Among devotees when will love for Krishna transform into love for all living beings?

Answer Podcast

Any other questions? So sometimes We love Krishna Devotees love Krishna but they don’t love Other devotees or they don’t love People in general, they don’t love all living beings So at what stage Will the love for Krishna transform into love for all living beings? Firstly Even for a very advanced devotee There is a loving Disposition towards everything But that does not necessarily mean There is loving action towards it Prabhupada gives an example That a devotee A pure devotee will see That there is a soul like me in a tiger’s body But he cannot Go and embrace a tiger So There is a loving disposition But there may not be loving action All the time So there has to be some amount of Differentiation About How best I can help this person So there are some people who Who are very anti-devotional And the best way we can help them Is simply by Offering up pramodistics The more we go closer, the more they start Criticizing and offending And just creates antipathy So that has to be So when we say that a person who loves Krishna Loves everyone, so there is a difference In how they interact They are kind to everyone But the kindness may not be the same with everyone But it is a well taken point still That sometimes we become We, in the name of loving Krishna We become unloving Towards others And that happens When we are Either in the stage of that Utsahamayi Or we are in the stage of Tarangarangi Where we are Seeking security and Pride in our Achievements in Bhakti Our Bhakti practices are meant To make us more Understanding towards others And just as I have my mind and senses Which I am struggling They have their mind and senses They are struggling with them Even if they commit some mistakes Even if they do some wrong activities They are also struggling with their mind and senses I may not have that particular weakness Which they have But I have my own weaknesses And just as for me Battling with my weakness is difficult So for me Giving up anger may be difficult For somebody else, giving up cigarette smoking may be difficult So I don’t I should be more understanding Understanding that we all are battling with our mind and senses Sometimes, unfortunately Instead of becoming more understanding We become more judgment You are like this You are like that This person is like that That person is like that Then we become unloving We come off as very Self-righteous So If we have If we have a proper understanding of Bhakti Then both ways We understand that I am struggling with my mind and senses And the Krishna who is helping me In this struggle with my mind and senses Says I need that Krishna And these people also need that Krishna So let me become An agent of this Krishna And how will I be Krishna? Loving, kind, loving, gentle So Srila Prabhupada When he was asked How can we know your disciples? Prabhupada said they are perfect gentlemen Perfect ladies and gentlemen So Actually They always chant Hare Krishna You know they worship Krishna As a Supreme Personality of God It’s true Prabhupada here was talking About How people should Devotees should appear to You know In our practice of Bhakti There is Siddhanta, there is Sadhana And there is Sadhacharya Siddhanta is philosophical understanding Sadhana is our personal spiritual practice Sadhacharya is our behavior The world doesn’t care about What somebody’s Siddhanta is What somebody’s Sadhana is They care about the behavior So Siddhanta and Sadhana are important But the Siddhanta and Sadhana That should translate into Sadhacharya And that was what Prabhupada was stressing That we should be Perfect ladies and gentlemen That means as devotees We should be loving towards others Kind towards others, courteous So Once Prabhupada was in Boston One of the temples The devotees were staying on one side And there was an old woman staying on the other side And then She was really suspicious Young people who just look like hippies Wearing some strange dress And they told Prabhupada This old woman staying there Prabhupada just went there And Prabhupada spent half an hour, 45 minutes talking with her And it was just like Old people talk How is your health? How is this? How is that? How many children do you have? Just general talk And the devotees thinking Now we will talk about Krishna Don’t talk anything about Krishna And then when they were leaving Devotees asked Prabhupada Prabhupada could see the devotees They were a little bewildered Old people Sometimes feel lonely So Prabhupada She was specifically lonely He just went and talked This is simply human compassion So We want to be spiritually compassionate But that doesn’t mean that The human virtue of sensitivity and respect is not there It also should be there So it is for our practice Sometimes what happens is The Maya is so kind that some people are judgmental And then we become judgmental Why are you so judgmental? So we are not judgmental We are kind We will be kind and gentle to others But we become judgmental Why are you like this? But that also is We are falling into the same trap In which they have fallen So if some devotees we find They are not so caring, not so kind Let me just understand that Different devotees come from different backgrounds So some people May have been born and brought up In a very rough and tough environment Maybe their parents were not so loving Maybe they had to go through A lot of issues in their life Because of which Expressing love is not their nature So we We When we are practicing bhakti and associating with devotees Not all devotees Will be equally inspiring So what we need to do is In the devotee association Find out which devotee inspires And focus on associating with them And with them By gaining inspiration from them We move onwards towards Krishna So other devotees, if somehow we find that they are They are a little too harsh Or judgmental or whatever We just respect them from a distance And we move on in our practice of bhakti Does this answer your question?