Does becoming spiritually advanced means treating all situations and all people equally?

Thank you very much.

Spirituality, something that happens only at the spiritual level. Because even we say Shiva was hurt when Daksha spoke harsh words to him. Let's look at this from another perspective first.

The fact is that we have body, mind and soul. And the mind is the place where we experience emotions. And emotions are innate to our being.

So, when Prabhupada went to America, he faced difficulties. America was sometimes very cold for him. Now, was it that Prabhupada would not feel cold? Prabhupada would feel cold, but that feeling of coldness would not deter him from his service to Krishna.

So, similarly, as devotees, when we are living in the world, we will experience emotions. And sometimes people will deal nicely with us, sometimes people will deal harshly with us. And it is not that when we become spiritually advanced, we become unfeeling.

It is just that our emotion does not come in the way of our determination. If somebody speaks negatively about us, somebody hurts us, somebody discourages us, that will naturally hurt us. Once, in 1976 or 77, towards the end of his pastimes, one newspaper interviewer asked Prabhupada, that Swamiji, there are so many missions which have started like this, they started by a founder, but after the founder department, they have collapsed.

So, do you think this will happen to your mission also? And Prabhupada replied, why are you discouraging me? Swamiji, I am not discouraging you, I am just asking you a question, but your question is discouraging. So now, will Prabhupada get discouraged just because of some question somebody is asking in an interview? Prabhupada had such determination that when nobody was supporting him, still he persevered in Lord Chaitanya's mission. None of his God brothers helped him, he could not even get his support from India through any patrons, nothing.

So, when there was discouragement from all sides, still Prabhupada remained determined to serve Krishna. So, can a pure devotee of Krishna who is so dedicated to Krishna ever become discouraged? There are two different things here. There is the feeling of discouragement and there is giving up the actions to serve because of discouragement.

So, Prabhupada would often say that if you look at it from the positive perspective, Prabhupada, if devotees reported to him how distribution was going on very well, outreach was going on very well, Prabhupada would say, these are the news reports that are sustaining my life, they bring me back to life once again. So, Prabhupada was clearly happy when his mission was being successful and he was concerned and distressed when things didn't go well. So, Prabhupada was a person who did have emotions, but his emotions did not affect his determination to serve Krishna, kept serving Krishna no matter what happened.

So, for us also, we will naturally experience emotions in various situations and becoming spiritually advanced doesn't mean that we stop experiencing emotions. If somebody criticizes us, we will feel hurt. Sometimes in our devotee community also, some devotees just very harshly criticize other devotees and it hurts.

Somebody is, we may pass off the accusation that we are deviating from Prabhupada's mission. The devotees have given up their life for the mission of Prabhupada's mission. Somebody says they are deviating.

It's a very painful criticism. Now the devotees take their criticism, weather it and continue their service to Krishna. So, we can never become unfeeling.

It's just that the stronger we become spiritually, the more advanced we become spiritually, our emotions don't impede our devotion. And when we are reciprocating with others, we will actually find that some devotees we can connect with better, some devotees we can connect but not so well. So, equality again in our dealing will also mean reciprocity.

If some devotees are going out of the way to share with us, to connect with us, then we can connect with them. And some devotees, if we have to serve with them for some purpose, again we go out of the way to connect with them. But the reciprocity, equality in the form of reciprocity is going to be an eternal feature of our life in this world and beyond this world also.

So, the important thing is that if for the service of Krishna, if we need to accept criticism, we need to accept negativity, we will accept that. But it is not that we will let that interfere with our service. Prabhupada, when he was in India, he was respected as a sanyasi, as a sadhu.

When he came to America, nobody knew what a sanyasi is. He was just a strange old man dressed in a strange way. Nobody noticed Prabhupada also.

Prabhupada was treated like a curiosity object by those who at all came to meet him. Prabhupada accepted that. Why? Although he became from a respectable person to an almost like unknown person initially when he came to America.

He accepted that because that was what was required for service to Krishna. Does this answer your question? Yes. This answers the second.