Amidst life-threatening situations like attack by robbers, should a devotee tolerate, retaliate or flee?

Hare Krishna Question How should a devotee Respond to life threatening situations As say being attacked by robbers Should one tolerate Or should one retaliate Or should one Flee from there Answer It depends On time, place, circumstance We see that Shila Prabhupada When he was attacked by a hippie David, when he was living with him That hippie became drunk Or rather he went high on drugs And he came to attack Shila Prabhupada Shila Prabhupada Fled from that place He had to run down the four stairs And go into the streets And then he called some other acquaintance And he stayed at his place And Prabhupada refused to go back Saying that this person is dangerous And the devotees arranged some other accommodation for him On the other hand When the devotees were in New Vrindavan And some people came to attack Shila Prabhupada Attack the devotees over there And the police Did not give any protection Because the police thought that these people are weird cult Then Prabhupada told that You should acquire guns And defend yourself So It depends on Time, place, circumstance In the first case It was not exactly Prabhupada’s property And Prabhupada was elderly And this young man was mad So Prabhupada fled from there And in the second case in New Vrindavan It was the property devotees had purchased They had right to be there And they required protection When the government was not ready to provide protection Prabhupada said that You equip yourself You train yourself And In Mayapur When there were some Fanatics Who attacked the temple Prabhupada said the devotees should be well equipped To defend themselves So therefore the important point is That we act in the best way To serve Krishna Now what will be the best way That we can’t decide in advance And it is not that One is superior to the other That tolerating Or fleeing Or retaliating It’s not that one of them is superior to the other Arjuna and Prahlad both are great devotees And Prahlad Remained passive In the sense that he just silently remembered Krishna And Arjuna fought on behalf of Krishna And actually both of them recollect Each other’s greatness In the First canto Arjuna talks about how I was protected The way Prahlad was protected Na upas prashur narahidasam Iva apas prashta So Ivasurani Na upas prashur just as Prahlad was not even touched By the weapons I was not touched Because of the lord’s protection And Prahlad remembers the Pandavas In the Brihad Bhagavatam Actually I did not do any service I only took service from the lord The Pandavas did service So either way the point is that We decide what is the best way to serve Krishna And whatever intelligence Krishna gives to us We use that So if we want to protect Ourselves Philosophical point of view That is also our duty We have been given a body And the body can be used in Krishna’s service In fact the body is required For our service to Krishna And for our sadhana also So protecting that body Can also be a part of Our service to Krishna Can also be an act of bhakti So for protecting the body we may retaliate Or we may flee And sometimes some devotees may think That ok it is my karma coming upon me Let me tolerate it So we can tolerate also So it is not that there is one standard Answer to this It depends on How one What the situation is What is practical What is most realistic And what is the best option in that situation And how one feels one can best serve Krishna So based on this All the options Tolerating, retaliating or fleeing Are acceptable Generally speaking in the Vedic culture The Brahmanas would tolerate The Kshatriyas would retaliate Unless there were some other circumstances So it will vary According to one’s nature And one’s circumstance