As the world judges us by actions not dispositions how can we avoid the confusion caused by wrong judgments?

From Dilip Singh

For two different individuals ,different actions (but maintaining same disposition),creates confusion in their minds and to answer their confusion is again more difficult. World perceives the doer thru his actions & not disposition. Typical eg. is Bali and Sugriva. So prabhuji, need your explanation to get rid of this confusion.

Question from Dilip Singh Prabhu.
For two different individuals, different actions but maintaining same disposition create confusion in their minds and to answer their confusion is again more difficult. World pursues the doer through his actions and not disposition. Typical example is Vali and Sugriva.
So how can we get rid of this confusion? So to rephrase the question is that sometimes we may have, two people may have same disposition, but the people see them according not as disposition but their action. And then there is misjudgment that happens. So I have given a full class on the Vali and Sugriva pastime.
The problem there was judgment without understanding. Vali judged Sugriva as being unfaithful without understanding the situation. So that’s why we can’t in general judge people based on their actions.
Although we cannot know their dispositions, it is our responsibility to clarify, to clarify situations. To ask, to inquire and thereafter understand. And the scriptures give many examples of misunderstandings that result because of lack of clarification.
So Krishna talks about austerity of speech and one of them is Anudvai Karam Vakim and that austerity of body is not committing violence, Ahimsa. So when we are dealing with others, we should not be hasty in judging others based on their actions. Some person does something and we have a tendency to make default attribution.
That means if a person we see eating a lot, we assume that person is a glutton. We see a person sleeping, we assume that person is a slugger, a lazy person. But it might be that person may be sick and so needs to take a rest.
So that person may not have eaten for a long time and might just be getting a meal now. So may be eating a lot. We can’t know.
So that’s why in general when we are dealing with people, it’s good to give them benefit of doubt. And if we have some, if we are doing a default wrong negative attribution, attribution means we see action and we assume our motivation for that. We in fact assume the disposition that will be there.
So if you are doing the default negative attribution, then it is important for us to clarify, to ask, ask that person or ask some other concerned person and get the clear understanding. And otherwise, if we don’t understand, I don’t have to get into others business. And in contrast, if it’s up to us and we are doing some action and others are misjudging us, then we also have a responsibility to clarify things.
That means we also have a responsibility to recognize that we need to explain our actions to people. So if certain actions are likely to be misunderstood, it’s important for us to explain those actions to people who are likely to misunderstand. We cannot go about explaining to the whole world.
But sometimes we say actions speak louder than words, but that is only one part of the same. Sometimes actions speak wrongly without words. So we have to explain our actions with words also.
So we shouldn’t assume that it is people’s responsibility. No, it is not their responsibility to come and ask us. If we are doing some actions which are likely to be misunderstood, then we can clarify with people who are likely to have that misunderstanding.
And that way we can avoid this problem of people ascribing wrong motives to actions and thereby ending in confusion. So Wally could have avoided that. There’s a lecture I have given on this topic called How Friends Became Enemies.
So Wally could have avoided this terrible tragedy of the misunderstanding between them which eventually led to his death if he would just have clarified a little bit. So actually that requires Sattva Guna and Rajiv Guna. One is impulsive in acting.
In Sattva Guna, one thinks before acting. And by the process of Bhakti Yoga, it helps us to develop Sattva Guna. And then we can think and then act.
So that way, by seeking clarifications and not doing default attribution towards others’ actions and ourselves clarifying if our actions are likely to lead to wrong inferences, then thereby we can avoid this sort of confusion. Thank you.