If someone is managerially incompetent or immoral, can their continuance in power be justified by saying that it is Krishna’s plan?

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Question. If someone is managerially incompetent or immoral, then is it right to justify their continuing in power by saying that it is Krishna’s plan and ultimately, they are also devotees? Shouldn’t there be room for use of reason and common sense? Answer. Yes, certainly.
There are three different factors over here. One is how things are. Second is how things should be.
And third is how we should view the difference between these two in the light of what is our adhikar, what is the power that we have, what is the area of influence that we have. So how things are, we see that Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, that even at the time of the Kurukshetra, even when he had himself descended, he said, that by the power of time, that dharma was lost. So Krishna is saying that even in this time when he is there, dharma is no longer present.
Dharma was lost and Krishna was not able to, it took some time for Krishna to restore dharma. It did not get restored immediately. It’s not just some time.
We could say it took years upon years. And even his own devotees, dear devotees, the Pandavas, had to suffer. So in the material world, things often go wrong, far away from the standard way of having things.
And to rectify them, it even takes time for Krishna when he is personally present, what to speak of us. So how things are, if you want to consider, the material world is a place where dharma siglani keeps happening. And this can happen even within spiritual organizations.
It can be that sometimes some people gain some power for whatever reason. And once they have that power, they just don’t let go of it. And others may not have the inclination to challenge the status quo very strongly.
And thus, others may, well, go along with it and give some rationalizations. So as far as the vision, reality that things may be far away from dharma is something which is acknowledged in the scripture itself, what to speak in our day-to-day lives, in today’s world. So if dharma siglani was there at the time of the Mahabharata, it can and will be there now in Kali Yuga.
So as far as things should be, yes, there is a standard of spirituality and even the standard of basic morality that does need to be followed. So now, there will always be, just as in our personal practice also, there is a gap between what we aspire to be and what we actually are. And we are trying to bridge that gap.
And we know that certain misgivings we can give up soon. Certain misgivings are not that easy to give up. So, we live with what we can’t change.
And we change what we can. And sometimes we decide that, okay, this is what I can work on right now. And this is something which I’ll have to work on in future.
So just as in our day-to-day lives also, we grade the various changes that we need. And we make those changes in a progressive way. Sometimes living with some of the things that we can’t change.
So similarly, within an institution also, there will be different people. And different people will decide based on their own motivation, their position, their various priorities. And not all of these priorities will be dictated purely by transcendental considerations.
So, they may decide that this is how it is and this can’t be changed. And now, when something can’t be changed, at least in that situation, we need to accept it. So we have to see that sometimes when we start ranting about, start feeling very worried, ranting has a value word.
But when we start strongly feeling that something is terribly wrong, then we have to see whether we have the power to change it or not. And if we don’t, we have to come to peace in a way that is, that doesn’t too much disturb our Krishna consciousness. So, we can see that Bhishma and Drona remained passive even when Duryodhana and Dhritarashtra were doing atrocious wrongs to the Pandavas.
And at one level, they were respectable. At another level, they were culpable. So sometimes people may remain silent, even respectable people may remain silent amidst grievous atrocities for reasons that are not so easy to comprehend.
Now, the Pandavas would definitely have been disappointed that Bhishma did not come out or Drona did not come out with all their guns blazing in their defense. But they had to take it in their stride and live on. Among the Pandavas in the forest, Yudhishthira was the most philosophical and he accepted that time as a way for him to enrich his spiritual knowledge and to stay in association with the sages.
And among them, Bhima who was probably the most bellicose, he was the most Kshatriya type of the Kshatriyas. So, he found the forest stay most unbearable and he even said that at one time, according to some ways of calculating, one month is like one year. So, he said after 13 months were over, let these 13 months be like 13 years, let’s go back to the kingdom and reclaim our kingdom and wage war if necessary.
So, Bhima was given to living alone with long periods of solitary resentment and there was just nothing that could be done about it because he was overcome at that time. And over a period of time, everybody has to reconcile with their nature and make peace. So, we have to make peace with our outer situation and our inner nature.
And how we will come to that peace, that different devotees will have different ways of doing it. Some devotees may just say, okay, that’s none of my business. And some devotees may try to give it a more philosophical spin saying that, actually, surely Krishna is in control and Krishna will take care of things.
Why should we get so worked up about these things? Some others may say that, actually, even if somebody is doing something wrong, we should see the good that they are doing and we should keep a balanced view. Now, in our view, the wrong that they are doing may usually outweigh the right they are doing. But others may not have that view.
And I would say that they may be having, we may feel that their view is wrong. But the important thing is that we learn to see the distance between the way things are and the way things should be in a way that ensures that we don’t ruin our consciousness, but that we stay as Krishna conscious as possible in the situation we find ourselves in. So, now, I would also differentiate between Krishna’s sanction and Krishna’s will or Krishna’s intention, if you want to use more specific.
Does Krishna want his devotees to suffer? Does Krishna want things to be improper or immoral or disorganized within his movement? Not, certainly not. But sometimes Krishna may allow certain things to happen. So, Krishna’s plan can be like a huge elastic box, elastic container in which we put in things which Krishna wants and things which Krishna tolerates.
And if we don’t differentiate between the two, then we would feel that what they are doing is, when somebody is invoking Krishna’s will, they are simply rationalizing. But rather than thinking of these things in simply black and white, we should see that this is Krishna’s movement ultimately and we are Krishna’s servitors and we have to see how best we can serve Krishna in the particular situation that we are in and move forward in our life. If certain explanations we find unacceptable, we find them as rationalizations, we find as escape ways, then just don’t accept those explanations.
Find some other explanation that makes sense to us and moves on. Now, sometimes, making peace with the present doesn’t mean that we accept that what is happening in the present is right. It just means that we did our part and sometimes if some things don’t change, then we have to live with whatever situation we are put in.
So, we do it in as Krishna conscious way as possible. And some devotees way of doing it may seem to us to be more authentically Krishna conscious than that of others. And we should find out that way of managing the distance between how things are and how things should be in a way that best boosts our consciousness and our vision of others.
Thank you. So, our vision of others is also important. So, rather than telling somebody that you are abusing the philosophy to justify your passivity, we could just say that that is the way they are trying to be Krishna conscious in their situation.
And whether that is an authentic way or not, that could be open for discussion. But you have to see that different people have different overall natures. And everybody is trying to find a way to be Krishna conscious amidst difficult situations in different ways.
Thank you.