Does love mean shielding our loved ones from their actions’ consequences? PEER acronym

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Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Summary

PEER Acronym Breakdown

• P – Protection
  • Meaning: In the earliest stages of a relationship (such as caring for a newborn baby or handling someone completely incapable of understanding cause and effect), love does mean shielding them from the consequences of their actions.
  • Application: Just as a mother does not punish an infant for biting or kicking, we protect loved ones from severe dangers when they lack the maturity or awareness to understand causality.
• E – Education
  • Meaning: As individuals grow, love evolves from blind shielding to active teaching.
  • Application: We must educate loved ones about the direct link between their actions and their consequences. Without this guidance, individuals remain psychologically infantilized, unable to mature or navigate the real world independently.
• E – Evaluation
  • Meaning: When loved ones run into trouble, love requires us to thoughtfully evaluate the situation rather than automatically enabling them.
  • Application: We must assess whether they are facing hardship simply because a situation exceeded their capacity, or if they are suffering the natural, deserved consequences of reckless or irresponsible choices. True kindness sometimes means allowing justice (facing consequences) rather than offering uncalculated mercy that enables bad behavior.
• R – Renunciation
  • Meaning: Ultimately, love requires knowing when to step back and let go.
  • Application: We cannot guard others from the results of their choices forever. When someone is finally ready to take responsibility—or when our continued intervention only enables self-destructive patterns—we must step aside, trust in a higher order (or the Supreme Lord), and allow them to face reality so they can ultimately grow.

Full Transcription

Manifestation Bhagavan the personality of Godhead Rajan poking Ekah one without a second Atma the super soul Atmanam by his energies Swadruk qualitatively like him Antarah without Anantarah within and by himself Bhati so manifests Pashya look Tam unto him only Mayaya by manifestations of different energies Uroodha appears to be many Translation and purport by His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swamishla Prabhupada Translation Therefore, O King, you should look to the Supreme Lord only, who is one without a second, and who manifests himself by different energies and is both within and without The Supreme Lord personality of Godhead is one without a second but he manifests himself by different energies because he is by nature blissful. The living beings are also manifestations of his marginal energy qualitatively one with the Lord, and there are innumerable living beings, both within and without the external internal energies of the Lord.

Since the spiritual world is a manifestation of the Lord’s internal energy the living beings within that internal potency are qualitatively one with the Lord, without contamination from the external potency. Although qualitatively one with the Lord the living being, due to contamination of the material world, is pervertedly manifest, and therefore he experiences so-called happiness and distress in the material world. Such experiences are all ephemeral and do not affect the spirit soul.

The perception of such ephemeral happiness and distress is due only to the forgetfulness of his qualities, which are equal to the Lord’s. There is, however, a regular current from the Lord himself from within and without, by which to rectify the fallen condition of the living being. From within he corrects the desiring living beings as localised Paramatma, and from without he corrects by his manifestations the spiritual master and the revealed scriptures.

One should look unto the Lord. One should not be disturbed by the so-called manifestations of happiness and distress, but should try to cooperate with the Lord in his outward activities for correcting the fallen souls. By his order only, one should become a spiritual master and cooperate with the Lord.

One should not become a spiritual master for one’s personal benefit, for some material gain, or as an avenue of business or occupation for earning livelihood. Bonafide spiritual masters who look upon the Supreme Lord to cooperate with him are actually qualitatively one with the Lord, and the forgetful ones are perverted reflections only. Yudhishthira Maharaj is advised by Narada therefore not to be disturbed by the affairs of so-called happiness and distress, but to look only unto the Lord to execute the mission for which the Lord has descended.

That was his prime duty. topics related with the theme under discussion and the purport, and then I will get into the discussion. Right now, what is going on is, in the first canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, the back story of the two main characters is being told.

How Parikshit Maharaj came to the position where he would renounce the world. That is being described. And for that, how renunciation was a tradition in his family.

So, Pandavas will renounce voluntarily, whereas, by their own decision. Whereas, Dhritarashtra will renounce by the forceful instruction of Vidura. So, later on, this is Matirna Krishna Paratahasvatova.

That for some people, neither by their own inspiration, nor by anyone else’s instruction. They will never turn to a transcendence. But Parikshit Maharaj’s family was one who had turned to a transcendence.

So, his back story is told to illustrate what a glorious person he was. Now, specifically here, Dhritarashtra has renounced the world. And after that, Yudhishthira Maharaj, as is regularly his custom, comes to offer his respects to Dhritarashtra and he sees him missing.

What happened? Where did he go? And he is dismayed. At that time, to pacify him, Narada Muni appears. Yudhishthira Maharaj is probably among the most fascinating characters in the Mahabharata.

Every character is fascinating in his own way. But Yudhishthira Maharaj is fascinating in the sense that his actions so often are different from what would be a typical human being’s reaction to a particular situation. Dhritarashtra was the person who had unfairly partitioned the kingdom, giving the Pandavas the Khandava, wilderness.

Dhritarashtra was the person who had insisted through Vidura that Yudhishthira come for the gambling match. Dhritarashtra was the person who, when Yudhishthira was being coronated for the Rajasuya Yajna, Dhritarashtra could not even be bothered to come there. Dhritarashtra was the person who was eagerly asking to do the gambling match.

Has Panchali been won? Has Panchali been won? Dhritarashtra was the person who, after the whole Kurukshetra war ended and the Pandavas came to meet, he, leave alone apologising to the Pandavas for all the atrocities he had done, he didn’t even speak one strong word to his wife Gandhari when Gandhari tried to burn Bhima alive. Dhritarashtra was the person who actually tried to crush Bhima. So, after all that he had done, Yudhishthira had every reason to be angry at Dhritarashtra and yet, Yudhishthira was not the least angry.

Yudhishthira told his staff, royal staff, that you should treat Dhritarashtra with full respect as if he were my own father and now there are some people who, it seems as if they have something essential missing within them and that is a sense of conscience, a sense of right or wrong. Like somebody does something terrible and then we are struggling with it and we somehow say that, okay, they hurt us, they insult us, they betray us and then after that, when finally after a great struggle, we somehow decide, okay, I’ll let this go and I’ll forgive you. Okay, what did I do to deserve your forgiveness? Not that, oh, I’m undeserving of your forgiveness.

I never did anything wrong. Why do you think I need your forgiveness at all? So, there are some people from whom, you know, we cannot even expect an acknowledgement of their wrongs, leave alone an apology for their wrongs. So, in such situations, if we want to continue the relationship, the only way is to utterly lower our expectations.

So, this is what Yudhishthira was able to do. But there was one person who was not able to do that. Who was that? Bhima.

Bhima was incensed and this person who did all those things, you know, he is living in royal pomp right now and we are serving him. He lived like that for many years. Now, Yudhishthira saw it as his duty.

See, Yudhishthira is driven by a certain sense of duty, which is that I need to do my duty irrespective of how the other person acts. This is the right thing for me to do and this is what I am going to do. Now, there is a whole question in the Mahabharata.

In fact, the whole Mahabharata is an exploration of what is Dharma. And so, is Dharma conditional or non-conditional? Is Dharma, is the duty that we are meant to do, is it dependent on situation? Is it dependent on context or is it not dependent on context? Bhishma took a vow to protect whoever is ruling the Kuru dynasty. So, this was a vow.

Did that vow depend on whether the ruler was virtuous or vicious? Bhishma considered no. Yudhishthira also, to some extent, considered that his duty was unconditional. I have to obey my elders.

In fact, Yudhishthira started gambling not because he, at least when he came for the gambling match, it was not because he was a gambling addict. It was not that he wanted to make a quick buck. He was already the emperor of the world.

He came because he thought, I should obey my elders. So, here, he was driven by that conception of duty. Of course, after the Kurukshetra war, sorry, after the 12 plus 1 year exile, when Yudhishthira asked, basically sent a messenger through Drupada’s priest saying that now exile is completed, please give us our half of the kingdom back.

At that time, Dhritarashtra tried to cunningly tell him that, oh, Yudhishthira. He sent Sanjaya as a messenger. And he said, oh, Yudhishthira, now the world is temporary.

All positions are temporary. Attachment with the temporary is the cause of distress. Now, everybody who is a grahastha has ventured to renounce the world and take vanaprastha.

You are so fortunate, you are already a vanaprastha. Why do you want to get entangled in the world now? And not only do you want to get entangled, in order to get entangled, why do you want to fight a war? And that too with your relatives. Just stay peacefully where you are.

So, this was Dhritarashtra. And of course, at that time, there was a certain amount of pragmatism, a hard-eyed realism came in Yudhishthira also. Initially, he was just unconditionally obey one’s elders.

But over a period of time, he saw what his obedience to his elders had done to his family. Now, what it had done to Draupadi, what it had done to Bhima. So, it’s sometimes a person is torn between different duties.

And by this time, Yudhishthira realised that simply listening to Dhritarashtra would mean much, much more pain on his family and on the Kuru dynasty also. He refuted it. He said, Oh, Sanjaya, when did I ever give the impression that I want war? He said, I simply want to do my duty.

As a Kshatriya, we are still young. We have our duty to our ancestors. We need to beget children.

We need to carry on the dynasty. We need to serve our citizens. And for that, we need our kingdom.

So, it is not our request for the kingdom that is going to cause the war. It is the Kauravas’ refusal of our reasonable request that will cause the war. So, he was respectful, but he took a strong stand at that time.

But eventually, although there was this realist or pragmatist, as Yudhishthira evolved to be, but after Dhritarashtra’s sons were killed, Yudhishthira says that Dhritarashtra is no threat to us. So, he decided again to do his duty and take care of Dhritarashtra. And now, Dhritarashtra has left.

Again, Yudhishthira took care of Dhritarashtra for so many years, for decades. But, it is Dhritarashtra leaves without a thank you for your service and going, not even informing. So, Yudhishthira has such a sense of responsibility that he is feeling distressed.

He feels that maybe there was something deficient in my care. I didn’t serve him properly and that is why Dhritarashtra left. And he says, did I fail him? Did I fail in my duty? And he was worried, what will happen to Dhritarashtra? How will he leave? He is old.

Gandhari is also old. So, at that time, Narada Muni comes over here. And Narada Muni is giving him what seems to be not such directly relevant philosophical instruction.

He is just speaking philosophy. The previous verse is ahasthani sahasthana, that one animal is the prey for another animal. And this verse is saying that the Supreme Lord is the only shelter.

Everything is his energy. So, what is all this got to do with the context over here? So, there are two things. One is that the world is a tough place.

And second is that Krishna is the ultimate well-wisher of everyone. So, when, with this background, let’s now come back to the topic which I plan to discuss that does love mean saving our loved ones from the consequences of their actions? So, I will speak this based on a Chanakya shloka that talks more about parenting, but the principle applies to all relationships. So, Chanakya Pandit talks about how that, panche varshani lalayet, dasha varshani tadayet, prapte tu shodase varse, putram mitravadacharet.

So, he says, pamper a child when they are before five, and then discipline the child after five. Then, from five to, and prapte tu shodase varse, and eventually the child becomes a teen. Then, mitravadacharet, treat the child like a friend, like an equal.

So, of course, it is not that on the fifth birthday, suddenly the parents have to change their demeanour. The broad idea is that there is evolution. The key principle is that the way of expressing parental love will vary according to time, place, circumstance.

Primarily here, vary according to the age of the child. And that applies in all relationships. So, I will use an acronym, PEER, P-E-E-R, to describe this evolution.

So, first P is protection. Yes, love does mean protecting our loved ones. And not just from the dangers of the world, it also means from the dangers that may come by their own actions.

So, for example, if there is a child, a newborn baby is there, the mother is caring for the baby, the mother is feeding the baby, and the baby may bite the mother, the baby may kick the mother, the baby may slap the mother. Now, does the mother get angry? You did this, I’ll give the consequence of your action. You kicked me, I’ll kick you.

No. At that time, whatever your actions are, protect them from the consequence. Even if the baby maybe starts playing with something dangerous, it touches a knife or something, So, it’s not that you did this, you suffer for it.

No. Love means we protect our loved ones from the consequences of their actions. In the initial stages, that is how love is expressed.

And that is required. At that time, the baby doesn’t understand the principle. Yes, the baby is just exploring the world.

The baby doesn’t understand anything. It doesn’t even understand that my actions have consequences. Now, a small baby may even put their hand in fire and the hand may get burnt.

But sometimes, of course, we don’t keep fire accessible to small babies. If parents do that, then the parents are babies who need caring. We need caring for.

But the idea is, there are small babies, one of my friend is a child psychologist, told me that there are small babies who, they may put their hand in fire and they may get burnt. But they will not make the correlation that putting my hand in the fire caught the burn. Oh, I’m just feeling terrible.

Why did this happen? So, it requires a certain level of intelligence, a development of intelligence, to even understand the principle of causality. That actions lead to consequences and this action led to that consequence. So, initially, protection is required.

But that is not all that is to be done. So, eventually there is, next stage is education. Education means that, if you do this, this will happen.

If you do this, this will happen. And a large part of education is actually educating others about the consequences of their actions. And without that, the children will not grow up.

Grow up means biologically they will grow up, but psychologically they will not grow up. They will not mature. So, if that education is not provided, then what happens is, they stay infants.

Even if they physically grow up. And such infantilising kind of relationship actually is harmful for both. For the parent and for the child.

For the person who is loving and for the person who is loved. Say, education means what over here? That, actually, if a child is rude, a child is disagreeable, a child is noisy. And then we go to some relative’s house, friend’s house, the child is misbehaving.

That is embarrassing, but it is not just embarrassing for us. It is not just upsetting for our guests. Actually, if a child is not trained properly, then other children will not play with that child.

And then child will be lonely. And that child will be unhappy. So, actually, in many ways, while parenting, no is one of the most important words a child needs to learn.

Not the child says no to parents, but the parents say no to the child. No, you should not do this. Because who will love a child more than the parents? But if the child is doing some actions which the parents are displeased by, then it is highly likely that other children, potential friends of the child, will also be displeased by those actions.

If the child behaves in a way that is displeasing to the parents, then how can the child ever make friends? Because the child will not be able to moderate the behaviour. So, how is all this related? See, in today’s world, here what has happened is, in one sense, Dhritarashtra, I will come to today’s world later, going back to Mahabharata, Dhritarashtra, in one sense, protected Duryodhana from the consequences of his actions. He used his royal prowess to never give him any consequences.

In fact, whatever Duryodhana did, Dhritarashtra either turned a blind eye and mutely consented, or sometimes even openly supported. Now, actions do have consequences. Sometimes, based on past karma, there is a buffer.

There is a time lag between action and consequence. But every action has consequence. We can compare this to, say, if somebody jumps down from a one-story building.

Maybe they have a sense of adventure, but if they fall wrong, they will have a fracture. So, if they jump down from a ten-story building, well, the consequences are much more disastrous. Now, if somebody jumps down from a helicopter, now, what may happen is, that as long as they don’t look down, they may feel thrilled.

Hey, I’m feeling the wind whistling to my ears. I’m having a sight. I’m having the ride of my life.

But how long? Eventually, they’re going to crash. So, basically, by our past karma, we may rise higher and higher and higher. And to the extent we have risen by our past karma, to that extent, the consequences of our present karma may be delayed.

That means, say, if somebody is very wealthy, and they do something wrong. Say, they drive drunk and they hit someone. And what happens is, they use some money, they pay the police, they pay off the victims, and the person just gets a wrap on the shoulder, or a wrap on the hand, and they get away.

Okay, once you can do that, twice you can do that, maybe five times you can do that. But eventually, what is going to happen is, one’s good karma is going to run out. So, there can be a buffer, which may be created by one’s power, by one’s wealth, by one’s cleverness, even by what we call as one’s luck.

That once a person was speeding, going away above the speed limit, and the cop pulled him over. He says, didn’t you see the speed limit? I saw the speed limit, I just didn’t see you. So, the idea is, people think doing something wrong is not the problem.

Getting caught while doing something wrong is the problem. But the problem is that if you keep speeding, then that urge to speed is going to come, and eventually there is going to be trouble. So, the point is, that some people get the consequences of their actions quickly.

Some people may not get that quickly. And one way the consequences of one’s actions may be delayed is by positive past karma. And one way one’s positive past karma may come is by having protective loved ones, protecting loved ones.

So, it may be one’s parents, it may be one’s siblings, it may be one’s spouse, one’s friends. Suppose somebody is an alcoholic, and they keep making a mess. They have episode after episode, but they keep making a mess.

And then they have, maybe their spouse, or maybe their sibling, or whoever, that cleans up the mess every time. Now, they may have that support system. But is that support system helping them overcome their alcoholism? Or is that support system actually enabling their alcoholism? So, Duryodhana had some good karma, by which he was born in a powerful family.

But what happened was, his father enabled him again and again and again, till what he did became unconscionable, became unbearable. And eventually the consequences did come upon him. Now, what happened was, Dhritarashtra did that to Duryodhana, but here, now the question is, that is Yudhishthira doing the same to Dhritarashtra? Is Yudhishthira protecting Dhritarashtra from the consequences of his actions? Dhritarashtra, as I mentioned, was never made to pay for his actions.

And Yudhishthira didn’t even expect that. But time takes its toll. Eventually, even if one is powerful right now, you are not going to be powerful forever.

Time is going to take it. So, Dhritarashtra is becoming old. And at this point, what happens is, that Vidura comes and shocks him out of his complacency.

And Dhritarashtra realises what Vidura is saying is true. And he renounces the world. And when, here Yudhishthira is feeling guilty.

So, Yudhishthira is being told, this world is a harsh place. Education means that we have to educate our loved ones about the consequences of our actions. And we may say, we may protect them from the consequences of our actions.

But we are not going to be there all the time. So, we will not be there. It’s not always possible for us to protect others.

That’s why, eventually, they have to take responsibility. And that brings, I was talking about the acronym peer. So, E for second, E is education.

So, protection is the first part of Chanakya’s verse. That, la layet. Let’s just take care.

The second part, tadet. So, disciplining involves education and then evaluation. Education means, ok, this is the action and this is the consequence of this action.

You learn properly about this. And then, evaluation means, is this person learning the lesson properly or not? That person is not learning the lesson. Then, we have to evaluate, ok.

Sometimes what happens is, see, the consequences of the actions can come in various ways. If, say, the parents don’t give the consequences of their actions to the child, then maybe the neighbours or other people, if the child offends them, the child may get beaten in school. Eventually, if the child commits a crime, the child may be in jail.

And the law may give the consequences of the action. So, evaluation means, at that point, one has to actually evaluate. Is this person, if somebody has got into trouble, then, is it just because they faced a problem way beyond their capacity, that’s how they got into trouble? Or, is it because they messed up? That they acted rashly, they acted irresponsibly, and that’s how they ended up in this situation.

So, if that evaluation is not there, the help that is offered can end up causing harm. Vishal Prabhupada was the embodiment of compassion. And, at the same time, Prabhupada was also a hard-eyed realist.

And sometimes it may come off that Prabhupada was against humanitarian work. He said that, you know, that actually, you should just focus on sharing Krishna Consciousness. No, it is not exactly like that.

Prabhupada himself wanted that free food be distributed all around the temple. That’s how we have the Food for Life programme. But Prabhupada recognised that we have to evaluate whether our help, the help we are offering, is actually helping the person.

So, there’s the leftist ideology that when people do bad things, it is not because they chose to do bad things, they chose to do bad things, it is because society in the past has done bad things to them. That social situations, social exploitation, social discrimination, social unfairness makes people bad. This is the idea.

And that’s why, if somebody has done something bad, the responsibility is not on individual reform, but on social reform. California is among the most leftist states in America. So, California passed a policy, especially during the pandemic and thereafter, a law, actually, that if anybody goes into a shop and they shoplift, they rob from a shop, but if they are robbing below $600, they will have no consequences for their actions.

Their idea is, people are poor, they are starving, that’s why they are going and robbing. And now, this is their idea of compassion. But eventually, some survey was done, what are people robbing? People are not robbing bread and food.

People are robbing expensive colognes and Louis Vuitton kind of purses and things, but all just below the $600 margin. You know, $555. They’ll rob that and then sell it on eBay and other places and make money out of it.

So, forgiveness is very good as an individual choice or individual practise. Forgiveness cannot be the default state policy. If the state says, if you rob, we’ll forgive you.

No. There will be chaos in society. So, evaluation is required.

So, sometimes you think of, there is justice and there is mercy. And we think, actually, justice is not compassion, only mercy is compassion. Or justice is not kindness, it’s mercy is kindness.

No, sometimes justice is kindness. So, mercy means what? We could say in this context, mercy means a person is saved from the consequences of their actions. And justice means, the person is given the consequences of their actions.

Sometimes, it is justice that is kindness. Because, only then will the person learn that, I cannot act like this. If I do like this, there will be trouble for me.

There will be consequences for my actions. So, both justice and mercy are actually manifestations of kindness. here, there is this, so, the first, the previous was Ahasthani’s Ahasthana, one animal is the prey for another animal.

So, the point is, this is the theme that is being talked about underlying. Yudhisthira Maharaj is being told by Narada Muni that this world is a harsh place. That, if a deer doesn’t learn to run fast enough, then, the deer will be devoured by a tiger.

So, a mother deer cannot protect the baby deer when a tiger is attacking. The only way a mother deer can protect a baby deer is by pushing the deer to learn to run as fast as possible. So, similarly, there is, he is saying that you cannot protect Dhritarashtra for long.

He says, therefore, turn towards the Lord. Here it is said that look on the Lord, don’t look at everyone else. That means, don’t think that you are the sole protector of Dhritarashtra.

Ultimately, the Lord is the protector. In the Bhagavad Gita, in 529, the words that Prabhupada called the peace formula. The last part is, surudham sarva-bhūtānām jñātvāmām śānti-mṛcchati.

So, Prabhupada applied it even to outer peace, that if you actually understand how Krishna is the properator, enjoyer, well-wisher, then, we will have peace in the outer world also. In the context of the Gita, Krishna is referring to inner peace. Arjuna is agitated.

How can I fight against my relatives? How can I possibly kill Bhishma and Drona? He says, katham bhishma mahaṁ saṅkhe dronam jamadu sūdhanā, īśubhi pratyotsyāmi pūjārāvari sūdhanā. I am meant to worship them. So, Krishna’s implication, the ācāryas explain, is that, Arjuna, don’t think you are the greatest well-wisher of the Kauravas.

I am their greatest well-wisher. And you are thinking that shooting arrows at them is going to cause them pain, and you want to save them from that pain. But, he says, I know what is causing them greater pain.

Far greater pain is caused to them because they are obliged to fight on the side of a person who has no morals, who is so vicious. So, my plan of Arjuna, Krishna is implying, my plan is to free them from this circumstance and the terrible obligation that it brings. And they are good souls.

They have done good karma. So, once they are freed from the situation, they will be elevated to a higher situation. They will be liberated.

So, my plan for them is better than even your best plan. So, therefore, be an instrument for my plan. And that will do, it is not just for you to win a kingdom.

My plan will do the best for everyone. Once we understand that Krishna is the well-wisher, Krishna is the benefactor of everyone, then what happens is, Shanti Mirchati, we become peaceful. So, just the lesson that Arjuna was given over there, that we can’t do everything for even one person.

What to speak for everyone? We do our part in Krishna’s plan for the good of others. We all have some part to play. So, the implication that Narada Muni is saying is, you have done your part now.

You have done your part and Dhritarashtra is onwards journey. And later verses, towards the end of his monologue, Narada Muni will tell what has happened to Dhritarashtra and how he will move forward and he will become enlightened. So, the idea is that here Narada Muni’s implication is, Dhritarashtra don’t infantilise, sorry, Yudhishtira don’t infantilise Dhritarashtra.

And, you know, he has lived in a way that is regrettable, if not reprehensible. But, at least now, he has done something right. Don’t stop him.

Don’t think that if he has done something right, that means you have done something wrong. It is not that you failed in your duty. It is that at last, he recognised what his duty is.

So, sometimes, people who are very conscientious, there are people who are, you could say, under-responsible and there are people who are over-responsible. People who are under-responsible, they are always conscious whether others are doing their duty to them or not. But, they are not conscious whether they are doing their duty or not.

You know, you didn’t do this for me, you didn’t do this for me, you didn’t do this for me. Well, you didn’t do this, you didn’t do this. What has that got to do? You should be doing this.

No, relationships are reciprocal. So, under-responsible people, they over-expect from others without doing anything to them. But, sometimes, people can be, many people, especially those who are virtuous, they can go to the other extreme.

They can be over-responsible. Over-responsible means we don’t just see what the other person is doing, we keep doing for the other person. If we keep doing for the other person without a reciprocation, then eventually they start taking us for granted.

And then, our time, our energy is not utilised poorly, we feel disappointed. So, Srila Prabhupada was doing all that he could to try to share Krishna Bhakti in India. When he saw that people were not responding, he said, oh, maybe I am not presenting Krishna Bhakti properly.

No, he said, if they are not responding, let me go somewhere where they will respond. That brings us to the last part. Evaluation.

Evaluation is that whether this person, I need to protect this person right now, or I need to let the consequences come, or myself deal with the consequences of the action. And the last is renunciation. Renunciation means, sometimes, if a person is getting the consequences of their actions, we just need to move out of the way.

We just need to move. We cannot guard them from the consequences of their actions. We need to let the consequences hit them.

I was just a few months ago in America. So, I was at one place, and I was giving a class, and there was about a elderly, about 65 year old man, and he was with a 5 year old girl. So, I thought she was his daughter.

Then I asked him, he said, she is my granddaughter. He says, my daughter is a drug addict. And she, she doesn’t even know who the father of this girl is.

And she says, she should get into trouble, and I used to bail her out. then she had this daughter, so I felt at least I should take care of her mother. And then, he said that, eventually, she just neglected her house, and what happened was, she kept some gas or something, and her house got burned.

So, then I asked her to come move into my house, and while she was in my house, she stole my life savings and went away. And only when she went away, she left her daughter in the home alone, and he had gone outstation. So, he says, my daughter was starving for almost 24 hours.

So, he said, at that time, I decided enough is enough. So, I informed the authorities, and then I started formal procedure for adopting my granddaughter. And then, I told her, you have to go into a rehabilitation centre.

So, this daughter, in the rehabilitation centre, she met some Hare Krishna devotees, and that helped her to get her act together. She is still in the rehabilitation centre, but he says, when I saw how much my daughter had changed, he says, what are these Hare Krishnas? So, I have come to explore. That was the second or third time I had come to the temple for the programme.

So, he said that actually, when I stopped protecting my daughter, that actually she started improving. So, renunciation doesn’t mean we don’t care for the people whom we love. It means that we understand that caring can take different forms.

Sometimes caring means letting the person get the consequences of their action. And that may seem that we are being hard-hearted, but it’s not we who are being hard-hearted. We are simply preparing them for the hard reality of the world.

So, in this way, now Yudhishthir is being told that, you may not be there to protect Dhritarashtra, but you are not an independent person. You were an instrument of Krishna. You did your duty.

Now it is the Supreme Lord who will take care of the person. So, in this way, whether we are parents, whether we are guides, whether we are teachers, whether we are mentors, counsellors, when we express our love, there are different ways in which love can be expressed at different times. And understanding how do we know how we can express the love? First is by understanding that we are not the sources of love.

We are channels of love. We are actually offering love on behalf of the Lord. We are meant to be His instruments.

And then if we have a prayerful inner connection with the Lord, that if we maintain our inner connections with the Lord strongly, then, tadami buddhi yogam tam yena mam upayanti te. We will get the wisdom from within. We will get the inner illumination.

How best to express that love in whichever particular relationship we are encountering at present. So, that is how, bhakti is not just about just chanting Hare Krishna and loving Krishna. Bhakti is about a different way of living in the world.

A different way of approaching all our relationships in the world. Where we take up greater responsibility by recognising the limitedness of our responsibility. We are limited beings and to the extent we recognise that, then we can take greater responsibility by sometimes protecting, by sometimes educating, sometimes evaluating, sometimes renouncing.

So, I’ll summarise, discuss today the topic of, does love mean saving our loved ones from the consequences of their actions? So, here, Yudhishthira was trying to do that. Dhritarashtra never acknowledged, let alone apologised for all that he had done. And Dhritarashtra enabled Duryodhana, although Yudhishthira certainly didn’t enable Dhritarashtra, but he didn’t, he felt that, I just need to do my duty and take care of him.

But that didn’t, that didn’t lead to any growth for Dhritarashtra. And when Vidura’s strong words brought some renunciation within him, Yudhishthira felt, I have done something wrong. So, Yudhishthira, through philosophy, is being guided by Narada Muni that you are not at fault here.

You did the right thing, but now the right thing is to let go, to let Dhritarashtra go. That connection I discussed in Janakiya’s verse, love can be expressed in different ways. The PR acronym.

What does P protect? It’s a small baby, has to be protected by the parents, whatever the action the child is doing. So love does mean protecting our loved ones from the consequence of their actions. But that is not the only way to love.

E is education. Actions do have consequences. The world is a harsh place.

And we are not going to be always there to protect. So we need to educate that this action will lead to this consequence. And sometimes if somebody has a buffer of good karma, the consequences may not come immediately.

But that does not mean the consequences are not going to come. As I say, higher you go, the harder you fall. The consequences will come eventually.

And then third E was valuation. So if somebody has got into a mess, then we have to evaluate. How do I help at this point? Do I help by protecting them from the consequences? Do I help by helping them to deal with the consequences? What do I do at this time? Was it because of their own mistakes or because of their way over the head? They faced something beyond their capacity.

Evaluation is required. And then R was renunciation. But sometimes we just need to step aside.

And that is what is being told over here to Yudhishthira that Dhritarashtra has at last taken responsibility now. No, just step aside. So when we understand that Krishna is the supreme well-wisher, then even when something bad seems to be happening to someone around us, at that time we understand that Krishna’s plan is operational.

And that doesn’t mean we become hard-hearted. But we see what I can do to help this person to grow up, to move onwards in their spiritual journey. So when we connect ourselves with Krishna internally, then we will be guided from within how best to express love in which situation, in which relationship.

Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. Are there any questions or comments? Thank you for this wonderful class.

You raised the question, dharma is conditional or dharma is independent. So I didn’t get what’s the answer for that. Is dharma conditional or non-conditional? Well, definitely it is contextual.

That means it’s conditional. Desha Kaala, Desha Kaala Vibhagavit, as you say. Dharmagya, that’s described in the Bhagavatam also.

The idea is that yes, one should, for example, speak the truth. But is speaking the truth the sole thing to consider all the time? No, if speaking the truth is going to have terrible consequences, it’s going to harm someone, then maybe at that time speaking the truth is not the best thing to do. So, rather than thinking of dharma as being, so rather than thinking of dharma as, okay, like, we have one dharma.

Okay, I have to obey my elders, or I have to protect my family, or I have to do this. Dharma is subtle. And that means we have to weigh various factors.

The content of our action, the intent of our action, the consequence of our action, and based on that we need to evaluate. What is the right thing to do? That’s why, let’s say, dharmasiddhatvam nitham gohayam. At one level, dharmam tu sakshat bhagvat pranitam.

The dharma is what is given by the Lord. At the same time, in a particular situation that we are facing, what is the dharma? That is something which has to be carefully thought and decided. That’s why what is it said about Yudhishthira Maharaj that vipradharma achyuta ashvayaha.

So he took guidance from, outside from the brahmanas. He connected with the Lord internally, achyuta, but he himself contemplated what is dharma. So, there is the social aspect, the intellectual aspect, the philosophical aspect, and the devotional aspect.

So all three are required for one to determine what is the right thing to do. Okay? Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Yes, please.

How to practise the art of renunciation? It depends on exploring or introspecting what is it that is stopping us from doing that. So generally, when we have to let go in a particular relationship, it may be multiple factors. It may be a concern for the other person.

How will that person be able to function without me? Or, it may be a concern for ourselves. You know, I won’t be able to function without another person. Because every relationship, it takes a toll from us, but also gives something to us.

There are some people who have a very high need to be needed. We all have that. We all have a need to be needed.

But some people have a very high need to be needed. Then what happens is that if this person is no longer there in my life, then that person won’t need me anymore if I let go of that relationship. Or I may feel that this person is there and they are taking care of me, whatever it is.

So we have to explore and find out what is it that is causing me hesitation in letting go. And then once we find that, then we address it specifically. Okay, if I am thinking that this person will not…without me, how will this person take care of themselves? Well, yeah.

But is it really true if I am not there? If I go outstation somewhere, isn’t there someone else to take care of them? Can’t they take care of themselves? Ultimately, philosophically understand, we are all temporary. Eventually. At least our physical existence is temporary.

So, we are all going to die. Are they going to take care of themselves afterwards? So, this doesn’t mean we just cut off our responsibilities. It just means that we have to deliberate.

And similarly, if I feel that I need this person and I can’t be without this person, then is that something which is healthy for me or not so healthy for me? Is it that I am creating an unhealthy dependence on that person? See, we, in one sense, cannot be at all independent. We can’t be independent of the Lord. And even in this world, we live in an interdependent world.

But sometimes, some forms of dependencies can be toxic. So, is this when I feel that I can’t be without this person, what is it that is causing that? Is that healthy? Is that unhealthy? And based on that, when we do an introspection like that, then, okay, if this person is serving a particular need for me, then is there some other way that need can be served or is it that that need itself is something which is something which I need to decrease that. And I need to be able to learn to live without that.

So, we have to explore that. Generally, we’ll find that once we start investigating, exploring specifics, we’ll find that letting go is not as difficult as it seems. It’s just like in sensual pleasure, the anticipation of the pleasure is always greater than the pleasure.

Oh, I’ll eat this, I’ll watch this, some new movie is going to come, there is so much hype about it. Actually, when people go and watch the movie, okay, it’s over now. So, just like with respect to material pleasure, the anticipation is far greater than the actual pleasure.

Similarly, with respect to material fears, the fear of letting go specifically, actually, the apprehension, the fear is, the fear of the event is actually, the fear of how troublesome the event is, is actually far greater than how troublesome or how distressing the event actually, the act actually is. So, if you try doing that, you’ll find that it’s not that difficult. Okay.

So, thank you very much. Granthraj Srimad Bhagavatam ki Shila Prabhupada ki.