Nonviolence in speech – Be sensitive and sensible

[Sunday feast class at ISKCON, Washington DC, USA]

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
There are some times when I ask some authors to write a foreword to my book. And there is a problem if that person who writes the foreword is a much better author than me, then people find my book a disappointment.
So, I think that’s what happened with the introduction now. I hope the talk will not be too much of anticlimax. After that kind of introduction, I don’t think anybody can survive.
So, I will be speaking today on the topic of avoiding violence in speech or we could say non-violence in speech. And there are quite a few occasions in my life when I have wished that I was not so articulate. Most people feel that they can’t express themselves clearly.
But nothing in life is a pure blessing. Because I am an author, I tend to be good at words. But then when I get angry with someone and then if I criticise them, I can cut them with such precise words that can cause lifelong wounds.
Some people, when they get angry, we can see they are angry but we can’t make out what they are saying. They become incoherent. But some people, they become angry and they can cut very severely also.
So, our tongue is like a sword that is always with us, inside us. Or to give a more contemporary example, our tongue is like a loaded gun that we are always carrying with us. Nowadays, there is a concern that many people have these assault weapons which they can just use to do school shootings or other things like that.
Now, most of us would not do physical violence. But verbal violence can easily happen and it does happen. So, it’s important for us to recognise that the tongue can cut.
It can cut very badly. The sticks can only break bones but tongues can break hearts. imagine if we had a gun with us, we would recognise that I have to be extremely responsible.
I cannot just let this gun get fired accidentally. Similarly, we have a gun right here inside our mouth. And how we use it will determine not only our future but the future of those around us also.
It can break people’s hearts. And of course, they will reciprocate by breaking our hearts. So, I’ll talk about non-violence in speech.
And this is the Bhagavad Gita 17.15 and 16 I’ll be using. So, 15 talks about austerity of speech and 16 talks about austerity of the mind. It’s 16 over there.
It should actually be 15. But I’ll mention a little bit from 16 also when I talk about it. So, this verse 17.15 is So, I talked about the tongue being like a sword or a gun.
So, Krishna says how to discipline your speech. If somebody has a gun, how to make sure it doesn’t fire accidentally. So, broadly Krishna is talking about five attributes of disciplined speech.
So, out of those four are non-agitating. Satyam, be truthful. Priyam, be pleasing.
Itam, be beneficial. And lastly he says Repeat scripture. Speak according to scripture and just recite scripture regularly.
That is also an austerity of speech. So, I am focussing on the first four attributes over here and I have divided those four attributes into two broad categories. If our speech is to be effective then it has to be both sensitive and sensible.
Sensible means what we see should make sense. It should have meaning in it. And sensitive means we need to be aware of people’s emotions and make sure that it doesn’t unnecessarily hurt them.
And so those four attributes I have divided under these two categories. Sensitive means non-agitating and pleasing. We understand people’s emotional state and speak in a way that pleases the other person, doesn’t unnecessarily hurt the other person.
Quite often when we get angry we want to be we just blurt out. Now we should speak to give others peace of mind. But most often we speak to give others a piece of our mind.
And often it’s a bad piece of our mind. So, speak to give peace of mind not a piece of your mind. So, it should be non-agitating and pleasing is about being sensitive.
And other two aspects are, we don’t want to be flatterers. We have to speak the truth. It should be sensible.
It should be truthful and it should be beneficial. What we speak should be of some use to others. Some people speak to express their thoughts.
And some people speak to discover their thoughts. They speak, I didn’t mean to say that. It’s like a slip of tongue.
So, there has to be some thought before speaking. So, sensible and sensitive. Now, in both these directions, our topic is broadly non-violence in speech.
So, violence in speech can happen in both ways. If there is only sensitivity and no sense in it. And there is only sense and no sensitivity in it.
So, that is going to be the broadly the remaining part of the class. So, how to balance these two? So, effective speech is sensitive and sensible. But, you could go towards one extreme where we are sensitive but we are not sensible at all.
So, we care so much for people’s emotions and we don’t care whether we are speaking the right thing or not. So, the example for that could be that if a child has some injurious disease and the child needs an injection and they go to a doctor and the doctor says, No, no, no, it causes me so much pain, I don’t want an injection. The child starts protesting and crying and says, you know, you are such a cruel person.
I came to be healed but you are causing me more pain. And the doctor starts thinking, Oh, no, I shouldn’t cause pain to the child. And the doctor doesn’t give the injection.
What will happen? What do you think will happen? The child will become more sick, isn’t it? So, they may think that I am being kind but actually the doctor is being unkind. So, there are times when the truth has to be spoken. And if it is not spoken, it is because it is going to hurt the other person.
Then we are being sensitive at the cost of being sensible. So, that is the extreme which is unhealthy. So, here what happens? When we are sensitive at the cost of being sensible, we are caring for others’ feelings but not their future.
I don’t want the child to feel pain. That’s true, but the child is going to feel bigger pain in future if I don’t give the injection to the child. So, if we care too much for people’s feelings and not for their futures, that is where we go to the extreme of being sensitive without being sensible.
And then, we can go toward violence in that direction because that person is hurting and is doing something which is going to hurt them further. If it is our duty to stop them and if we don’t stop them, we are doing violence. Shri Bakta Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur, the spiritual master of Shri Prabhupada would give the example that if somebody is walking on a tall building with no parapet walls and they are walking toward the edge and they are going to walk off the edge.
You have to yell and tell them, don’t walk over there. And if you don’t tell them that, then we are unwittingly being violent. So, that person is just enjoying the scenery, watching everywhere and not looking ahead.
And we yell at them, stop! And that person says, why are you disturbing me? Such a beautiful scenery, let me watch it. Stop, look down. You are just interrupting with my enjoyment.
No, but your enjoyment is going to lead to destruction. So, that is one extreme. And the other extreme could be where, I’ll come to this a little later again in the class, but this is an overview of what I am going to do.
So, let’s look at the other extreme is, we are sensible, but without being sensitive. So, there, we want to do the right thing, we want to speak the right thing, but we don’t care at all for how, what we are doing is going to impact the other person. Suppose a person needs to be operated and the doctor, the surgeon has come, and a surgeon doesn’t give anaesthesia.
And then they are operated. It will be excruciatingly painful. And if the doctor has the opportunity to give anaesthesia, but the doctor doesn’t give the anaesthesia, then that will be violence on the part of the doctor.
So, the doctor when doing surgery has to cause pain, but the pain should be minimum. As less as possible. And one way to lessen the pain is by giving anaesthesia.
So, anaesthesia in this case is like sensitivity, caring for people’s feelings. So, sometimes we may care so much for people’s future. If you do this, this is going to be wrong.
And this is going to be terrible for you. We may be genuinely concerned about their future, but we may not care for their present feelings at all. Like sometimes, we may we may find in order to caution someone, maybe if you have a teenage child or somebody else, we may find don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this.
So, what happens? People sometimes start feeling that you always you only find faults with me. The only thing you find is fault. Whatever I do, it can never please you.
So, we may have appreciation in our heart for them, but when we speak, we usually catch them when they are doing something wrong. And then they become alienated by that. When they become alienated, then if we speak, even if we speak the truth, even if it is beneficial, but still it won’t benefit them.
Because we won’t get their cooperation. Or we will have at least very active rebellion on our hands. So, we can’t only care for the future and we can’t care only for the feelings.
There has to be a balance of both. That’s how we can make sure that our speech doesn’t become violent, but stays effective. So, I will divide this talk into three parts.
This was the first part about the overview of what I am going to speak. Any comments or questions till now? Any point? Yes. You can speak.
I will repeat it. Okay. I wonder if you can elaborate or continue that sense of sensibility of how it is easier for a spiritual practitioner if you are trying to follow a philosophy or you know, I have seen this in so many different circles, to use philosophy in a sensible, in a very insensitive way.
Like you used the example of a dark time, so people couldn’t so much take things out of content and really be very insensible, but at the same time, you know, sentimental. Yeah, it’s very quiet. It feels like a very real thing that happens in a lot of spiritual traditions and times.
I wonder if you can comment on that. Thank you. It’s a very important concern.
And actually the later part of the seminar is this itself. I mean, because often our spirituality makes us more judgemental about others than more understanding about others. Once we have spiritual knowledge, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is deviant, this is sinful, this is like this, this is like that.
And then when we start becoming dismissive, then it can alienate people. I was at an interfaith conference and there was a Christian pastor. He told me that they had done some survey about about what was young people’s perception about religious people, about pastors.
So there was one young boy. He said that a pastor, a priest or a pastor or a religious teacher is someone who’s always worried that someone somewhere is having some fun. So some people feel that you just impose your standards, your rules on everyone else and you just take the joy out of my life.
So yes, we can be judgemental at times and we have to be cautious about that. So going back to the labrador surgery example in due course. Thank you for this point.
So now, first I’ll talk about this part. Sensitive but not sensible. And then I’ll go to sensible but not sensitive.
So in that sensible not but sensitive, I’ll come to your part. So this sensitive but not sensible is very common nowadays in the form of political correctness. And yes, sometimes political correctness can express sensitivity but you can take it to great extremes where it’s like your freedom ends where my feelings begin.
Your freedom of speech ends where my feelings begin. And where my feelings begin, I will decide that. So sometimes political correctness is taken to extremes.
So what is it? Moral posturing about being sensitive at the expense of being sensible. It’s not even being sensitive, it’s moral posturing. See, I’m so sensitive and you also have to be sensitive.
So when we have this at an extreme, then there is a lot of problem that comes up because people just can’t function normally. Who is going to be like a thought police or a speech police who says this cannot be spoken, this cannot be spoken. Yes, there are certain things which are wrong but not everything wrong can be made illegal.
There is individual autonomy and individual responsibility. And some people are just uncouth in their speaking. And it would be nice if they would be cultured.
But we cannot go to the extreme anybody says any feelings are wrong and you can’t speak this. The result of this would be that we cannot have freedom of speech, we cannot have freedom of expression. So political correctness is good to the extent we are aware and conscious that certain people have been disenfranchised in the past, they have suffered in the past and we don’t want to use derogatory labels against people.
But that doesn’t mean that we become hypersensitive about it. So that is now when sensitivity becomes too important for people, this can happen even in the area of religion and spirituality where there can be absolute relativism. See we all need to be open minded but we can’t be so open minded that our brain falls out.
What does that mean? Once Srila Prabhupada was giving a talk on the Bhagavad Gita and after that one person asked a question, Swamiji I don’t know which is the verse in the Gita but I know Krishna has said that whichever path you follow you will come to me. And Prabhupada replied if that were the case then why does Krishna have to speak the Bhagavad Gita? If whatever you do you are going to come to Krishna then why does Krishna have to speak the Bhagavad Gita? The Bhagavad Gita is spoken to outline some paths. Arjuna has a very specific question I want to know what is Dharma? So to say that all paths are right you cannot there are different people who have different ideas and different paths.
We don’t want to personally attack anyone but we need to evaluate the merits of different paths so that we can choose a particular path and commit to that path. Most of the times people who say that all paths are equal they have equal commitment to all paths and that is zero. Those who say all paths are equal, what happens? They end up not following any path.
Now what do I mean by all paths are not equal? It’s like if somebody says that all paths are equal so I am an atheist you are a theist, both are equal. Well if both are equal they are contradictory this doesn’t mean atheists should be persecuted but we have to evaluate based on merit now there is another extreme you could say only my path is the right path that is also extremism there can be different right paths but we have to evaluate based on merit going back to the sick person’s example there can be different kinds of therapies. There can be allopathy there can be ayurveda, there can be naturopathy there can be homoeopathy but there are some broad parameters this is a sick condition and by following this therapy you should become healthy you see all treatments are right I don’t even evaluate whether a person will become healthy or not well that’s not right so if we go towards extreme political correctness then the whole idea of truth and false can get completely lost so this is where if we are sensitive at the expense of being sensible now let’s go to the other part that somebody might be sensible at the cost of being sensitive so somebody is completely logically correct and that is all they are at then what happens even if we are right and even if we tell that we are right but it’s not that we can look at our own lives how many times as soon as we know something is right we do it so many things which we know we are right but we are struggling to do it so we need to not just be instructed but inspired and speech it doesn’t serve its full purpose unless it also encourages it also inspires and the Bhagavad Gita itself is this dynamic that throughout the Gita repeatedly Krishna is empathic Krishna is encouraging Krishna is inspiring Arjun he tells in 6.34 and 35 that 33 and 34 that the mind is very difficult to control so he says the mind is restless, reasonless relentless and just can’t control the mind so then what does Krishna say Krishna doesn’t say just buck up don’t be lazy, control it Krishna says yes undoubtedly it is difficult to control the mind so Krishna empathises with Arjun it’s only when Arjun feels understood that Arjun becomes ready to understand suppose we are sick and we go to a doctor and as soon as we sit on the doctor’s chair the doctor starts giving a prescription I didn’t even tell my symptoms no I already know the symptoms just take the prescription even if the doctor were giving the right prescription unless we had the confidence that the doctor has understood me we would not feel confident about taking the prescription isn’t it so people need to feel understood before they become ready to understand and that’s where sensitivity comes into the picture so the doctor may be logically right this is your disease, I can see the symptoms I have seen so many people with this disease just by looking at it I know what the problem is and I will give the treatment but no so if we are simply logically correct, we might instruct others but we will not inspire others we won’t inspire confidence, we won’t inspire commitment that’s why there is only sense without sensitivity that doesn’t work and more often than not on the spiritual path if we are practising some spiritual path and we are trying to share that with others we can go in that direction so one common metaphor that is used in spiritual circles is that those who are saintly their words are like swords they cut you could say it’s like a surgical scalpel which cuts what do they cut the words saintly people cut are illusions and there are so many examples of this in the Bhagavatam Dhritarashtra is very attached Dhritarashtra is an excellent example of very strong attachment there are bad examples and there are good bad examples good bad examples bad examples can also have different categories some examples may be good so Dhritarashtra had to lose everything before he lost his attachment to lose everything then he became ready so Vidura’s words came and Vidura spoke to him what are you doing staying in your kingdom like this doing nothing except producing cough now it’s time for you to renounce the world and his strong words had an effect so sometimes attachments and misconceptions need to be cut and that cutting of attachments and misconceptions is like a surgery so it needs to be done at times if people are to grow in their understanding at the same time so that’s where it’s our responsibility to communicate in a way that others misconceptions and illusions can be removed but surgery has to be done very carefully and we become judgemental and we alienate people when we don’t consider the context while doing surgery so there are four broad qualifying conditions before surgery can be done now surgery is first of all never done without consent that person or at least some relative or somebody you cannot do surgery without consent one of my friend was a surgeon and he had invited me to his we were discussing something he invited me to his place he was going to do surgery and before that the patient said I have been asked to sign the statement that because of this the surgery is risky and I know the risk and I said I am not going to sign you must assure me that I will be safe doctor said I will do my best to make sure the surgery goes safely but there is danger nobody can guarantee complete safety right now we are sitting nobody can guarantee that the roof is not going to cave on us it won’t very very low probability so then the patient said I don’t accept this you have to guarantee that I am safe then the doctor said we cannot do the surgery so without consent surgery cannot be done so similarly unless people accept us as some kind of spiritual authority if we try to challenge and correct their misconceptions we are simply overstepping it’s like a doctor doing surgery without consent and actually this is a bigger problem because at least when a patient comes to a doctor they know they are sick most people don’t know they are sick most people think everything is fine in my life so because of that unless a person is ready to accept us as a spiritual authority at some level without that we cannot really cut people’s misconceptions so the first thing we need to do is just connect with people at a human level when Prabhupada asked how do we know your followers Prabhupada said that they are perfect ladies and gentlemen that means we connect with people at a human level by being gentlemen by being cultured and once we connect with people at a human level then we can connect with them at a spiritual level so consent means we earn people’s trust at the very basic level if we are going to correct anybody’s misconceptions if we are going to elevate somebody to a higher understanding they need to have that faith that we are their well wishers and earning that faith is a responsibility of any spiritual teacher or anybody who wants to share spiritual knowledge and secondly that apart from consent generally surgery is never the first line of treatment normally other treatments are tried and other treatments don’t work normally non-surgical intervention is tried if it doesn’t work then you go towards surgery imagine somebody comes into the hospital and doctor starts the surgery what’s this? so like that sometimes somebody just comes first time to a temple first time to a spiritual programme, first time to meet a devotee and what happens? we just start downloading everything on them I remember about 20-25 years ago I was just I had just been introduced to Krishna Consciousness and I had what is called the zeal of the new convert so I was working in a company at that time software company so the bus would take us and during the one hour ride during the ride I used to usually read some books or hear some talks or write something so then one day a colleague who had also been a co-student with me in my college we both worked in the same company he made the mistake of asking me what are you doing? and then for the next one hour I gave him a crash course in the Bhagavad Gita all the concepts right from existence of God, existence of soul karma, four regulative principles everything and I was congratulating myself in one hour I have given everything his eyes were becoming dizzy and I just didn’t notice it and after that normally my stop was first so I would get to the bus first and then his stop would come and he would get to the bus so after that every day when he would climb the bus he would first peek into the door see where I am sitting and then come from the other door so after many years now he is in Seattle so I met him in Seattle we both talked about it we had a good laugh so what happened is that I wanted to speak something I thought I am inflicting him but I just gave him such an overdose I tried to perform the whole surgery removing all his misconceptions in one session and it was just a casual enquiry what are you doing? so after that I was working for several months in that company and I would go for nobody ever made that mistake of asking me what are you doing so this is as we all learn from our mistakes so non-surgical intervention is where we gradually develop a relationship not that we directly attack people’s misconceptions and then the third point is that when surgery is done an anaesthesia has to be given first without anaesthesia we should not do surgery and what is the anaesthesia? the anaesthesia in this case is a loving relationship without a loving relationship people can’t take harsh voice even in a loving relationship also it is difficult to take harsh voice to be shown that we are wrong about something is not easy to accept but at least if the person feel that I have a relationship, this person is a good person I like this person, I have a relationship with them within that context the words which challenge somebody’s misconceptions when they are spoken then they can have a desirable effect so broadly speaking we need to invest in others and then whenever we are going to tell people that something that they are doing is wrong that is like a withdrawal and if you withdraw more than what you have invested then the relationship becomes bankrupt so the developing a relationship with people is very important then that is basically decreases the pain of any strong word that are spoken and lastly when surgery is done after the surgery also pain medication is given so similarly when we speak something which is which somebody is doing something wrong and we need to correct them for doing something wrong we correct it but even when we correct we need to assure them that we still value them, we still respect them so it is say I am here the other person is here so what we are doing is we have to make sure that we are telling them I value you, it is only this particular action, this particular attitude this particular thought process, that is what I have concern so when we are able to separate that, what happens is sometimes when we criticise we equate the person with their problematic behaviour and then we condemn the person entirely when somebody feels attacked then it is very difficult to tolerate it is like say if our hair are cut there is hardly any pain but while cutting the hair say while shaving if we cut the skin there is much more pain but sometimes while shaving we don’t cut the skin if we cut a nerve it is far greater pain so the closer we cut to the nerve the greater is the pain so similarly our words when we are going to cut the closer we cut to a nerve the greater is the pain the other person going to feel, so when we are going to cut we have to be very careful that we we are cutting people’s misconceptions not their aspirations their aspiration ok I want to learn something about spirituality I want to grow into a better human being, a better person those aspirations if we cut by our words then they will just stay where they are, they will become disheartened so we need to be very careful that we cut what needs to be cut, not what needs to be nourished, like when we are cutting even if we have a garden we need to cut the weeds not the plants that we want to cultivate and grow so it has to be very pain medication means it is very clear that we accept the other person we value the other person it is only this particular issue that we have concern about and sometimes what happens is we hand out labels very easily this person is a materialist, this person is a Mayavadi, this person is an atheist we have to treat people as conscious beings not as philosophical categories people are not philosophical categories, people are conscious beings and for most people their philosophy whatever it may be, it is just a small part of their life and rather than becoming rather than condemning it we need to encourage them to move forward, simple example to illustrate this and then I will conclude that say suppose somebody is following some path which we with our philosophical understanding know is wrong but today people live with such agitated minds in such agitated world that anything it gives them a little experience of peace some little sattva guna, something higher they feel some relief so imagine somebody is out in the cold, in the winter over here and they have a thin, torn, tattered blanket and we tell them this blanket is so useless can’t you see how thin it is, can’t you see how torn it is just throw it away now our intent might be to, I will give you a thick, comfortable blanket but they have not seen that blanket now the only relief they have experienced is through the thin cloth that they have if we tell them throw away that cloth I will give you a better cloth they will not be ready what we need to do is first give them the thick blanket let themselves experience the comfort of that blanket and once they experience that comfort they will themselves give up that thin blanket similarly for us whatever path people are following they have experienced something it might be a very minor relief from life’s distresses but they have experienced something that’s why they are holding on to it that is the only thing that is giving them some relief from the world’s agitations so instead of telling them to give it up, we focus first on giving them an experience of Krishna invite them for some kirtans invite them for some temples, give them some prasad, let them get an experience of Krishna so rather than giving education about Krishna first we give them experience of Krishna, of course education is important but ultimately the education is meant to culminate in experience so if people experience relief, peace and joy in becoming conscious of Krishna then whatever other misconceptions they have, gradually they will themselves give it up that’s why this understanding and incremental approach focus more on giving rather than making people leave something often when people have certain misconceptions their misconceptions don’t obstruct them in their spiritual journey as our telling that those are misconceptions even with their misconceptions they can still come to Krishna they can still experience Krishna and gradually they will give up those misconceptions so that brings me to the last point now the same point about what we said speak the truth but speak in such a way that attracts people to the truth, not alienates them from the truth when we inspire people to practise bhakti the ultimate purpose of bhakti is yad gatvanani vartante tad dhama paramam when we practise bhakti we go to Krishna’s eternal abode and never to come back but sometimes we present bhakti to people in such a way that yad gatvanani vartante they never come to the temple again so if we alienate people by how we speak then we are doing violence those of us who have been in bhakti for some time sometimes some preachers or speakers they become a little proud I brought so many people to Krishna this person became a devotee because of me this person became a devotee because of me yeah we might make a count like that but there is no count of how many people did not come to Krishna because of us how many people we may have driven out driven away because of the way we conducted ourselves and I can say that at least in the early years of my spiritual life I did so much verbal violence so I am slowly learning and this reflection along with I good wishes of all of you that I can also use this gun which is already there inside, this pistol which is already there learn to use it more carefully so I will quickly summarise I spoke today on the topic of becoming non-violence in speech I talked about Krishna’s austerity of speech divided that into two categories being sensitive and being sensible so truthful and beneficial same time non-agitating and pleasing and so effective speech has to be a balance of sensitivity and sensibility if you are only sensitive and not sensible then what happens we become like a doctor who does not give injection just because the child is protesting, we care for people’s feelings so much that we do not care for their future on the other hand if we are only sensible but not sensitive then we are like a doctor who does a surgery without giving anaesthesia we care only for the future but not the feelings of people so to have a balance between the two is the art of effective speaking we all have a sword or a gun inside our mouth and if we don’t use it properly we can hurt people enormously then I talked about political correctness, in an extreme way what happens it means simply we are so sensitive that we never speak the truth, in fact we abandon the idea of truth itself to say that all paths are right in an uncritical way is to be so open minded as to let your brain fall out we cannot go to that extreme of political correctness, we need to be sensitive but we also need to be sensible another extreme which is quite likely is that we are so sensible that we are not sensitive at all that happens when we logically present something but we don’t inspire us doctor may give the right prescription but if the patient doesn’t feel understood then the patient may not take the prescription so we need to not only instruct but inspire and to do that we need to connect people at a human level the words of those with spiritual knowledge can act like surgical scalpels they can cut off misconceptions but we cannot presume that we should not become judgemental with others and we need to have consent doctor gave four points before surgery is done, consent has to be given people should accept us as some kind of spiritual authority and then non-surgical intervention you can try in more sensitive you can try in normal ways to help people grow without necessarily challenging their misconceptions and anaesthesia has to be given people need to be in a trusting relationship before they can hear strong words in that relationship and lastly pain medication that means we separate people’s problematic attitudes or conceptions or behaviours from the person and we accept and value the person while challenging their problematic side so if we cut too close to the nerve the pain can become unbearable so we need to separate so that we can show people that we are not cutting you, I am cutting something which is separate from you so I talked about how rather than telling people what is wrong, give them the experience of what is right rather than pulling away the torn sheet that they have, give them a thick comforter more important than educating people about Krishna is helping people get an experience of Krishna we need to speak the truth in a way that attracts people to the truth and doesn’t alienate them thank you very much, Hare Krishna do you have few minutes? questions? yes ma’am microphone one question is about how to control emotion and speak effectively or even how to respond if somebody speaks with a lot of emotion how do you control that even sometimes suicide or emotional yeah how do we, two separate questions if somebody is very angry somebody is very emotional, what do we do at that time it’s very difficult because we tend to be reactive so if somebody speaks speaks in a way that is very annoying or very irritating so rather than taking it personally when people hurt us most often it is they who are hurt so every judgemental expression is actually a distorted expression of an unmet need so if somebody says recently somebody told me you have no emotions I just got so angry he said how dare you say that I have been trying to be very sensitive with that person but then it struck me that okay that means whatever support I was giving that is not enough for that person so then if I say how dare you call me, you have no emotions so if I look at it simply like attack on me what will happen is I will respond to the attack and the real issue will be lost so if somebody is hurting us rather than taking that hurt personally they are hurting they have some need which is not met and we try to see if we can meet that need now it’s not always possible for us to meet but one thing is most of the times when people criticise us it is not about us only a small part may be about us everybody has a movie going on inside their head and in that movie they are the stars and we are the extras so what happens even if they are hitting out at us if we understand that it could be about me but it’s not necessarily about me so then we can try to say when would I speak something like this if I said to someone you have no emotions obviously I would speak like that when I felt that person had been very insensitive when I had not met that person’s emotional needs so instead of taking that attack personally we try to understand what is their need and one way to do it is to ask ourselves when would I speak something like this of course we could be very different from them and we might not get a clear idea by that but at least we will get an indication so that is one thing you know all of us we may be adults but there is like an infant still inside us and say you know there is a mother and she picks up the baby and the baby kicks the mother now the kick will hurt but the mother doesn’t take that personally the baby is not even aware maybe hungry thirsty whatever it is so like that sometimes people even they may be adults inside them there is like a flailing infant and when they hurt us it’s often not about us so if we can understand that and create a little bit distance then we can respond a little better it’s easy to speak this it’s difficult but in general if we have got some emotional security ourselves then we can not we can we won’t take their attack personally that’s why through our spirituality through our other relationships through our inner growth if we have that inner security then that becomes like a buffer for us see if we are very weak somebody hits us physically also it will injure us but some people have a tough physique even if somebody hits them it doesn’t hurt them so much so like that we all need to be in spiritual life and bhakti we all want a tender heart but we need to cover this tender heart with a thick skin if you have tender skin then we will be tormented and we will torment others does that answer your question? thank you we have time for one more question someone you have a question ok ok this is but someone never gets angry so it’s ok one more question is that is that true that women remember things more than you said something you said something in 1970 about the programme that is not very intelligent in my opinion 1970 I don’t remember the answer to this question is it that women remember more see all of us have certain we could say all of us have certain emotional currency and we all have different emotional currency if I buy something from a shop and it’s worth 50 dollars and I give them 10,000 Indian rupees and say that person has never been to India, that person has never seen INR they will say what I have given you so much so what happens basically if if two people are in a relationship but both of them are trading in two different currencies so what happens each person feels I am doing so much for you but other person feels you are doing nothing for me and I am doing so much for you so what do I mean by currency, different people value different things so some people value time, for them if you just spend time talking with that is so great for some people it’s not so much spending time, you do something I have to do this, you do this do the dishes or take this out, do that get that, buy that, remember doing practical acts of service for some people you should appreciate so what happens for different people there can be different currencies in which they are trading in their emotions like a father might get very expensive cricket bat and cricket ball for the child for their son son doesn’t want expensive bat and ball, son wants father to play with father says I am working so hard to get all this for you, I don’t have time to play and father may feel I have done so much for my child and child may say my father never loved me so if it is happening that somebody is remembering something from a very long time ago what does that mean that simply means that is the currency in which they are trading so in general how do we know which currency people are trading in broadly by two ways, one is what is it if we do they appreciate very much and other is what is it if we don’t do they complain on and on and on and on so if they are remembering something like that then that means that is the currency in which they are trading and that is why they are remembering it, otherwise life is so complicated who has time to remember even things that happened yesterday if we are remembering something that means it is important for us and we can’t tell people don’t take it seriously, it is not important if that is important for them we also have to give it importance so rather than making it like a judgemental statement that you are digging old things from the past or you are making small things big we need to understand that in their emotional currency this thing is big, so therefore in future I need to pay attention to that ok thank you thank you so much excuse me we are so grateful that you are here and fortunately you saw this thing about so much wisdom