If we get different instructions from different authorities, which include our spiritual master, what should we do?

Answer Podcast

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multiple instructions from different devotees and one of those instructions is also from our spiritual master what should we do at such a time? Ideally speaking if we have multiple authorities giving us multiple instructions it’s best to ask those authorities to discuss and then decide. In the Mahabharata there is the example of Satyaki on the 14th day of the Kurukshetra war it was Arjuna’s vow that he would enter into the Kuru camp and from there he would avenge the death of Abhimanyu by bringing down King Jaidrath and because simultaneously Drona had taken a vow to arrest Yudhishthira and hand him over alive to Duryodhana so there was somebody needed to protect Yudhishthira also so Arjuna told his trusted student Satyaki to protect to stay by the side of Yudhishthira and protect Yudhishthira however after some time after Arjuna entered into the Kukara camp, Yudhishthira started feeling very fearful and apprehensive thinking that yesterday Abhimanyu entered into that camp at my behest and he was killed what if Arjuna gets into trouble today so what to do so he requests that Krishna that Satyaki go and assist his teacher he says this is the time for a student to repay their debt to the teacher so please go and assist him and Satyaki feels torn at that time thinking what should I do so he directly asks him what should I do he says Yudhishthira because Arjuna is not there for him to ask at that time so instead he asks he asks Yudhishthira and Yudhishthira assures him saying that today Drona’s energies will be completely focused on trying to stop Arjuna from reaching Jayadrath there will be no danger for me from him and also that there are others to protect me and Bhima is standing by, Bhima says yes I will be here and I will protect Yudhishthira so on hearing this Satyaki feels reassured and then he follows he goes inside and meets and plays some important service in assisting Arjuna in that formidable task so this is the best way if we can do it now life is not always that practical that’s not always that easy so in such situations if we cannot have both the authorities consult then we can, that would be ideal but if we can’t have both the authorities consult with each other and give us a combined decision we can check with the authority that is accessible for us at least inform them that this is the dilemma I am facing, what should I do at this stage so then at that point they might give us a decision and based on those decisions we can move forward and sometimes if an authority is giving us, if we do not have that much confidence in a particular authority to give us that decision or somehow there are other factors which we may not be able to tell them then we have to understand that it is we pray to Krishna in our hearts and we take a decision that works with our responsibilities more and more nowadays the mood is to not so much instruct as to guide so often not to give instructions but to give guidelines because life is complicated and often our spiritual guides are not so easily available for us to they can’t know everything about us and so I have seen that broadly many spiritual masters who are who are quite realized and wise and loud, they often broadly say that be Krishna conscious, be happy and work with the local authorities as much as you can so that means sometimes it might just be that our situation or our disposition may be such that we don’t have the facility to exactly follow one particular authority that’s ok, we can follow then whatever works best for us we see Shri Prabhupada although his spiritual master urged him to preach, he was not in a position to do that immediately so Prabhupada write that I did not reject my spiritual master’s instructions but I had to postpone it so if we have been given some instruction then we can keep it in our heart but we may decide that this is not the right time I can follow this and this is not this is not in any way disobedience but it is it is using the intelligence which the spiritual master has given us to serve effectively often there is a dispute whether we should surrender our intelligence or we surrender with our intelligence so generally speaking if you see Krishna just wanted Arjuna to surrender his intelligence then Krishna could have finished the whole Bhagavad Gita in six words I am God, obey me, fight but Krishna gives over 600 verses of profound reasoning and even at the end he appeals to Arjuna’s intelligence Vimrishayita dasheshina ethe chistha karu, deliberate and do as you desire so Krishna does not impose his authority as God to get Arjuna to obey so I don’t think that in principle we want to surrender to our spiritual master but in practice we need to use our intelligence to serve the best so if somehow it works that we are getting multiple instructions then we pray, we write down the pros and cons then keep that for some time revisit it after a few days or few some time to further deliberate and then gradually come to a decision and then we move forward so generally if a spiritual master specifically told us to not do a particular thing then it is a problem then it might be a little dangerous for us to disobey explicitly and also the spiritual master is not going to reject us and it is important that we stay connected with Krishna and Krishna’s devotees no matter what happens and we try to serve in a way that is the best in our situation so if there is a direct instruction to do something or a direct instruction to not do something then we can give certainly serious consideration to that at the same time if sometimes some instructions are difficult for us to follow then we have to use our God given intelligence we see Tamal Krishna Maharaj got completely fried out we could say got completely exhausted by doing all the management and administrative issues dealing with the government to get permissions for the Juhu temple and he said I want to preach and he wanted to go to America Prabhupada did not want him to go but he wanted to go and Prabhupada finally allowed him and then he was very successful in his own way he made phenomenal outry success through his Radha Damodar bus party and Prabhupada was eventually very pleased with him so it’s not that black and white in real life we do the best we can and move forward in our lives in our hearts we want to serve Krishna Krishna will give us the intelligence of how to move forward