We don’t owe our friends a positive response, but we do owe them a sensitive response Gita 17.15
Transcript
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Hare Krishna we don’t owe our friends a positive response but we do owe them a sensitive response suppose a friend consults us about something which they are planning to do and something which we can clearly see is going to be terribly destructive for them now obviously we won’t say yes to them it’s our duty to alert them but while alerting them we can’t say that because I am friends with them how can I speak anything that will displease them we don’t owe them a positive response always we have to tell them what we see as the truth which they can’t see but our friendship with them means that we owe them a sensitive response that we don’t have to dismiss or deride what they are saying and more importantly we need to speak it in a way that doesn’t that hurts them as less as possible so rather than ridiculing their ideas we try to give them the vision to see how the flaw in their ideas themselves see that flaw and then they can rectify themselves they can rectify their conception and choose wiser course of action what to speak of friends the Bhagavad Gita encourages us to be sensitive in dealing with everyone in fact if we are devoted to the Lord the Lord is the well-wisher of everyone as Bhagavad Gita 529 states and then those devoted to him are also meant to become well-wishers of everyone and if we are this way friendly towards everyone then we need to be sensitive towards everyone and such sensitivity while maintaining fidelity to the truth is the hallmark of disciplined speech as Krishna says in the Gita 17-15 so austerity of speech is speak in a way that is sensitive and speak it truthfully also not that we speak lies to flatter others but we speak the truth in a way that is non-agitating that is that is beneficial but is also pleasing when we discipline our speech in this way then we can not only give the best input to our friends but give it in a way that actually is friendly and beneficial for them thank you