything is all right as it is. So, that is what is immaturity.
One last question and then we will stop. Sir, we have three seconds left. Oh, really? Okay, where is, yeah.
So, should we do it now or should we do it later? Is this, sorry. So, we complete this. It is a very mild s. If it is already quite late for lunch, we can do it later also.
I think we will do it later. So, you can announce about when we are going to meet. Sir, we did not have lunch.
Thank you very much. Jai. Jai.
Jai. Jai. Jai.
Jai. Jai. Jai.
Jai. Jai. Jai.
Jai. Jai. Jai.
Jai. Jai. Jai.