When we feel that our problems arose because we were misguided – Yamaduta-Yamaraja discussion 1

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Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Summary

Here is a summary of the key themes and takeaways from the discussion:

1. Seeing Negative Events Positively

The core message is that when service is frustrated or plans fail, a devotee should avoid becoming pessimistic, as pessimism can function as a form of atheism. Instead, one should strive to see negative events in a positive light by looking beyond the immediate situation to Krishna’s plan.

• “Everything is within the plan of the Lord”: The speaker distinguishes between everything being the plan of the Lord (i.e., that He orchestrated your mistakes) and everything being within the plan of the Lord. Even when we make mistakes or encounter external obstacles, we remain within the scope of Krishna’s overarching plan, which is resourceful enough to accommodate and correct our paths (like a GPS rerouting after a wrong turn).

2. Causes of Frustrated Service

The speaker suggests that when a service or endeavor fails, it generally stems from one of three areas:

• The Instruction: The guidance received may not have been the right fit for the circumstances.

• The Executor: The person performing the service may lack the necessary training, competency, or pure motivation.

• The Situation: External circumstances may simply not be conducive to success at that time. Instead of wallowing in guilt or blame, the devotee should seek to learn from the failure, adjust their intelligence, and move forward.

3. Intelligence vs. Good Intentions

A recurring theme is that good intentions alone are not enough.

• While intentions are important, they can sometimes blind us to “good intelligence.”

• If a service is not working, it is a sign to use one’s intelligence to re-evaluate the strategy. The speaker cites Srila Prabhupada as an example: when his initial outreach in India didn’t yield the desired results, he used his intelligence to realize that a new approach was needed and moved his focus to the West.

4. The Shift: From “Why?” to “What?”

Rather than asking, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” or “Why did my service fail?”, the speaker encourages devotees to ask, “When bad things happen, what do good people do?”

• Focusing on the fairness of life leads to bitterness.

• Focusing on the mercifulness of the Lord and one’s own capacity to act constructively keeps a devotee’s consciousness in a better place.

5. Practical Advice for Devotees

• On Relationships: If someone is in distress, avoid immediate philosophical defense of God. First, offer empathy and support. Philosophy has its time and place, but love and support are often the most immediate needs.

• On Handling Emotions: You cannot always control your emotions (which are often physical or psychological reactions), but you can control your focus. By taking up responsible, absorbing service, one can expand their heart to manage the “wound” of grief or frustration.

• On Communication: If a service cannot be completed, be upfront and honest with authorities. Clarity and straightforwardness are better than letting a task languish while you feel guilty.

Ultimately, the lecture emphasizes that a devotee’s strength lies in maintaining a service attitude regardless of the outcome, trusting that Krishna’s mercy is present even when things do not go according to our personal plans.

Full Transcription

This is Srimad Bhagavatam Canto 6 Chapter 3 we have text 2, 3 & 4 text 2 is Chanting here this verse doesn’t have a purpose read the next two verses O great sage! never before has it been heard anywhere that an order from Yamaraj has been baffled therefore I think that people will have doubts about this that no one but you can eradicate.
Since that is my firm conviction, kindly explain the reasons for these events.” Shishukavacha Bhagwat Purushairajan Yamya Pratihotoddhyamaha Patim Vigyapayamasur Yamam Samyamani Patim Shishupada Goswami replied, My dear king, when the order carriers of Yamaraj were baffled and defeated by the order carriers of Vishnu, they approached their master, the controller of Samyani Puri and master of sinful persons to tell him of this incident. Yamadutauchuhu kati santihashastaro kati santihashastaro jivalokasyavai prabho traividhyam kurvatahakarma phalabhivyaktihetavaha So word for word translation, Yamadutauchuhu, the order carriers of Yamaraj said, how many, santih, are there in this world, shastaraha, controllers or rulers, jivalokasya of this material world, vai, indeed, prabho, oh master, traividhyam, another three modes of material nature, kurvataha, performing, karma, activity, phala, of the results, abhivyakti, of the manifestation, hetavaha, causes. Translation purport, by his divine grace, translation, Yamudutauchuhu said, our dear lord, how many controllers or rulers are there in this material world? How many causes are responsible for manifesting the various results of activities performed in the three modes of material nature, sattvaguna, rajoguna, and tamoguna.
Purport, Vishwachitrako says, the Yamadutas, the order carriers of Yamaraj were so disappointed that they asked their master, almost in great anger, whether there were many masters other than him. Furthermore, because the Yamadutas had been defeated and their master could not protect them, they were inclined to say that there was no need to serve such a master. The servant cannot carry out the orders of his master without being defeated.
What is the use of serving such a powerless master? So, this is one of the most dramatic pastimes in Srimad Bhagavatam, where Ambajamil, on his death, sees this conversation between the Yamadutas and the Bhagavatam. You could say the pastime is over. But the Bhagavatam, if you consider it to be like a movie camera, the movie camera now shifts to the place where Yamadutas are going to Yamaraj.
It’s interesting that the Bhagavatam’s camera does not go to Vishnudutas going to Vishnu. Although we could say Bhagavatam is about Vishnu, but it focuses on the Yamadutas going to Vishnu after this incident. And there is a discussion over here.
Now, the thrust of the Bhagavatam is that how Krishna is supreme and bhakti to him is supreme. Krishna, Vishnu, in one sense are the same. So, through this pastime, many things are being illustrated.
Specifically, the point being illustrated is that no matter how many sinful activities somebody has done, the holy name can deliver them. That’s the potency of bhakti that is being described. But simultaneously, the position of Bhagavan is also being demonstrated.
And even Parikshit Maharaj acknowledges the extraordinary nature of this pastime when he says that normally Yamadutas cannot be refuted. The Yamadutas cannot be refuted. That’s why we say that we cannot bribe death.
We cannot argue against death. We cannot hide from death. When it comes, it takes us away.
So, he says that Yamadutas being foiled is something which has never been heard of and therefore, it’s astonishing. And in answer to that question, how did this happen? In answer to that question, Shukadeva Goswami now takes the camera to the conversation between Yamadutas and Yamaraj. So, rather than he answering the question, he says, let the, in English they’re saying, to hear from the horse’s mouth.
That means to hear from the more authority. Yamaraj himself will address the question of his followers. And Yamaraj will say that, oh, you were thinking I am supreme, but actually I am not supreme.
I am a servant of Narayan, servant of Lord Vishnu. And that’s what will come subsequently. And that is one thing which could be discussed.
But let’s focus what happens in the Chakra, what is Chakravarthy Path saying in his purport that the Yamadutas are frustrated because they were carrying out the order of their master and they were thwarted in it. They were thinking, is there any point in serving a master who cannot protect us, who cannot back us up when we are trying to serve? So, that is the theme I’ll focus on in today’s class that, you know, how do we serve imperfect masters? In one sense, when we start practicing bhakti, we are serving the supremely perfect master, Krishna. And we can say that if we are not serving Krishna, we are serving in the material world many imperfect masters.
And that is true. That’s why we should serve Krishna. Kulasekar Maharaj in one of his prayers compares an ordinary landlord or king with the Supreme Lord.
And he gives around six characteristics comparing the ordinary landlord and the Supreme Lord. He says, how much does that landlord own? What can that landlord give? How long can that result last? How much fulfillment can it provide? What is the character of the person whom you’re serving? And what is the transformation in the heart that is going to happen by serving that person? These six broad things can say they differentiate serving the Supreme Lord as contrasted with serving any other master. So, we could go in that direction.
But I will not go in that direction at this point, that I’ll talk about another direction, that even when we decide to serve the Lord, so, okay, we were serving material masters, and we decide to serve the Lord. But the challenge is that we don’t have access to the Lord directly. And when we are serving the Lord, we are serving the Lord through his representatives.
And not all the representatives that we are serving may be perfect. Devotees of the Lord are perfect in their intention to serve Krishna. But we may try to do some service very faithfully.
And somehow that service doesn’t work out. Now, what does that mean? Does it mean that we are not sincere enough? We are not pure enough? Well, that could be one explanation. Another explanation could be that maybe our authority is not pure enough.
And that’s why the instruction doesn’t have the potency. Or maybe it could be that the situation is not just right. Now, if you consider Shila Prabhupada’s life, Shila Prabhupada was pure.
His spiritual master was pure. And still for almost 35-40 years when Prabhupada was preaching in India, he got no result or no significant result. So, what does that mean? Sometimes everything may be right.
The devotee may be pure-hearted, the authority may be pure, but still the result may not come. So, when we are trying to do some service and when that service is frustrated, there could be broadly three reasons for that frustration. That is the instruction itself is wrong.
The instrument, the instruction may not be the right instruction. The person executing the instruction may not be the right person for that. Or the situation may not be right.
Vidura was always very wise and always very compassionate. And yet his instructions of Dhritarashtra did not land for a long, long, long time. It is only when Duryodhana was killed and all his sons were killed, then Dhritarashtra experienced what we can say, he experienced frustration of his plans repeatedly.
But only after the killing of his sons did he experience hopeless frustration. And that’s when he became ready for spiritual mysticism. So, while all these three could be the possibilities that we are not pure-hearted, that our situation is not, that we are not rightly motivated or rightly competent, situation is not right, or the instruction that is given to us, the person giving the instruction is not right in the sense that there could be many ways.
They don’t understand us properly. They’re not given the right instruction. They themselves don’t understand the situation properly.
They may not be rightly motivated. So, there could be various situations. So, when we try to serve Krishna in the world, there can be frustration.
So, when such frustration occurs, we need to be able to see that properly. In fact, this is one of the most important, we could say, devotional skills or abilities to be able to see negative events in a positive light, negative events in a positive light. Parikshit Maharaj was cursed to die in seven days.
Now, that is a horrible event because you could say he was, if not blameless, it was a very minor mistake. And for that to be cursed is a terribly negative event. But he saw the negative event in the positive light.
That is, this is an opportunity for me to disentangle from the world and to focus on Krishna. When Prabhupada experienced repeated setbacks and failures in his attempts to share Krishna Bhakti in India, he saw those negative events in a positive light. Every single time his endeavors were not successful, what Prabhupada saw was his conviction to focus on the original instruction of his spiritual master.
And he’ll speak in the English language, share Krishna Bhakti all over the world. Prabhupada’s focus was, let me go to the West. That conviction increased every single time he experienced a setback in his outreach in India.
So, to be able to see negative events in positive light, that is a characteristic of a devotee. If we start seeing negative events in negative light, what that means is that, to put it provocatively, that means we are functionally being an atheist. You see, how can a devotee be an atheist? A devotee is devoted to the Lord.
So, it is the opposite of an atheist. Yes, no devotee will philosophically be an atheist. No devotee is going to philosophically argue that God does not exist.
As devotees, we may not emotionally also be atheists. We may still pray to Krishna. We may go through the motions of Bhakti.
Sometimes when we are in the presence of Krishna, we may also experience some emotions, emotions of pleasure and joy and ecstasy also. But if we are seeing negative events in a negative light, that means what we are saying is, when I think of Krishna, it’s wonderful, but Krishna has no role in my life right now. This is a terrible thing that is happening and it’s all life is so terrible.
Everything is so terrible. So, in one sense, we can say pessimism is a sign of atheism. If we are theistic, then we need to be optimistic.
Now, Prabhupada does say that we should be pessimistic about our prospects for material enjoyment in the world, but that does not mean that we are pessimistic all the time. If Prabhupada had been pessimistic all the time, he would not have been able to setback after setback after setback in practicing, in sharing Krishna Bhakti, in attempting to share Krishna Bhakti. So, how can we be? So, as I said, this point, to be theistic is to be optimistic and to be pessimistic is to be atheistic, functionally atheistic, not necessarily philosophically or emotionally, but functionally atheistic.
That means that, yes, some bad things happen in life and the bad things, as I said, sometimes, you know, we may get a bad instruction. It’s not that the instructor is bad, but the instruction that we are given may be bad. That instruction may not be suitable for us.
Sometimes we may make a bad mess of a situation. The instruction may not be bad, may be good, but we make a mess of the situation, either because of our carelessness or because we are untrained, because we are not really suited for that service. Or sometimes we might just meet a bad situation.
Sometimes just things are in the world such that we encounter bad situations. So, it is important for a devotee that there is the circumstantial and there is the transcendental. There is a circumstantial vision means, okay, you know, this particular thing got messed up.
You know, I made a mistake or the situation was wrong, or maybe the guidance I was given was wrong. All three are possible. But beyond all this, Krishna’s plan is still working.
That even through our mistakes, even through others’ mistakes, Krishna’s plan is still working. In the first canto of the Srimad Bhagavatam, when Bhishma is instructing Vyasadeva, sorry, Yudhishthira Maharaj, he says that everything is within the plan of the Lord. It’s interesting, Srila Prabhupada translates exactly by these three words.
He says everything is within the plan of the Lord. He doesn’t say everything is the plan of the Lord. Now, what is the difference between the two? Everything is the plan and everything is within the plan.
Everything is the plan of the Lord means that the Lord had planned for us to commit mistakes. The Lord had planned that those who are guiding us may have committed some mistakes. No, that is not the Lord’s plan.
Our mistakes are our mistakes. It is we who misuse our free will, either because of ignorance or because of foolishness. And it is we who commit mistakes.
But even after our mistakes, we still stay within the purview of the Lord’s plan. The Lord’s plan is so, so we could say, resourceful that it can accommodate our mistakes also. And it can accommodate somebody else’s mistakes also.
So to give an example of this, everything is within the plan of the Lord, even if everything is not the plan of the Lord. An example for this could be, say we are driving to an unknown destination, a destination which is unfamiliar to us and we are using GPS for that. Now while we are using GPS, GPS tells us turn right and then we turn left.
Now turning left is not the plan of the GPS for us. But even if we turn left, we are still within the plan of the GPS. The GPS is not going to say, you didn’t obey me, you disobeyed me, get lost.
I’m no longer going to guide you. No, GPS will immediately reroute and tell us, okay, now you’re going this direction. So whichever route we take, no matter how many wrong turns we take, we are still within the plan of the GPS.
So similarly, even if we commit mistakes, still we are within the plan of the GPS. And the GPS is giving some guidance and we’re not so sure about it. So we ask somebody else and they say, go left.
And actually that’s wrong. So somebody else will guide us along. But even then we are still within the plan of the GPS.
Of course, every wrong choice has a consequence. And if we take a wrong turn, it will take us that much longer to get to the destination. So it is not that the mistakes are inconsequential.
The mistakes are consequential, but no mistake is fatal. No mistake is going to end our spiritual life. No mistake is going to end our relationship with Krishna.
No mistake is going to lead to our rejection by Krishna. No mistake is going to lead Krishna to reject us. We may reject Krishna, but Krishna will never reject us.
So now how do we see this over here? That the idea that we may commit a mistake and still we are within Krishna’s plan. This can actually be very solacing and encouraging for us. This, of course, does not mean that we just irresponsibly or thoughtlessly commit mistakes because mistakes have consequences.
But the key point is that Krishna’s plan is bigger than our mistakes. And similarly, Krishna’s plan is bigger than other people’s mistakes also. So I take two examples to illustrate this and I’ll come to our practical level of dealing and then we’ll have some conclusion and discuss some questions.
See, when Krishna goes as Shanti Doodh to Hastinapur, at that time, he at one level fails. He goes to seek peace and he fails. Now, can God fail? God is omnipotent.
One of the names of Vishnu in the Srishti Sastra is Satya Sankalpa. In general, that is the name of Him glorifying in the Bhakti literature also. His Sankalpa, his intention is never thwarted.
And yet he went as a peace messenger and he failed. So how can God’s plan fail? So actually, his plan didn’t fail. Because his plan, his actual plan was different from his apparent plan.
The night before Krishna was to appear in the Kuru assembly to present the peace proposal, that night, he was staying at the house of Vidura. And Vidura told Krishna, Krishna, why have you come here? You know that Duryodhana is not going to listen to you. Duryodhana is so obstinate, so intransigent, so impudent that he’s going to dismiss your peace proposal.
And Vidura had another mortal fear in his heart. He said, O Krishna, I have seen one insult in the Kuru assembly that gives me nightmares still now. The insult of Draupadi when she was dishonored and she was attempted to be disrobed.
He says, I can’t live with it whenever I think of it. It gives me nightmares. He says, I have heard that Duryodhana is planning to arrest you when you go as a peace messenger.
He says, I cannot live if I have to see another insult like that. He says, why are you even going to the assembly? Krishna says to Vidura that, O Vidura, I know that Duryodhana is not going to listen. And he will not be able to arrest you.
Don’t worry about it. He says, but I am going there to present the peace proposal just so that the world will know that the Pandavas tried everything possible to avoid war so that the world will not hold the Pandavas responsible for the war. The whole world will know that it is Duryodhana who caused the war.
And actually when Duryodhana speaks, I will not give enough land to put even the tip of a needle through. That might seem like a very impressive dialogue. But through that, that vehement, that arrogant action, those arrogant words and thereafter through his attempt to arrest Krishna who has come as a peace messenger, Duryodhana completely played into Krishna’s hands.
Because what happened is Duryodhana thought he was defying Krishna, but actually Duryodhana was actually playing into Krishna’s hands. Krishna’s purpose was to show the world Duryodhana’s obstinacy that Duryodhana is the cause of the war. So both by his words and by his actions, Duryodhana completely played into Krishna’s hands.
So in that sense, Krishna’s plan was fully successful. We could say a smashing success. So Krishna’s intention is always successful.
But what is Krishna’s intention? We may not know that. And we may think XYZ is Krishna’s intention and that was fine. But no.
So it may happen for us that, let’s take Yamaraja’s example now. See the Yamadutas, we may think of as terrible beings. They look ghastly and when somebody sees Yamadutas, they may get nightmares.
However, the Yamadutas are faithful servants of Yamaraja and Yamaraja is a Mahajan. So when the Yamadutas are frustrated in the service of Yamaraja and they are serving a devotee, a Mahajan, so is that frustration something which is a thwarping of the plan of a devotee? It is Yamaraja who is a devotee who has given them instructions and they are carrying out the instructions of a devotee ultimately. And Yamaraja also has a vital role in maintaining dharma in the world, order in the world.
So we could say Yamadutas are like fierce police people who are out to apprehend criminals and they are going on the order of the state. So actually, if they are trying to do dharma, if they are trying to carry out the instructions of a devotee, of a Mahajan, then if they are frustrated, then what is happening? Actually through that frustration, Krishna has some plan. Through their frustration, Krishna is demonstrating the glory of the holy name, the glory of bhakti and the supremacy of his own position.
So Krishna s sankalpa will always be satya. But our understanding of his sankalpa may not always be satya. Krishna s intention, Krishna s plan will always be manifesting, will manifest eventually.
But what we think is Krishna s plan may not always be Krishna s plan. And that is why as devotees we need to be able to see negative reality positively. You say, oh this was my plan, this plan didn’t work.
Now what is the use of serving Krishna? I was trying to serve Krishna, it didn’t work. So sometimes it may happen that we may be given some instruction by some senior devotees. You know, do this.
Sometimes some devotees may decide that we want to do preaching at a particular place and we go enthusiastic, we try to do a program and then we invest time and energy, we may invest money, try to start a center over there and we may even get blessings of senior devotees and still nothing happens over there. You say, what went wrong over there? You know, what went wrong? Well, rather than focusing on, you know, was I wrong, were the devotees who guided me wrong? What was wrong? We focus on that, okay, there is Krishna s plan operating over here even now. Maybe it is that Krishna didn’t, Krishna s plan was maybe not that I should serve here and succeed here.
Krishna s plan may have been that maybe I learned some humility, I learned some detachment, maybe I learned that I am not the maybe I learned some, getting some experience over here by which I can serve somewhere else. And so the idea is that rather than blaming ourselves or blaming our authorities or guides or whoever else, see the Yamadutas, they are angry almost with Yamaraj, but Yamaraj does not take that offense personally. Yamaraj sees it as an opportunity to glorify the Supreme Lord, to glorify the Supreme Lord.
We see Shrila Prabhupada himself, Prabhupada was a pure devotee and Prabhupada wanted to share Krishna Bhakti all over the world. But at the same time, it was not that every single plan that Prabhupada made was successful. Sometimes Prabhupada tried certain things and some things worked, some things worked wonderfully, some things worked okay, some things just didn’t work at all and some things really backfired.
So let’s take us examples of all of these. Prabhupada wanted devotees to distribute books and devotees had no idea, they would just go to bookstores and try to distribute books and it was very difficult. But then devotees got an idea that you can just hand out books to people and make people give some charity.
It incidentally happened, the first book distribution was that devotees were putting fuel and their gas in their van and they didn’t have money. So they said the gas station person said we have this book, would you like a book? He said this is more than what the bill for the gas would be. He said take it.
Okay, this is a good idea, let’s try this and that’s how it started. So Prabhupada’s desire to distribute books was there and now not just millions but billions of books have been distributed. That’s an example of something which is spectacularly successful.
Some other things that Srila Prabhupada tried, some of them were successful but not immediately. When Prabhupada came to India, Prabhupada brought his western followers to India and at that time it was sensational for Indians to see western people practicing bhakti. But somehow at that time not many Indians became committed bhakti practitioners.
Not many Indians became disciples of Srila Prabhupada. Many people became life members, many people became appreciators but not committed followers. So what was going on? Prabhupada was personally investing his time and energy.
Prabhupada had dedicated disciples assisting him but at that time the time was not right. Things changed and from the 80s onward and especially in the 90s, the movement expanded. Now we could go into socio-political, socio-economic analysis of India to see what happened.
But what happened was in those times it was more of a cultural pride for Indians. Our culture is so great that these Americans and these Europeans also practicing. That’s great our cultures.
But they decided we are already practicing. We don’t need to learn anything more. But one generation later many of the Indians were somewhat estranged from their culture and they grew up in their culture but when they were exposed to it again in the sense that they saw it being lived, being practiced, being taught rationally, philosophically, practically, they were attracted to it.
So the seed that Prabhupada planted, they have borne phenomenal fruit now. Now in India the outreach is so much. Wherever we go there are so many centers coming, so many devotees in the center, so hundreds and thousands of devotees are there.
So the results came after some time. They may not come immediately. They come after some time.
So is it that the devotees who were in India trying so hard during Prabhupada’s times, was it that they were not pure-hearted? Was it that Prabhupada was not pure? No. It was just the time was not right. So as devotees, the devotees remained optimistic.
Devotees kept serving and of course they kept learning, they kept strategizing and gradually they learned how best to share Krishna Bhakti and we’ve been phenomenally effective. Now we can consider Srila Prabhupada started the Srimad Bhagavatam that he considered his life’s magnum opus but somehow he was not able to complete it. So actually that’s the external vision.
Srila Prabhupada did not complete it but in one sense what Srila Prabhupada did was that he completed it through his followers and when Srila Prabhupada was asked during his last moments that you know, what do you have any remaining desires? Prabhupada said, so Prabhupada could have said, you know, you know I’m not completing the Bhagavatam. It is a spiritual desire but Prabhupada demonstrated that that level of detachment was detachment even from a service which was dear for his heart. That’s what Lord Krishna wanted.
Prabhupada didn’t have any discontent in his heart and while Prabhupada was doing his service, sometimes when we read the Bhagavatam, we feel the purports are so big. Sometimes one page purport, sometimes two page purports, sometimes three page purports. People get tired reading the purports but you know, I’m an author and I try to read, I write some books.
So writing is laborious. Certainly writing is a hundred times more laborious than reading. If Prabhupada is simply concerned with meeting the goal of completing the 12 cantos, Prabhupada could have given short, short, short purports and he could have completed it all.
But Prabhupada was compassionately concerned with giving the message, not meeting a target. That was Prabhupada’s compassion. He was meeting, he was giving the message that okay, with each verse what Prabhupada considered essential for us to understand and know, keep that.
And that in one sense, was that entire plan not successful? Well, it was successful but in a different way. As Prabhupada said about a spiritual master and it is said about a disciple, a spiritual master lives on through his disciples, through the successors, the followers. So that’s how Prabhupada’s legacy goes on.
And there are areas in life where sometimes devotees tried some things and some things went wrong, it’s terribly wrong. Sometimes devotees went to particular places for outreach, they tried to do certain things and those things didn’t work out. But through it all, we could blame this person, that person.
Say for example, the devotees started gurukuls and unfortunately some of the gurukuls, some things happened which were not just regrettable but also reprehensible at times. But the important thing is while this happened and this needs to be corrected, but we need to know that even through it all Krishna’s plan is still operating. You see, what is Krishna’s plan when somebody is subjected to some terrible experiences while they are supposedly practicing, they are supposed to be in a devotional center? So the idea is that what Krishna’s plan is and how Krishna will purify us, that we don’t know.
If we start asking this question, what did someone deserve to get a particular thing? Then we can look at the Pandavas, they are pure devotees, they are in fact eternal associates of the Lord. So what did Draupadi do to suffer the indignity of being dishonored? Lord Rama is himself the Supreme Lord. What did he do to deserve being exiled? What did he do to deserve having his consort abducted from him? What did Sita do to deserve herself being abducted by Rama? So even if she said she stepped out of Lakshmadrika, it’s a very small mistake and to get such a terrible punishment for that, it doesn’t seem fair.
So the whole point of our literature, if we see, is that we focus not on the fairness of life, but on the mercifulness of the Lord, not on the fairness of life. If you start looking at the fairness of life, well, the fact is life is not fair, at least from this life’s perspective. There are many things that go wrong, but the Lord is always merciful.
So the Bhagavatam does not address the question of karma directly. Why do bad things happen to good people? The Bhagavatam’s focus is not that. When Bhishma speaks to Yudhishthira, Bhishma could have asked, I was dutiful.
I took a vow of celibacy and I stuck to that vow throughout my life and yet what is my plight? I am lying on a bed of arrows, being pierced unbearably. But instead, the first thing that Bhishma does is, he says, aho kashtam aho anyayam yad yuyam dharmanandana. Imagine we go to meet some devotee who is terminally sick and is in extreme pain and that devotee says, the first thing to us, how many problems you are facing in your life? You say, what? That’s what he’s thinking.
And so what the Bhagavatam does is that it rephrases the question. Not why bad things happen to good people, but when bad things happen to good people, what do good people do? When bad things happen to good people, what do good people do? So when we have that question as our driving question, we will be able to find a way ahead. We will be able to face whatever difficulties come, whether it could be because of our situation, because of our mistakes, because of we being misguided, whatever happens.
So the Yamadutas, we do not think of them as good people, we think of them as bad people, but they’re not actually bad people. They have fearsome appearances, but they are also part of the cosmic order. And what happened over here is that they are able to learn a higher truth, which they did not know.
So what did they do? They went to Yamaraj and asked him, and they got clarification from him. So I’ll conclude with my last example, that if you consider the Pandavas, Draupadi was a faithful wife to the Pandavas. And yet what happened was Yudhishthira gambled everything away, and then finally staked her on gambling, and lost.
And eventually they were exiled. And Draupadi was furious. And in the Mahabharata, there is a whole chapter on Yudhishthira’s moral instructions.
And Draupadi lashes, Draupadi is actually very angry. She’s lashing out at destiny, she’s lashing out at Yudhishthira. And at that time, in one sense, you may say Yudhishthira is the least qualified to instruct her, because Yudhishthira got her into that trouble.
It is Yudhishthira who is responsible for it all. And Yudhishthira, at one level, is humble enough to acknowledge that I got carried away by the gambling fever. He said that because it had been Vidura asking me to come and Yudhishthira wanting me to fight, so I gambled.
So my gambling was not the wrong thing. I was only following an instruction. But the extent to which I gambled was excessive.
Just like when Bharat Maharaj saved the deer, saving the deer was not wrong. But taking the responsibility to take care of the deer for the and then getting consumed by that. See, it is good intentions are not the problem.
But sometimes good intentions can blind us to good intelligence. Good intentions can blind us to good intelligence. That means, Bharat Maharaj, what happened is his intention was good.
This deer’s mother has passed away. She’s an orphan, I should say. And then good intelligence means I have not come here to protect a deer.
I was protecting the whole kingdom. I have renounced that and I come here to focus on the Lord. So the good intentions can sometimes blind good intelligence.
So Yudhishthira, his intention was good. He had not gone there to earn money and get, he was not a part of a get-quick-rich scheme. He was thinking that my elders have told me to do this, I’m doing this.
But sometimes, while having good intentions, there could be, they may overshadow our good intelligence. So sometimes we may get an instruction from a senior devotee and that devotee may have good intentions, we may have good intentions. But sometimes the situation may not be right.
Sometimes circumstances may go wrong. And at that time, if you only focus on the intention and not use our intelligence, then things can go wrong. So we use our intelligence and learn and move forward.
So rather than why do bad things happen to good people, we change the question to when bad things happen to good people, what do good people do? What do good people do? If we keep that focus, then we will find a way ahead. Even if things go wrong in our life, we’ll find that Krishna will still guide us through those things. That is the meaning of bhaktenu, compounds to samikshamanu, that Krishna’s mercy is still there, no matter what situation we face in our life.
And if we have that conviction that Krishna’s plan is still there in my life, then we will go closer to Krishna, no matter how many difficulties come and from what source those difficulties come. Our mistakes, somebody else’s mistakes, or just mistaken situations. But we will know that Krishna’s plan is not a mistake for us.
Krishna’s plan is still working and he will draw us towards him ultimately. So I’ll summarize. I spoke three main points today.
First point I spoke was about how, when we are doing something and we fail in that situation. So how do we see it? That from functional perspective, it may be because we have made a mistake, those guiding us could have made a mistake or the situation was just not. But if we are only consumed in these, that was the first point, the cause, analyzing the cause.
Second point was that if we look at situations only from the functional perspective, then if negative situations make us pessimistic, then we are being functionally atheistic. So as devotees, we need to be able to see negative situations positively by looking beyond the situations to Krishna’s plan. So our mistakes are not Krishna’s plan, but Krishna’s plan can work even through our mistakes.
And the last part of several examples of how Krishna’s plan always works, but Krishna’s plan may be different from what we think is Krishna’s plan. So Krishna’s plan to petition for peace failed, but Krishna’s plan to demonstrate who was the cause of war was spectacularly successful. Similarly, Prabhupada’s plan to translate the Bhagavatam at one level failed, but the fact that the Bhagavatam was translated by his followers showed that his legacy lived on.
Prabhupada didn’t get immediate success in India, but when the eventual success came, it was stupendous. The legacy lives on. So for all of us also, rather than fixating on either beating ourselves up or blaming others, when things go wrong, we try to see when bad things happen to good people, not why bad things happen, but rather than focusing on life’s unfairness, we focus on Krishna’s mercifulness.
And what do good people do when bad things happen? So we don’t claim that I had good intentions, but bad thing happened to me. We make sure that don’t overshadow your good intentions. And when we move forward in that way, knowing that Krishna’s plan is always working, we will find a way ahead even through the most frustrating of situations.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Are there any questions or comments? Hare Krishna Prabhu.
Dhanwa Pranam to you. All the best to Srila Prabhupada. You had a beautiful class, Prabhu.
Thank you for summarizing. That was my job. You did it.
Thank you, Prabhu. Just a beautiful class. It was so amazing.
Certainly, Krishna’s plan, we cannot understand. And especially we are bewildered when the plans go opposite. We all know that.
Otherwise, we are happy that Krishna and Prabhupada are listening to us. But it’s a big movie of a few millions of lifetimes. And we just see a small clip of it.
And we are a little bewildered, especially when it’s not going good. Beautiful examples you gave. Of course, from Srila Prabhupada, you gave.
And then Bharat Maharaj. And then Drishti’s example is so beautiful. And also, I see this all starts with Pariksit Maharaj getting a curse.
But how he reacted to it was so beautiful. So you can certainly learn so much from Srimad Bhagavatam. And from this episode itself of Ajamila, you should learn that sense gratification, indulging in it can be very dangerous.
So beautiful, beautiful class. Thank you so much again. Prabhu, can we go to the question and answer session? We have a couple of hands already raised.
Yes, please. Hare Krishna, Sugarkara Krishna Prabhu, Nanapranaam. Prabhu, you are muted.
Yes. Hare Krishna, Chaitanya Charan Prabhu. This is amazing.
Very analytical class and brings so many points. We always look forward to your class. It’s really so much since clarification comes.
My question is, now, is it audible? My voice is audible? Yes, yes, please. What I am asking is, in the material world, people always, those who come to the Krishna consciousness, they will say that when they joined, we were better off. But after taking Krishna consciousness seriously, we have become so bad, so sad.
So I always tell that karma is burning. What karma is burning? He is dying. Corona died.
What? I didn’t say. I said, the karma has to end. Maybe a bigger punishment has been to smaller punishment, but they are not content and they’re not happy with it.
They’re telling Krishna is not really helping us. So we show the case how the Pandavas, they’re suffering, but still Krishna said, but they are not able to wait. Krishna is not very, very partial and all.
They just keep arguing. Yeah. So if people feel that they are, that God is not helping them, when somebody feels like that, it’s not so easy to respond to emotion with reason.
So at that time, it is for us to, as much as possible, manifest God’s love and care. We, we don’t go on the defensive. I was once talking with someone about the similar issue.
So this many years ago, maybe 15 years ago, I was quite new in Bhakti. Of course, I’m still new, but at that time I was, I could say very raw new. So I was trying to say that, you know, Krishna’s plan is perfect and everything.
And finally he said, that person was just, he said, let’s close the discussion. He says, throughout this discussion, I got only one feeling. You are not trying to help me.
Your only purpose is to defend your God. So defend your God. That is your only purpose.
Your purpose is not to help me. So what we need to focus on is that, yes, this person is in distress. How can I be of service to this person? That if somebody is in great distress, that is not the time to try to defend God to them.
There is a time for that also. But that is not the time necessarily. At the time, so if somebody is in distress, we try to see how we can help them.
Maybe we may not be able to help them. Just give them a, just give them a hearing, just be kind to them, be helpful to them. And yes, sometimes philosophy can be discussed, but there is the time for discussing philosophy.
So when Arjuna was furious after Abhimanyu was killed, and Arjuna was lashing out at everyone. At that time, Krishna did not speak philosophy at that time. Krishna spoke something similar to, or rather what I spoke or something similar to what Krishna spoke.
And Arjuna was lashing out even at his brothers. He says, all of you, could none, not one of you save my brother, save my son? Are all your weapons just in just ornaments, just bangles? So at that time, Krishna pushed Arjuna and just pulled him aside and hugged him. He says, Arjuna, in this world, adversities befall everyone, the wise people and the unwise people.
The only, what differentiate the two is that amid adversities, the unwise people act in ways that make things worse, whereas the wise people act in ways that make things better. He says, oh Arjuna, look at your brothers. They are grief struck by the death of Abhimanyu, just as you are.
Please don’t speak words that will increase their pain. So when Arjuna was filled with emotions, Krishna approached him through the channel of emotions, not through the channel of philosophy. Now that doesn’t mean philosophy cannot be used.
The point is, our purpose should be to help others. Krishna, how can I help this person? That can be our attitude over there. And then at that time, if they feel that we are being kind, we are being supportive, we are being helpful, we are understanding how much difficulty they’re going through.
So then even if they don’t get a philosophical explanation at that time, that’s okay. So rather than saying that God is not helping me, if they see that actually God’s devotees are helping me, so they may not make the connection immediately, but they will make that connection eventually. If we say, if we don’t help any person and somebody is in grief, they say, you know, I don’t have any time for you.
Pray to Krishna, Krishna will help you. What will happen is, yeah, maybe it could be that we don’t have time at that time. But either we make time or we connect with someone who has that time.
Now, most people will see God through the action of those who represent God. So that is why it’s important for us to try to manifest Krishna’s help rather than trying to defend that Krishna is helpful. We manifest Krishna’s help in whatever way is possible for us.
And then at a later time, when their emotional temperature is a little lower, then we can talk about philosophy and explain to them philosophically also. So we should show that we are instruments of Krishna and how we are trying to help them in that particular situation. Yes, that is the focus.
Thank you, Prabhu. Beautiful answer, Prabhu. Love is all we need, especially the near devotees.
They might not know etiquettes or whatever, but if we show the love and care towards them, they certainly will understand. Thank you, Prabhu. Very beautiful answer.
Thank you, Sukhadar Krishna Prabhu. Hare Krishna, Prabhu. Yes, you had raised this question that the Yamadutas had gone to Yamaraj, right? And we heard the discussion that ensued.
But why didn’t the Vishnu-dutas go to Vishnu? So, I mean, I understand that if it weren’t for the discussion between the Yamadutas and Yamaraj, we wouldn’t have heard that wonderful philosophy. But I didn’t know if I heard the answer about why the Vishnu-dutas didn’t go to Vishnu. Okay.
So, the point I was making is that Vishnu, that I said that Yamadutas getting foiled, getting thwarted is something which is extremely rare. And that is what Parikshit Maharaj asked the question. No, this is astounding.
So, please explain this. And then explaining this, what Shuddha Goswami did, he describes the narrative between the Vishnu-dutas and the discussion between the Yamadutas and Yamaraj, that the Vishnu-dutas were successful. Well, they represent the Supreme Lord Vishnu.
They will be successful. So, there is no need to describe what happened to them thereafter. So, in terms of the extraordinariness of the event, the extraordinariness was not that Vishnu-dutas were successful.
But the extraordinary thing was that the Yamadutas were not successful. That is what requires elaboration. That’s what is elaborated there.
Okay. Yeah. And just one comment was the kind of popular saying that kept running through my mind during your whole lecture was that, you know, lemonade can always be made from lemons.
You know, life can often, you know, hand us lemons. But our duty is to make lemonade or see how God is actually making lemonade of the lemons in life. Yeah.
Unfortunately, when life uses lemons, people squeeze the lemon into everyone else’s eyes. That’s true. Thank you for, as usual, another wonderful, wonderful, encouraging lecture.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Prabhu. That was a new one, but it is true.
Thank you so much. Hare Krishna. Chaitanya Chand, Prabhuji, thank you so much.
It was a wonderful class. My question is, Prabhuji, I really liked you said that it’s not easy to respond emotion with a reason. So sometimes in life we do become emotional, especially with our family and things like that and the people we care about.
But if they don’t have time for us or they don’t reciprocate, then what is the way to detach? I mean, obviously, we have compassion for everyone. We have feelings. But what is the best way to detach for our own benefit to not get hurt or because if they can’t give us time or if they mean to, but they can’t, then we need to move on.
Right. Or is it because they don’t want to? They are saying they are busy because maybe they want to distance from us. So we don’t know what is actually happening.
Yes. What could it be, Prabhuji? What is your thought that is it when people don’t respond, is it because it is their way of distancing from us or are they genuinely busy? So if somebody doesn’t respond to us, you know, how do we see? Do we just become detached from them or what do we do? Well, in all our relationships, there is a horizontal and there’s a vertical. That means that we are reciprocating with that person.
But we also understand that I am reciprocating with Krishna through that person. So if somebody is kind to us, somebody is helpful to us, somebody is loving towards us, it is that person doing all those things to us. But it is also Krishna doing those things for us through that person.
And that means that say when a newborn baby is there, mother offers her best milk to the baby. There’s practically no other act of such affectionate love where one life form is being sustained literally by the body of another life form. But at the same time, the mother doesn’t do anything special to manufacture milk in her breast when a baby is born.
The same lord who send a child through that womb, through the mother’s womb into the world also send milk in her breast to nourish that child. So it is the mother’s love. And it is also Krishna’s love manifesting through the mother.
And normally, both those can go together. But there are times when the two don’t go together. When Dhruva was insulted by his stepmother and was neglected by his father, he came crying to his mother.
And his mother realized that I cannot help. His mother said that Lord Vishnu can offer you more love than what millions of mothers like me can offer. You take shelter of Lord Vishnu.
So in this case, she herself told directly like that. But in some cases, that may not happen. So we, during different phases in our life, it may be that the same person who was offering us guidance, love, warmth, kindness, wisdom, shelter, whatever it was, that person may not be available later.
But that does not mean that we are lost or we are abandoned. It means that Krishna may offer us again by wisdom, guidance, love, affection, whatever, kindness through someone else. So we need to, we need to find out whenever possible.
We try to have honest communication. That’s why Bhuhiyam Akhyati Puchchati is important. Sometimes we need to tell the person how important their association is in our life.
And then they may prioritize it. Sometimes if you don’t tell that, then they may think, okay, okay, I have many things to do and this is not so important. But sometimes it may be that they may be busy, actually, and they may not have time.
Sometimes they may themselves feel that, you know, maybe the relationship is not working out the way it should be. Maybe they are not able to guide us properly. So that does not mean that they are rejecting us, but just different devotees are different.
And some relationships work out very well, some relationships don’t work out so well. That doesn’t mean we have to break the relationship, but sometimes a relationship may work best at a particular distance. I was at one place that I know two devotees who are very close friends, and then they had a very bitter fight.
So then I was asking the devotee after, I met one of the devotees after many years, I said, we’re talking with this, how is your relationship with that devotee? He says, wonderful. So really, how did it improve? He says, it’s wonderful because we meet only once a year in Mayapur festival. So he said, when we are not stepping on each other’s feet, then we can have a good relationship.
So I’m not recommending that as a solution. And the point I’m saying is, at different phases in our life, different relationships work best at different distances. So we try to investigate and find out, inquire and find out, but if we can’t find out, then we understand that it may be, you know, Krishna’s love may not come to me through this channel, it will come to me through some other channel.
And we try to find out from where we can be getting Krishna’s love. So in general, we shouldn’t overvalue the people who devalue us. And we need to start valuing the people who value us.
Yes, Prabhuji. I had heard this also in one of your other classes. That is true.
That is true. But how to deal sometimes, Prabhuji, with emotions? How do I find that all of you are so wise, all the devotees and all, where does this wisdom come from? Even though I’m hearing so much every day, all the classes and Bhagavatam and reading and I try to share with small group also, but then how, like, how to keep our emotions in check and how to? And how to? It’s not necessary that we have to keep our emotions in check. We may not always be able to change our emotions, but we can change our focus.
Emotions are sometimes just psychological reactions to life events. It’s just like there are physical reactions to life events. If the weather drops, we feel cold.
Now, we can’t suddenly stop feeling cold. But we can choose not to focus so much on the cold. OK, I got some warm clothes and still it is cold.
It’s not comfortable, but I don’t want to think so much about it. Let me do something else. So we can’t change the sensation of cold, but we can change our focus.
And as we get busy in something else, that cold sensation won’t trouble us so much. So similarly, we can’t really change our emotions. They’ll take their own time to change.
But we can change our focus. So take up something responsible to do. Take up something that’s challenging, something which is inspiring, something which is absorbing.
And as we give ourselves some other focus, then those emotions may remain, but those emotions won’t trouble us so much. You know, I have a seminar, a course on growing through grief. I had done this on the time of the pandemic when many people lost their loved ones.
So he said, you know, when we lose someone that creates a hole in the heart, a wound in the heart. Now, the wound may not decrease, but our heart can increase. That means that we may feel the absence of that person for a long time, but we can feel the presence of some higher purpose in our life more and more.
So as our heart expands, the wound may remain, but the wound won’t trouble us so much. So we can’t control our emotions much. And trying to focus on controlling our emotions, that doesn’t mean we don’t just let ourselves be swept away by emotions.
But we shift our focus away from our emotions to something else, something which is important, something which is absorbing. And by that, those emotions won’t have so much control on us. Yes, Prabhuji, this is very, very useful.
Thank you so much for your compassion and taking time to answer my question. Thank you, Hare Krishna. Thank you, Prabhu.
What a beautiful answer. Thank you so much. Yes, His Grace Ananda will ask Prabhu.
Hare Krishna, Prabhu. Dhanwa Pranam. Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna. Thank you very much. You often speak very delicate points, very sophisticated philosophy, and you deal with very intricate subject matters also.
So if I understand it, most of the time, which is possible, I understand it. But most of the time, I just say, okay, yena keena prakareena principle I apply, if I understand. I listen to you a lot.
I read, I’m a daily subscriber to your Bhagavad Gita as well. So my question here is, you gave the example of GPS analogy, right? Example of GPS, that everything is within the plan, not the plan of the Lord, but within the plan of the Lord. So do we interfere sometimes or we mess up with these plans? That’s how I see it.
Also day-to-day dealing and day-to-day. And part two is, I missed the point. You said something about good intentions can blind us.
Can you elaborate these two points, please? So Krishna’s plan, can we mess it up? Well, it’s not so much we make, we shouldn’t think of Krishna’s plan like one pre-packaged set. If there is free will, Krishna has given us free will, Krishna has free will. And Krishna’s plan, that is dynamic.
Yes, as I said, if we take a wrong turn, it will take us longer to get to the destination. So our mistakes do have consequences. But still, it is not that any mistake is fatal.
We are not thrown out of Krishna’s plan by any mistake. No matter what wrong thing we may do, Krishna is not going to say that, you did say a terrible thing, I will no longer stay in your heart. I’m no longer the Paramatma in your heart.
I’ll leave your heart and go away. Krishna doesn’t do that. So we don’t have the power to do anything that will make Krishna stop loving us.
Because we are limited beings, we don’t have the power to stop the unlimited being from loving us. That is the point of our mistakes. So yes, they can delay Krishna’s plan, but they cannot thwart Krishna’s plan.
And as far as good intentions and good intentions, the point I was making is, sorry, that we may have a good intention. But good intention alone is not necessarily a guarantor of good results. You also have to use good intelligence.
When Ajamil went to the forest, he was into good intention to collect firewood for his father’s fire sacrifice. But then he saw something over there and he got tempted. He could have turned away from there.
He couldn’t or he didn’t, whatever. The intelligence was thwarted over there. So good intelligence should not, sorry, just because I have good intention does not mean that I can blind, I don’t use my good intelligence.
We have to do both. We have to have good intentions and we use our good intelligence. Then we will be able to work properly.
Prabhupada always had good intentions. He was always trying to share Krishna Bhakti. But when he saw that things were not working in India, he didn’t say my intentions are good, why things are not working out.
He uses good intelligence. Okay. Indians are being enamored by the West.
That’s why they’re not taking Indian wisdom seriously. So let me go to the West. Prabhupada uses good intelligence to come up with a new strategy.
That was the point I was making. Okay. Right.
And is it like taking more accountability rather than that we are part of everything is within the plan. So I take, I account myself as more accountability, like, how should I put it that I’m accountable for my action, actually, because of my free will. Yes, definitely.
We are accountable for our actions. Also, you could put it that Bhakti means to offer everything that we have to Krishna. So our intentions are one thing we have, but our intelligence is also another thing we have.
So if you have to offer our entire being to Krishna, if you’re offering only our intentions, but not our intelligence, then we could say that is not full devotion. So yes, because I take accountability, we’ll not just hold ourselves accountable. But also we can say that are we offering our entire being to Krishna.
Sometimes we say that, oh, I want to just surrender to Krishna. That means whatever I’m told I’ll do that. Well, that is one conception of surrender.
But surrender can also mean that I’m really surrendering means I’m offering everything that I have to Krishna. If Krishna has given me some abilities, I need to use those abilities then only then I’m surrendering. If somebody has some hidden treasure in their backyard and they say, you know, oh, I’m giving as much charity I can.
Oh, you see, this is what is there in my closet. This is my treasury house and I’ll give all it. But you have something in your backyard buried.
Take the effort to dig your backyard, find out what is there and offer it to Krishna. Similarly, we have intelligence we may not develop. We may have talents which we have not developed.
Surrender means to take responsibility, develop our intelligence, develop our talents and then offer that to Krishna. Our senior devotee, Ram Prasad Prabhu, Hare Krishna. Hare Krishna, Raj Prabhu.
Dharam Vat Pranam. Hare Krishna. Dharam Vat Pranam Prabhu.
All glories to Shri Raghupat. Jai Chaitanya Chaitanya Prabhu. Ki Jai.
Prabhuji, thank you so much for this class. So many points. As everybody said, this is my question is similar to the the person who asked just now but a little different I like this point of within the GPS it really stuck in my heart saying that everything within Krishna’s plan that means even though if I make a mistake Krishna is merciful it’ll take take me to a right route even though it might be delayed so that is definitely a hope thank you so much for that but my question in respect to this is if something positive happens will be jubilant if something negative or grief or some things happen people lose their faith so I think this is a matter of a faith if I if I understanding correctly Prabhupada tried many many years in India but he did not lose his heart because he had 100% faith he has sent person faith in Krishna that Krishna this is your hand is there maybe you have some other plan my faith is shaky right I know I’m listening every day I’m hearing every day I am at least I’m getting to know that we should develop that faith but still faith is shaky sometimes so in that situation how do I know that’s Krishna’s plan it’s me you know it’s my mistake oh it’s happening to me again it’ll come back boils down to oh it’s my karmic maybe my astrologer will help you so that’s why I just thought of asking you that thank you from okay so if our faith is weak and then we may think of other explanations for whatever is happening my karma my astrology and other things I don’t think the two are necessarily related see first of all if our faith is weak it is weak Krishna doesn’t expect from us more faith than what we have Krishna knows the level of faith that way it is not that a parent is going to expect from a kindergarten child to be able to solve a triple integral calculus some so yes Krishna knows that this is the level of faith we have right now and there are certain challenges which we face and they may damage our faith they may even break our faith but maybe through the damaging and breaking of our faith we learn something and we grow and so now does having faith mean that everything is Krishna’s plan to think that everything is Krishna’s plan well yes and no my understanding is the focus our focus is not on what is Krishna’s plan in terms of what is happening but focuses what is what what is Krishna’s plan for me what should I do in this situation because every situation can be analyzed and explained at various levels I suppose if I’m feeling cold then I could say why am I feeling cold because I’m not wearing warm clothes oh because the window is not closed oh because I have got fever oh it’s because because this part of the world is very cold oh it’s because there’s climate change oh it’s because this world is the color well why am I feeling cold all these explanations are valid but which is the most pertinent may be valid all these expressions may be valid but which is the most actionable explanation if I am feeling cold then oh the world is the color so that we have tolerate the cold well if you have some warm clothes I can make myself comfortable and then I can focus on something else and I don’t have to go in that direction so rather than worrying about you know whether a particular event happening to me is Krishna’s plan or not we can focus on in this like what Krishna told Arjuna that wise people act in ways that make things better so in this situation what can I do to make things better now we will say I don’t know what will make things better okay but can I know at least in this situation if I am sitting down and feeling just feeling sorry for myself I’m just having a pity party that is definitely not going to make things better so let me do something positive right now we just let me get out of my head and start doing some service start you know start extending a helping hand to someone else get out of my head that will help so just if we focus on that that that I am ultimately a servant of Krishna I am meant to serve Krishna so in this particular situation how can I serve then just that having that attitude of service means we will stay within the plan of Krishna Prabhupada says in our purport that a devotee may be perplexed but a devotee is not discouraged discouraged means I just don’t want to serve Krishna I just don’t want to do anything perplexed means I don’t know what to do so bad perplexity can come in a devotee’s life but then a devotee uses one’s intelligence and tries to do something Prabhupada writes in a letter to Sumati Murari that when he was in America he wrote that you know we are trying various experiments and I’m experimenting various with various things right now to see what will work with these Western people with these American American boys and girls so Prabhupada is trying various things so rather than thinking of whether the event happening to me is Krishna’s plan or not whether it is caused by my mistake or by my karma or by my astrology whatever explanation we come we focus on whether my risk which is a response that will most constructive right and then if you try to actually choose that response of service attitude then we’ll stay in Krishna’s plan so it’s our service attitude in the sense of a very big service attitude we can translate that into simply so Krishna is the well-wisher of everyone Krishna wants the best for everyone so if we try to make things better then we are acting in a mode of service to and then we are a part of Krishna’s plan so that’s if we just focus on that attitude then yes we will be in stay as a part of Krishna’s okay so there’s a last question over here okay Jyothi Mataji has typed a question here that so sometimes we if we are if because our mistakes in abilities or our circumstances we are not able to do a service a time-bound services it remain incomplete and we make offenses we take too much time and we fail if we don’t what is Krishna teaching us to this well if basically responsibility we could say means if you take a service we do it and if you can’t do it then tell honestly that we can’t do it then this then our guides can just give the service to somebody else sometimes what happens is that we equate responsibility only the first thing I haven’t given a service I must do it but some we are all you we all are human beings we had human limitations and sometimes we just not be able to do a service so being honest about it and be upfront this is my situation these are my abilities are what I can’t do just be upfront no she but the non-stop when the first meeting your probe by the instruction knows share Krishna bhakti all over the world let me see your logic then Ropa said that you know I was married I had a child it would be unfair to my family if I just left everything proposes we may not neglect the instruction of the spiritual master but when they suspend it at sometimes so now drop I said that he did it of eventually but at that time proper couldn’t do it but if something something is time-bound you know tell the authority so there’s no need to get into get lost in the complexity of our mind the first our mind feels bad that we can’t do a service our first our mind feels bad you know I’ve got so much things to do and on top of that I got a service and the mind feels bad that oh I couldn’t do the service then the mind feels bad because devotees are feeling bad about us then the mind feels bad because we have been displeased you would so if they we get caught in the mind so rather than doing that first we get angry and then we get angry that we got angry first we get depressed and we get depressed that we are depressed so clarify this have clear communication and then move forward so sometimes that’s what is required to get ourselves out of our head so so when we are doing the service we sometimes try to serve this that if we may do a service and we are not able to do it but we don’t admit it is that pride well rather than getting into the complexity of pride or humility we can focus more on the principle that we are all parts of Krishna and Krishna has a part for us but it’s not that all parts are for us so if the part we are doing is different from what the part we have been given is different from the part we are able to do right now then we acknowledge that we acknowledge that and move ahead in our lives I think let’s not get too caught in the complexity of the mind just be straightforward do what we can and be candid about what we can’t do and it’s a very always pushes you still have to do it and try your best and then if it doesn’t work we did our best and we can move forward in our life so there is a time to think and analyze our situation and there’s a time to not think because we may be overthinking things so sometimes we just need to get out of our head and either do something or just say we can’t do it and then move on with our life okay so if we try to make things better but if a devotee is not reciprocated making them better well that is not our responsibility we can’t force others to reciprocate we do our part and if they if they’re not somebody else is not cooperating then we move on with our life ultimately it’s we can’t control others actions Krishna doesn’t expect us to control others actions so when we try to make situation better does not mean that we will succeed in making situation better but just that attempt to make situation better will actually keep our consciousness in a better place otherwise we are complaining oh this is why is this happening and why is that happening that is that will that will make us bitter just avoid that as much as we can so thank you very much