Gita 03.21 – We learn from others’ examples and set examples for others

Similar way thank you Bhagavad Gita 3.21 so here Krishna is telling that as the great people act others also act similarly whatever standards they state others emulate those standards so essentially Krishna is stating here that we all can learn and we all do learn from the examples of our leaders and if we are leaders then we have to set examples for others the caliber of a society is largely determined by the caliber of its leaders even if we look at recent Indian history or recent world history for that matter even say 50, 70, 100 years ago the inspiring people for the people in general were usually some leaders who stood for some principles nowadays often the most glamorized in the media are the movie stars and the sports stars and they offer only entertainment and nothing more than that but they become the models and what people learn from them primarily is the fashions oh we are this dry your hair like this adopt this fashion or whatever so neither are the people leaders very extraordinary in the sense of having a substantial character nor is what people learn from them very important but that's how people get caught in the trivial and thus they become entrapped now in general we are social beings and as social beings we do not need to we do need to get confirmation, vindication, reiteration, affirmation of what we are doing otherwise we start often doubting am I doing the right thing so when we want to make decisions we want that others approve us we all need it can at an extreme level become an approval addiction but at a basic level it is just our need for belonging and when we do something we wonder whether doing for this particular thing will it make me more accepted and respected in my social circle or will it alienate me from that social circle and to make this decision we often look at those who are very widely respected in the social circle this person is so famous this person is so popular and this person does like this so maybe if I do like that also then I will also be able to get this so in this way essentially we determine our actions based on the actions of those who are the leaders or at least the opinion leaders so now who are the leaders in society in the traditional context and to some extent today's context also the parents are the first leaders for the children the children are first born and once they start growing enough to recognize other people then for them the parents are like the be all and end all and then as they grow further then they move on to especially another formative influence is the teacher they go to school of course if there are other students who are leader type then that also affects them and further beyond that the teachers beyond the teachers and the peers especially those who are their liked peers they also get nowadays a lot of influence from the media and the culture in fact with the onslaught of the pervasiveness and the onslaught of the media often children spend more time in front of a TV than they spend in front of anything else so because of that enormous amount of time that they spend in front of TV or in front of things which give them virtual impressions of things they basically get lost in fantasy worlds where the fantasy models become their examples now entertainment is one thing but imagining the entertainment reality to be something which can become a reality especially when children don't have the capacity to differentiate between the two that can be very harmful so as they grow older then also the media keeps influencing their choices a lot and fashions especially we can say are a good example of how Tattadeve Tarojna and George Bernard Shaw said fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that you have to change it every few months now why do people change it? because their leaders some film star, some model, they suddenly appear in some different kind of clothes and then people want to wear those kind of clothes now actually speaking when we become when we become spiritualists often we do so because we found some inspiring spiritual teachers some inspiring spiritual guides and also when we become when we start practicing spirituality it becomes our responsibility to set example for others because quite often people get alienated from God not so much because of any hatred against God but as it is because of disenchantment with those who are supposed to be devoted to God often hypocritical theists are the greatest cause of atheism as it is said as a bumper sticker said Oh God save me from your evangelists so people sometimes in their zeal they appear so fanatical to others that people in general get alienated so it is important for us as devotees we feel inspired in our spiritual life and we see good examples and when we feel de-inspired we feel de-motivated, disillusioned disenchanted then we see senior devotees who are supposed to set an example good example behaving in uninspiring or anti-inspiring ways same applies to us also that the others are going to see us and now setting an example can mean many things at one level it means showing basic human sensitivity and culture, Shri Prabhupada said that devotees should be perfect gentlemen and ladies that means that people should be able to appreciate even according to mundane standards of behavior and conduct that these devotees are good people they are people whom I can appreciate and admire and beyond that of course that the spiritual standards of devotion that a devotee is expected to follow and the devotee follows that too and in this way we can ourselves set examples and help others to select the right role models now we can't say that we will be role models there are far greater devotees and spiritual teachers and guides than us but often in our social circle we may meet the only person who is spiritualist in our circle and whether we like it or not people are going to acquire their spiritual impressions from us and based on our way we behave then people will decide whether I want to find out more about this thing that you are doing and then they will meet other spiritual teachers maybe a spiritual master or other senior devotees and in that way they can get more connected and inspired so Krishna is telling Arjuna in this context that you are a social leader you are a member of the royal family you are the foremost archer and you need to set a good example because people are going to follow you so if you abandon the war field people in general will also abandon the war field and that will lead to people in general will abandon their duties seeing that you have abandoned the duty and that will lead to overall disaster therefore Arjuna don't do such a thing.