Cooperating among equals
I've been having poor health, and I was not sure also that I'd be able to give the class. So, taking some medicine, I don't think I can properly allow it to happen.
So today I'm asked to speak on the topic of cooperating among equals. The different devotees are working together, one on the street, one level of the project. How can we cooperate? So this verse, पत्यास्तवादिवक्लुप्तमहाविष्यिक So I've read this verse several times.
I read the translation in Parpur. One time when I was just reciting this verse, it struck me that Arjuna is advising his brother Yudhishthira over here. The context is that Arjuna has brought the news that Krishna has departed from the world.
And that he's a hard worker, somehow trying to communicate that news. And he's communicating it, not just by directly telling that Krishna has departed, but he's describing all the ways in which Krishna played decisive roles, critical roles in their lives. So Arjuna is speaking to Yudhishthira.
And what struck me instantly when I was going through this verse is पत्यास्तवादिवक्लुप्तमहाविष्यिक So Arjuna is referring to Draupadi as Yudhishthira's wife. Not his wife. Now, it was Arjuna who had won Draupadi in the Swayamvara.
And he could have said that he was intending to marry her. Or Yudhishthira married his co-wife. They were all hers.
She was their co-wife. And still, he could have said, my wife. But he's saying, your wife.
So now, if we look at the incidents, how they happened in the Mahabharata, in the Swayamvara, Draupadi's Swayamvara, nobody else is able to win the target. So then, Arjuna, who is the guard of the ground, he contests, and he wins. And then he wins, and he takes Draupadi with him.
Now the normal etiquette in Vedic culture is that usually the eldest brother marries first. Then the second brother, then the third brother, and like that. So, even in the Ramayana, when all the four brothers are to be married, Rama and Sita are married.
And then, Jataka suggests that they have three other young girls in their family. So, they can also be married with three brothers. But the way it goes is, first the eldest brother, Rama marries Sita.
And then, the other brothers marry their wives. So, in sequence, here, we know that because Kunti said, that whatever you have got, share. So, I won't go into the full story.
There's a lot of discussion, it's not just Kunti's words, but eventually the Jataka will come and say, how this is ordained by Mahadeva. Then they marry, all five of them marry Draupadi. And after they marry Draupadi, then also some precepts are given in the scriptures.
So, when they come back to their kingdom, Narada also comes to visit them. And Narada is a great sage, and he's come to visit them. And, in the morning, Narada will talk to them about it.
We might say that he will talk about, he has so many subjects he can talk about. He can talk about how manastaraya can be entangled in, and how you have to be careful in manastaraya. But he doesn't talk that.
He tells the story of two people, Sunda and Rupa Sunda. And they had extremely powerful, and they had got a benediction from Brahma, that no one will be able to kill the Deva, except the other person. And both of them were the best of friends.
And they were, they were incessable. And they went around creating havoc all over the universe. And nobody could overcome them, because of Brahma's benediction.
And all the devatas reflected on Brahma, and they told Brahma that this is what is happening. And Brahma, he, using his mystic creative powers, created a captivating damsel, an Apsara, Tilottama. Uttama, every limb of her body was super excellent.
And when these two demons saw her, the moment they saw her, each of them said, she will be my wife, and he was his son. And that sight of her was the beginning of the end of their relationship. And they had not even approached her with the proposal, will you marry me? Without that, just seeing her, the two of them started fighting.
And the fight became brutal, it became bloody, and finally, with one blow, both of them hit each other on the head, and both of them were dead. So now, the government tells, you are very affectionate to each other, but you are married, and this can lead to conflicts. You have to be extremely careful.
And it doesn't say, just be careful. He actually sets down a policy, about how, at one time, when one of you is there with the queen, then others should not come at that time. And now, this may seem like, what do those sanyasis got to do, discussing such things about family life? But, he is concerned that there will not be any conflict.
And he sets down a clear policy. And it's not just a policy, that will for him sake, eventually, when Arjuna violates the policy, Arjuna, some brahmins come, a brahmana comes, whose wealth has been stolen, and at that time, he says, please Arjuna, Arjuna, he wants to take his weapons. His weapons are in the chamber, where Yudhisthira is with Draupadi.
And that is not true. There had been an ambition, that if any of us violates the privacy of others, when they are with Draupadi, then they will be punished for one year. And now, Arjuna doesn't know what to do.
He doesn't want to violate Yudhisthira's privacy, at the same time, he needs his weapons. Finally, he just knocks on the door, and Yudhisthira and Draupadi are talking, and Yudhisthira smiles, and Arjuna explains the situation. He comes, takes the weapons, and immediately goes out, catches the thieves, gives the stolen brahmins back.
And after that, he comes back in touch with Yudhisthira, that now I have asked for your permission, so that I can go and forest for one year, as per our arrangement. And she says, no, it's not required, this is an emergency situation. And Yudhisthira says, no, if I don't honour my word now, what will be my value? He says, no, it's not required.
Anyway, he said, that condition is primarily for an older brother coming in, when the younger brother is there, for an older brother with a father. So, a younger brother with a son, he can come any time, when the mother and father are there, it's not a problem. So, although Yudhisthira gives various reasons, Arjuna is unrelenting.
And Arjuna actually goes to the forest, for money. And usually, in the Vedic culture, there are many references to polygamy. The polygamy can be, usually it is, it is one man having many wives.
Occasionally, it can be one woman having many husbands also. Now, most often we see, whenever there are co-wives, there are conflicts. Whether it is Kashyap with Kaikeyi, Kaushalya and Sumitra, or whether it is Chitraketu with other queens, it's terrible.
Most often, whenever there are co-wives, there, at least, it's conflict is there. So, here we see the Pandavas, they live in an island of conflict with, in the sense that, there are a lot of conflicts between the Kauravas and the Pandavas. And yet, there is never a conflict between the Pandavas over property.
And, of course, we could say they are exalted devotees, and devotees can consent to everything else. But still, the point is, the Mahabharata has a very clear delineation of a plan, of a structure, of a policy, we could say, by which they would be dealing with the situation. So, when, extrapolating from that situation, when we are working together, we have a project.
So, at that time, it's vital to have some sort of policy by which deals and interactions happen. Otherwise, as you know, I would often say that the Gaudiya might split because the devotees couldn't walk it. And that is true.
At the same time, it was not just that the devotees, the needs of the Gaudiya might be to adjust power, or egoistic, but that would be an oversimplification, and even a misrepresentation of the situation. If we consider that unknown to the situation, it is a complex situation. We cannot separate the glory of Srila Prabhupada from the glory of those who helped him spread his mission.
Yes, it was Srila Prabhupada who inspired him, but many of his followers who helped him spread the mission in various parts of the world. Similarly, we cannot really separate Bhagavad Gita Maharaj's glory from the glory of his followers. Many of his followers were very dedicated.
We see, he started serious preaching in 1990 when he took seven years. And then he departed from the world in 1937. And this was the time when India was filled with the passionate call for independence.
So, there were three movements in India that sought independence. There was a non-cooperation movement around 1920, the civil disobedience movement in 1930, and then there was the good India movement in 1948, which eventually became successful. So, two of the major movements for independence happened at a time when Bhaktivinoda Sarasvati Thakur was preaching.
And most of the national energy was directed towards seeking independence. So, even at such a time, Bhaktivinoda Sarasvati Thakur was able to establish 64 monuments. Apart from that, he established one centre in Burma.
Bangladesh was for most of the time part of India itself. Later on, it was partitioned. And of course, he had one centre in Germany, and one in England.
So, he was successful. And it was, of course, his spiritual potency, but his disciples did assist him. And they were resourceful, they were educated.
So, we cannot simplistically say that because they were egoistic or something like that. That's why the situation was much more complex. Traditionally, whenever a leader embarks, the head of a mat, the Madhyadipati abhors his successor.
And when the Madhyadipati abhors his successor, that successor becomes the leader of the party. And quite often, there are other prominent spiritual leaders who will start their own matas. And they will be leaders of their own.
There might be one prominent head. But still, most of the Madhyadipatis had their own independent jurisdiction. And things were not very highly organised.
Organisation was there. Shankaracharya started with Akharas. If you look at Gaudiya Vishnu as it developed traditionally, there was no spiritual organisation.
Traditionally, historians of organisations or organisations, theorists, they say that for an organisation to move forward properly, if there is a leader, the founder, gives his will in writing, the founder appoints a successor, and the founder builds a proper organisation. And then the organisation can move on. The legacy can continue.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not do any of these things. He did not appoint a successor. He did not write any books.
So from the point of view of organisational history, it's a miracle how Gaudiya Vishnu not only survived, but also continued and flourished. Nothing was done to solidify the legacy. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu departed suddenly.
So that is how it survived as a miracle. It was a wonderful history. But the point is that there was no rigid organisation.
There were Gaudiya Vishnus in Brindavan who wrote primarily in Sanskrit and wrote about Krishna. There were Gaudiya Vishnus in Bengal who wrote primarily in Bengali and they wrote primarily about Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. And there were Gaudiya Vishnus in Odisha.
If we see, not only did the nature and content of their writing differ, but also the kirtan styles. Narottam Das talked about a particular kirtan style. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu told Goswami to build temples, but he never told Advaita Acharya Nityananda to build temples.
Why? Because Naram Singh Shah was ruling. He was a tyrant. No kind of temple construction was possible.
But at that time in Brindavan, Akbar was ruling. He was a little tolerant. And Goswami had the experience to negotiate with Muslim rulers.
So he asked them to build temples. So the point I am making is, in Gaudiya Vishnuism, it is not that there was one central authority with rigid control over everything. It was what is called a soft organisational structure.
There was a broad understanding of overall goals. But everyone does things individually. Now, Bhaktivinoda Thakur, during a time when Christian Indians were preaching very rigorously in India, and they had an organisational structure.
And through that they were doing a lot of convergence. And they were quite effective. So Bhaktivinoda Thakur, he envisaged a systematic organisational structure which he talked about in his books.
But he did not implement it. Because at that time he had many other responsibilities. He was a writer, he was a thinker, he was a judge.
So he gave the structure. And this is the template. This is Bhaktivinoda Thakur who first implemented the organisational structure.
Now when he departed, at that time he had an organisational structure and he asked the devotees to form a GVC. Now again, they formed a GVC for 10 days. But they just couldn't get the idea because normally the way all spiritual organisations work would be that there would be one head and that head would be considered to be the representative of God.
So they had to follow this way. So now, for the devotees of the Gauri Amrit if there are 10 people or 15 people, they discuss, they negotiate. And sometimes there is a group of people who are going to discuss and lobby that can be politics.
And then, after that, what comes out of it to see that as the will of Krishna is quite difficult. And they just couldn't get it and they said, this is not going to work. And that's why they shifted back to having one successor, Acharya.
And unfortunately he had problems. And then when others did not accept him, conflicts came up and eventually the Gauri Amrit split. So the point is that cooperation it's not that cooperation is something easy to do.
And it's not that somebody is not able to cooperate that means that those people are always driven by the group. It can be. But that is not necessarily the only case.
Cooperation is a challenge. And the first step of cooperating is recognising that it is a formidable challenge. So there are two different things.
In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna talks about how nigraha ken karishiti What can depression accomplish? No, that is in the 18th chapter. But in the 3rd chapter also Krishna talks about nigraha ken karishiti What can depression accomplish? There is one organisation who defines what can depression accomplish. They say this is the essence of the Bhagavad Gita.
And they say that we should just wantonly indulge in our senses. And by such indulgence gradually we will attain transcendence. That is their philosophy.
And they go to this nigraha ken karishiti. Now what can depression accomplish? This is subtle. Now in this krishna by nigraha we are referring to our desires which are always in our mind.
If that were the case, in these two verses later in 3.36 Arjuna asks Krishna what is it that makes one do sinful activities. And Arjuna says that aata kenya pradukto yon paapam chalti purusha And then 37th verse, Krishna answers And the whole section of 37.3 is talking about controlling karma. And then it concludes And then it concludes So Krishna is clearly talking about nigraha.
And he uses the word nigraha also later. So what is Krishna referring to when he says nigraha ken karishiti? The terms can vary but roughly we can use the terms vritti and vasana or svabhava and vasana There is a vasana that allows shine and be pride and illusion. They have to be controlled.
If you want to live a civilised life. You want to live a spiritual life. But svabhava, inherent nature is not something that can be controlled.
For brahmanic nature Temporary the person can do kshatriya services, vaishya services But overall the person should act according to nature. So when Krishna is talking about nigraha ken karishiti He is not talking about what is the point of repressing lust or what is the point of repressing anger He is talking to Arjuna that Arjuna you are a kshatriya And if you try to act brahmanically I will be forgiving, I will be better Nigraha ken karishiti So that means within our material side There is a svabhava which needs to be doted And there is vasana which needs to be curtailed And the approaches of the two are different So Just as we cannot We can separate spiritual and material at one level But all material is not necessarily bad Within the material there is svabhava which has to be harmonised And there is vasana which has to be curtailed So similarly when devotees are working together When there are differences You cannot immediately attribute those differences to ego Because you have ego so you don't resemble It's not necessarily like that Different devotees can have different svabhava, different nature And when they have different nature They need room for functioning according to the nature So firstly whenever there are differences If we start attributing everything to ego Then we do a negative attribution Which inhibits people So we need to know that different people have different natures And different people will work differently So one of the biggest destroyers of relationships I was in a lecture At the start of the class I said that Today I will share with you a formula That I hope you will never use again And that formula is The formula for ruining relationships That formula is judging without understanding When we see people doing certain actions At that time we can't see people's hearts So based on the actions We try to infer what is their intention behind this In the Ramayana we see a Tragic rupture of fraternal affection Resulting because of this judging without understanding I won't go into the full story Most of you know Sugriva and Vali Were not just brothers but best of friends And somehow Vali was caught in a fight with a demon In a cave and he stayed for a long time over there And Sugriva thought that Vali has been killed So in order to check the demon he covered the cave And he came back, he had stayed for a period of mourning And then as per the minister's request He ascended the throne And when Vali came back At first he came out of his cave door Closed And then he came and saw Sugriva sitting on the throne So furious, he started attacking and pounding Sugriva And Sugriva was so hurt He tried to explain that his brother had not only suspected him But had also convicted him He just did not, he tried to persuade him And he just left And time and again he tried but Vali did not listen Now here you see that Both Sugriva and Vali made distinct inferences When Vali did not come out of the cave Sugriva made the wrong inference That Vali has been killed And when Vali saw Sugriva sitting on the throne Vali made the wrong inference that Sugriva is power hungry Now although both made wrong inferences You see the difference is that Sugriva Had literally no room for benefit of doubt For giving benefit of doubt He knew that Vali was better than him, stronger than him So if this demon had killed Vali Now he would think that the whole Vandana kingdom is up for the spot I can devastate, punish the whole kingdom And that's why Sugriva had to do what he had to do To stop the demon And the best thing, he knew that he had killed Vali That he and Sugriva would not be a match for him So he had to somehow stop That's why he used that huge boulder And he had to live on the point sometime to cover that Now on the other hand, when Vali saw Sugriva Sugriva's mistaken inference was more that Vali was a casualty Whereas Vali's mistaken inference Was more of a charge on the character of Sugriva Sugriva had been his faithful valet Or his servant for decades So at least he could have given him some opportunity To do some clarification And he could afford it, Vali was stronger than Sugriva And Vali had been the rightful king So it was not that Sugriva would have killed him There was no immediate threat So what happened is, Vali judged without understanding And the end result of this was The best of friends were brothers They became the worst friends And the reconciliation happened only when eventually Ram had to kill Vali Of course Vali understood and forgave that At least there was a definite reconciliation But the point is, there was this friendship Which was destroyed because of judging without understanding So judging means that we observe people And based on their behaviour We ascribe motivations to them And this is what psychologists call attribution error Attribution error We attribute certain intentions to certain actions And quite often, if we have a negative perception Then whenever we see any questionable behaviour We automatically attribute a negative cause to it So if we like someone Even if that person does something negative We will try to attribute a positive cause to it If we don't like someone, then as soon as we see Someone doing something which is questionable It might have a reasonable explanation But we attribute to it some negative explanation So for example, if I see someone I don't like And I see that person sleeping Ram is a lazy bum If I like someone and I see that person is eating He must be tired Same action If I don't like someone and I see that person eating a lot He's a glutton And most often, when We do something which is objectionable We are most charitable and give the most positive intention to our actions If I ate a lot, I was hungry So what happens is that We attribute intentions And that's how Slowly, by this attribution of intentions to actions What was a normal romantic relationship Coldly starts coming Because we develop negative perceptions about others And the worst thing that happens is That quite often Instead of talking with each other We talk about each other A says something about B And we assume that B must be having some selfish intention And instead of going to B and clarifying We talk about it with C And then C talks about it with D Then we talk with E And we have a Parampara of Gossip Gossip which is one aspect of Prajabha Which Updesha Viches can destroy Gossip can have many connotations But one simple understanding of Gossip is To talk about a situation With someone who is neither a part of the problem Nor a part of the solution So when we do that Then unnecessarily we start spreading negative vibrations And quite often A talks negatively about C About B to C Now we may say that B will never come to know about it But what happens is that these sort of things do spread And they come to know that further thaws the relationship And further hardens the relationship And even if that doesn't happen What we speak about others Speaks about us That means when I speak something negative Say A speaks something negative about B to C Then C doesn't see that Just as information about the character of B C sees this also as a statement about the character of B Oh yes we are supposed to be friends But A speaks like this behind the back So tomorrow if my relationship with A gets spoilt A may speak like this About me also to D So what we speak about others Speaks about us It speaks about the kind of friend we are Whether we are trustworthy in a relationship or not So this is subtle But this is how slowly the relationship starts getting thawed So sometimes I was talking about judging without understanding this That we often attribute Negative motives To some actions that we say So if we come up with a particular plan This is how things should work And someone opposes that plan Then often we Because of the attribution error We attribute it towards your ego Because of your ego you are doing like this But it may not be like that Or it may just be that that person is of a different nature And because of that different nature That person may speak like that So It may not be because of ego It may just be because different people have different natures Or it may also be because we are at fault So whenever there are differences Rather than making a negative attribution error Assuming that this person is at fault We need to instead of talking about others Talk to others Have a proper channel of communication And by that So first of all we have a structure for sharing That's what I talked about in the example Then second I said is don't judge without understanding And third is to avoid that We need to have proper structure of communication This is what happens Talk with each other and resolve the situations So I can give you one example From my life So I often answer questions on my website So one time One devotee asked me a question Some devotee requested that In India recently there were elections So when the elections were there At that time there was a lot of Ashutosh Pura That may be better for dharma And should devotees vote or should they not vote So there were a lot of questions So at that time I gave a talk on that And I said that voting is a social responsibility of devotees It's a talk And many devotees like that talk And then some of the followers talked to Bhaktivikas Maharaj And Bhaktivikas Maharaj he disapproved it And he gave a talk saying voting is not the social responsibility And he said that So he said that Actually our social responsibility We don't want to ask So he basically said that voting is a social responsibility And he had not understood our issue So now he spoke something but then what happened Several devotees, many of them probably were his followers They wrote a lot of nasty comments On my YouTube video, on my site Saying that you are a speculator, you are a deviator You are misleading the devotee community It's bad, so many things And then some devotees just to They had every sense of adventure They put both the two videos together And they shared it So it became an unnecessary controversy So then So I had started my talk by stating that So this is not an issue only scripture tells us anything directly There is no precedence in scripture So then we have to do inference And if we look at, we can infer both ways We can infer that democracy is An undesired form of government, so we don't have anything to participate in But then we can infer the other way also Because if we do, say in the world today We are able to practise Krishna Consciousness In the places where there is democracy In the places where there is no democracy, we have to practise covertly That is no profile And in Russia there is no democracy, in USSR we couldn't practise at all In China we have tried to practise covertly So in today's socio-cultural situation Democracy is the most conducive form of government And Prabhupada also, he was on a tour of the world in America He suddenly cancelled his tour just to go back to meet Indira Gandhi When that was near to meet her too So Prabhupada was open to discussing with The people who were democratic kinds of state And also Prabhupada had asked devotees to form a party A political party, called In War We Trust Party So There are precedence, so I said that we can infer both ways But then This is not the way, this is speculation We should ask the liberated Acharya And he will tell us what is right and what is wrong So it all became very nasty Then I just wrote a letter to Bhaktivedanta Maharaj I said Maharaj this is the unnecessary snowfall So what should we do? Maharaj immediately called me Then we had almost half a 40 minutes talk And then Maharaj said I had no idea He just asked me a question and I gave an answer I had no idea it would become such a big controversy Then Maharaj said I will give a talk and we will put it in public So then Maharaj said that He made the same policy He said that there are in the devotee community There can be dissentiments And we don't have to deny the dissentiments Then he said that if Chaitanya Chahana had said that the meeting is okay Then I wouldn't say I disagree with him I would say he is wrong But in this case there are different positions and different devotees So I clarified to Maharaj, Maharaj told me You are saying this is social responsibility of devotees He said our social responsibility is Varnashtra Then I explained to Maharaj, Maharaj used the word social responsibility My point was that social responsibility Is different from spiritual responsibility Spiritual responsibility is what is mandated Social responsibility is not so vital So in that sense my use of social responsibility was Different from saying that it is something That you have to do because of your obligation to society My usage was that actually it is not as mandatory as But as devotees can be socially conscious themselves And so they can vote But it is not something sinful to do If some devotees are socially conscious they can vote So I used social responsibility in that sense Not in a mandatory way but as something which is of lesser order Lesser order than spiritual responsibility So I told that to Maharaj and that is how it happens This is what we devotees have to do So that was complete clarity Then Maharaj said I will give a talk And he gave a very recorded talk And he said that devotees can have different opinions And different positions and different issues And we don't have to be disrespectful Because of this So he gave a very nice talk and the whole issue was clarified So this was my realisation that instead of talking about each other So by talking with each other We at least get a clear understanding of what is happening Otherwise when we talk about each other Often the Chinese whisper or whatever you want to call it But things get distorted much more So by talking with each other we can resolve issues And even if we don't agree Even if we don't agree There are various ways of working One is to cooperate Cooperation includes operation If we are not operating we cannot cooperate That means sometimes Some things can agitate the mind so much That how could he have done this? How could she have spoken this? That can agitate us so much that we cannot even operate And at that time you just cooperate It doesn't work like that There has to be some proper communication And the references need to be aired and addressed But they need to be aired and addressed in a proper way So if they are publicly spoken to everyone That doesn't just hurt the person whom we are asking That hurts everyone The community at large So when we work together If we consider that each of us is an individual We are working on a project So a project is like a metaset And in that all the individuals are in small sets So now all of us have certain aspirations Certain things which we are driven about We should be strong, this is how things should be That is what we would like to contribute to the project And apart from that certain things are required So all of us will need to subordinate Some of our interests for the larger interest of the project And we cannot subordinate everything of our interest So some of our interests We need to have freedom to pursue that That person will have to do management That person will have to do fundraising if it is required But that person has a primary interest in the project And that person needs to feel free to plan and execute the plans for the project So everyone needs to have some territory Where there is a primary interest And this is not possessiveness This is just the room for initiative Prabhupada Rishikesh's third purport He says that the soul has its own initiative And bhakti doesn't mean that the soul has to give up the initiative But rather the soul has to harmonise one's initiative with the Supreme Lord's initiative So that means that I am talking about three things over here One is There are certain situations Where each of us needs to be having Individual room for creativity and initiative So that is Within the meta project This is this person's way Others won't have to intervene over there unless something serious is going on Then there are other things where we all cooperate And our initiative may not work We may have cooperated and some adjustments have been made And cooperatively something comes up And in the third case we may want something And sometimes the exact opposite of that may be said So when that happens it can be very bad So even that has to be done We say we want a particular project And everybody else feels that something else has to be done So earlier I said that One of the things which I could not accept or could not understand was When there is a group discussion How can what comes out of a meeting With negotiations, with lobbying, with politics How can what comes out of that be God's will Which is good to understand Therefore let there be just one person Let he be the Acharya and his will will accept as God's will But that didn't work like that So instead of Prabhupada he asked devotees to form the GEC But the significant thing is that Prabhupada formed the GEC Years before he departed So 7 years Prabhupada formed the GEC in 1970 And in 77 he departed In 7 years he trained the devotees how to work cooperatively So if devotees are working Or are dedicated to Krishna And then they discuss together And then they arrive at a particular decision Then Krishna can manifest through the collective decision of the devotees also In the past it was not always that there was one Acharya Who would give the decisions Especially when a king would be there The king would have advisors And they would have a panel of Brahmins And those Brahmins would also work for democracy Sometimes they would discuss and they would have a consensus The devotees would try to resolve their differences so that they arrive at a consensus If they didn't arrive at a consensus they wouldn't reach out to devotees So democracy is not unprecedented So then it was understood that the majority of the Brahmins You respect, this is what is to be done So if sometimes something is happening against our will Then if that's not the majority we need to accept it And we don't have to consider that as a personal defeat So this is just the way things work So the last point I want to conclude is With sensitive speech Krishna says, austerity of speech in 71-71-15 The first characteristic of austerity of speech is in Anudriya Karambhav That which does not agitate the mind So even when we have to speak the truth We have to try to speak the truth in as sensitive As non-perfecting a way as possible And that is austerity Krishna demonstrates this later in the 18th chapter He talks about different kinds of karma Some people say that So some people say that It should never be given up Some people say that Some people say that It should be given up Now Krishna will later say It should be done And here when Krishna refers to those Who say that That is, it has dosha and it should be given up Still he says, he refers to them also as That there are some One who has controlled the mind He is a great sage Some great sages say that It should be given up And others say that it should not be given up The point is, Krishna refers to those Whose position he opposes His conclusion is that It should not be given up Those whose position he opposes Then he refers to them as We may oppose someone Disagreement doesn't have to Degenerate into disrespect Krishna demonstrates that Disagreement doesn't have to degenerate into disrespect Why is that? Because these great sages If their opinion is wrong Krishna's opinion is ultimately right Because an old man or a fool Doesn't say anything Because they are also concerned About the ultimate questions Now who would think that Only those people who are actually concerned About how to liberate from this existence And then they think that In this existence we will become bound And therefore we need to Consider how to avoid bondage And they come to the inference That we avoid bondage by avoiding the Vedanta Now their inference is wrong But their intention is right Their intention is that we want to become liberated from this existence But the force of action they come up with is wrong Because they are also seeking liberation Krishna calls them a Dhanusha Similarly, generally when we come to Bhakti Everybody has come here to serve Krishna People have not come here just to get power and fame and position People have got it elsewhere also So that small ultimate motive might come here But that is rarely the predominant motive So even if there are some disagreements Rather than making a disagreement We generate new disrespect We need to sensitively express whatever disagreements are there And if something has to be done against someone's will also Rather than making that person was defeated And we were successful We have to make a sensible decision We have to make a co-operative decision And the way Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was able to transform Keshav Kashmiri Keshav Kashmiri was a Pandit who had never been defeated Never been defeated Chaitanya Mahaprabhu defeated him But when his students started laughing He said don't laugh And then he allowed Keshav Kashmiri to save him He said you have come after a long journey You are tired And just now you composed 1000 verses So you must be tired So please go and rest And tomorrow you can come back and continue your discussion Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not rub it in I have defeated you now You are disgraced He gave you an honourable name to walk And then that night Chaitanya Mahaprabhu Chaudhary Sastrini came in his dream and told him that Actually you are the person He asked Chaitanya Mahaprabhu how is that? You promised me that I would never be defeated by any person And yet I was defeated He said I promised you that I would not be defeated by any person But the person who will not just be a person He is the lord of my lord My lord is Shiva and Shiva's lord is Vishnu And he is Vishnu himself So she said that the perfection My perfect blessing was that you became a great learned Pandit But the greatest learning for a Pandit Is not that he defeats all other Pandits The greatest perfection of learning is that He comes to the Supreme Lord and surrenders to the Supreme Lord So today I have given by giving a very good contact To the Supreme Lord This is my perfect blessing And he was able to surrender Because although Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu had defeated him Chaitanya Mahaprabhu did not dishonour him So even if sometimes there are differences And some devotees views are not accepted That can be done without disgracing the devotee in public Without making the devotee as much as possible Feel that you have been defeated The sensitive speech can go a long way In cooperating And for doing all this it is most important that we maintain A spiritual conception of each other Otherwise we have all these people And we reduce people to their functional roles We don't see them as devotees That's why in many cases where I have been If the devotees have a good relationship It is largely because they also have purely spiritual get-togethers At least devotees come together And just discuss Krishna If we get together only for management purposes Then there will be differences and we will see each other more But at least at some periodic frequency Once a fortnight, once a month Those who are the leaders in the project They come together and they can articulate And that is the time when we see each other purely spiritual We don't take topics with some managerial agenda in mind Just discuss Krishna Katha And when we see each other speaking Krishna Katha And we hear each other unleashing Krishna Katha At that intimate time our vision of each other stays spiritual And when the vision stays spiritual Then the material things that come up Will not overshadow the spiritual conception of the person And we can move onwards So overall we need to have a spiritual vision And operate in goodness We need to operate in goodness irrespective of whether we are below it or above it We may be transcendental But when working with other devotees we have to act in goodness Some devotees start saying I did like this Because Krishna told me from within my heart that I should do like this Please don't get Krishna's will from the heart coming in like this It may be true, it may not be true But it's best that we don't talk about it We act in goodness. Goodness means we are guided by Guru Sadhu Shastra Not so much directly We don't claim that we have a special connection with Krishna We don't act constantly.
We act in goodness So I'll summarise I started by talking about how Arjuna here refers to Patna Savaarimukti Mahabhishek Arjuna refers to Draupadi as the wife of Yudhisthira Not his own wife Not even our wife This indicates the respectful nature which they had in their relationship And Narada Muni after they got married He came just for the sake of Deciding some policies About how they should interact in a way that does not cause conflicts So any sharing of any resource Sharing of anything which can potentially lead to conflict There has to be proper policy Otherwise conflicts are not just like Problems of death in life Although there are many instances of co-wives And there was never a fight among themselves And that is because They had a proper policy And then we discussed about how Along with the policy there has to be We should avoid attribution error We see some action and we ascribe some intention to that action And based on our likes or dislikes we attribute positive or negative Intentions To those who like positive and those who don't like negative So rather than ascribing One way to do it is Judging without understanding Judging means attributing a negative intention To some action without understanding of the circumstances So to avoid judging without understanding We need to talk with each other instead of talking about each other For that I gave an example It's working in interactions And then Lastly I talked about how while working Before that we should assume That all differences are because of people Differences exist because of different natures of people So everyone needs some room for individual creativity And some room where we will discuss and then Arrive at a decision And we understand that just like a body of karma advises They will sometimes work on each other Similarly Krishna as a good cat manifests with the remotest But he cooperatively discusses and arrives at a decision And sometimes when something goes against the remotest Particular proposition that should also not be Thrust in the face of that person We should be sensitive And when there is a disagreement This disagreement should not be generated to disrespect We see that everyone is ultimately devoted to serving Krishna And based on that understanding We are respectful even when we arrive at a different course of action If we see each other spiritually By discussing Krishna Katha regularly And we function in the mode of goodness Then we can not only cooperate But we can flourish cooperatively Because the collective energy of Krishna comes When devotees manifest and share Krishna When everyone is glorifying it together I manifest over there And manifest in a way that can transform Our own hearts Thank you Are there any questions?