Growing from grudges to gratitude – Bhagavatam 10.14.8

[Bhagavatam class at Krishna House, Gainesville, USA]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. I’m grateful to be here.
Thanks all of you. I seek the blessings of Kalakant Pro so that I can speak something on this very celebrated verse from the Srimad Bhagavatam. I’ll try to speak on the theme of growing from grudges to gratitude.
We hold grudges, we become resentful when somebody someone deals wrongly with us, someone hurts us and life gives us a roddy and we have a particular plan to do things in some way and suddenly everything seems to be collapsing. So it’s natural to become resentful and yes, there are bad things that happen in life but quite often when those bad things happen, they don’t hurt us as much as does our reaction to that event. So resentment of reality often hurts more than reality.
Mental traffic jam means our thoughts don’t go anywhere. In the physical traffic jam, we are trying to move ahead but the situation such that we can’t move ahead. So similarly resentment is what causes a mental traffic jam.
When we become resentful of something, we want to deal with the situation. I don’t want this to happen. I want to go ahead.
I want to get over this. I want to move on. But that resentment becomes like a wall.
So that wall just prevents us from moving ahead. And our mind just goes in a endless loop of why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why. And why did he do that? Why did this happen? Why did she speak like that? Why, why? And the more we think about it, the more the resentment increases.
So it’s like the wall that is blocking our mental traffic, that becomes bigger and thicker. And we end up feeling victimised and paralysed. Of course sometimes we may not be paralysed, sometimes we may overreact and become very aggressive also.
But either way we don’t do anything constructive. So how do we overcome resentment? Now what has happened has happened. What has gone wrong has gone wrong.
Now what has, even if it’s something, I have done something wrong because of which something went wrong, but what I have done is also what I have done. I can’t change it. So the defining insight, you could say of the Bhagavatam, Bhagavatam is a primary bhakti text and the defining insight of the Bhagavatam is that God’s power to heal is greater than the world’s power to hurt.
God’s power to heal is greater than the world’s power to hurt. The world has great power to hurt us and the Bhagavatam starts itself with this theme of atrocious injustice happening to the world’s most powerful person. Sometimes we hear of injustice happening to some people who are powerless, they don’t have the money to get a good lawyer or they don’t have the contacts to influence the judicial system and then they are penalised for some small mistake, big punishment is given to them.
So that happens sadly but the Bhagavatam demonstrates the person who was the king, the most powerful person, he was not just the king, he was the emperor of the world and for a small infraction he was just cursed to die, given capital punishment and he could have just got so resentful. Why did this happen to him? He was young and he was not just young and selfishly enjoying, he was actually selflessly serving society in a very responsible way and yet this devastating injustice happened to him. So the Bhagavatam begins by demonstrating the world’s power to hurt.
Now significantly there is a specific person and a specific cause that is talked about that yes there was a son of a Brahmana who misused his power and he cursed Parikshit, the king who is the hearer of the Bhagavatam but the Bhagavatam soon leaves that cause behind. It doesn’t obsess over this person, this Shringi, this boy, he committed such a great injustice. This is acknowledged but okay, it’s over, move on with life.
So what the Bhagavatam does is, okay, the world is hurt and what next? The Bhagavatam guides, Bhagavatam’s message is that we raise our consciousness towards God. So Parikshit Maharaj hears about Krishna and by becoming absorbed in Krishna, his consciousness goes beyond the hurt that comes upon his body. So there is the world’s power to hurt and no matter how many arrangements we make, the world will always find some way to hurt us.
I may become very powerful, I may have lot of wealth, I may have health insurance, I may have very trustworthy friends, but, you know, despite my best health insurance, I’ll get some disease which will torment me. Although I have very trustworthy friends, somebody comes and backstabs me. I have very good position but still some insecurity comes up.
So, it is a part of our duty to make arrangements for stability in the world. But the world has an unpredictable and uncontrollable power to hurt us. So, generally, the whole principle of philosophy is to go beyond specifics to universals.
Philosophical vision has many meanings but one aspect of philosophical vision is to go beyond specifics to universals. So, specifics means this person spoke like this, that person spoke like that. That’s specifics.
But universal means, actually, this is a part of the way the world is. This is a part of the way the world is. We may have to, in specific situations, do something specific to respond to that person.
But, beyond that, we go to the universals. So, for example, suddenly I start getting a flu. I get fever and I start shivering and my temperature goes up.
Now, I may get caught in the symptoms but the doctor goes beyond the specific symptoms. These symptoms symbolise this particular disease and the doctor doesn’t focus on addressing particular symptoms. In some cases, the symptoms are acute, symptoms are addressed.
But the doctor goes beyond the specific symptoms to the general disease that is indicated by the symptoms and the doctor treats that disease. So, similarly, there are specific ways in which the world can hurt us. And, at a practical level, we may take specific measures to counter that hurt.
But sometimes, despite all our countering measures, the world is going to hurt us still. And the Bhagavatam demonstrates that when that happens, we just have to turn our consciousness and focus it on God and demonstrate that God’s power to heal is far greater than the world’s power to hurt. God’s power to heal means that if we absorb our consciousness in Him, if we pray to Him, then He will infuse us with such a deep spiritual fulfilment, spiritual strength that the world’s hurts won’t hurt us so much.
Of course, Krishna can remove the world’s hurts also. And He may sometimes do it, He may sometimes not do it. But He can raise us beyond the hurts.
And, what blocks us from accessing God’s power to heal is resentment. We may have resentment towards specific people. Why did he do like that? Why did this happen like that? Why did she speak like that? But if we, if we think that okay, all this is happening, God is in control, therefore God wanted this to happen.
And God is wanting me to suffer. What kind of God is this? And then we become resentful of God. When we become resentful of God, then we cut off the channel by which we can access His healing power.
Sometimes, some people, there is a blockage, say, when some people get heart attack. So basically what happens is, the arteries become thicker and then the blood cannot be pumped in. So there is a blockage in the blood practically speaking.
And then the heart has to work harder and harder and harder. And eventually the heart says, I can’t work, the heart just stops beating. So when there is blockage, then there is more and more force required to push.
And eventually it becomes impossible to push. So similarly, when there is resentment, that creates a blockage in our flow of thoughts, in our flow of energy. And when that resentment becomes directed towards God, then it creates a blockage in our bhakti.
So the Bhagavatam demonstrates that in this verse that actually how can one, when one is facing suffering, with what attitude can one have by which we can grow through that situation. So I like to, there are several of my favourite verses in the Bhagavatam. So I tried to make short capsules, 2-3 words or 5-6 words punch lines to encapsulate the theme of that verse.
So I like to put this verse theme as cultivate aggressive gratitude. Cultivate aggressive gratitude. And what do you mean by gratitude with thankfulness? What do you mean by aggressive gratitude? Generally the word aggression means, okay, say a particular country has this boundary and then something is beyond that boundary, the country goes into that zone and it is doing aggression.
So aggression means to go beyond the normal territory. That’s aggression. So aggressive gratitude means that there are situations when good things happen to us and that time we feel grateful.
That is like gratitude when it’s in our own territory, when things are happening according to our plan. Good things are happening to us. But aggressive gratitude means that it’s gratitude which goes beyond the normal territory of gratitude.
Even when things are not happening well, things are going wrong, at that time normally we won’t feel grateful but we push the boundaries, we become aggressive and find some way to be grateful. So actually whereas resentment chokes our connection with God, it is gratitude that releases the connection. Now in the Bhagavad Gita, in the 17th chapter, Krishna talks about austerity of the body, mind, of the body, speech and mind and in that he talks about with respect to austerity of the mind, discipline of the mind.
He says manah prasad saumyatam maunam atma vinikraha bhava samshuddhir ityetat tapo manasa ucyate. So he says these are austerities of the mind and it begins first with manah prasad. Manah prasad is satisfaction, satisfaction of the mind.
It’s interesting that satisfaction of the mind is called an austerity. Normally we think of satisfaction as an emotion. I feel satisfied, I don’t feel satisfied.
So we feel it’s an emotion. But here the Bhagavad Gita is talking about satisfaction as when we talk about austerity, do the austerity of fasting. Something which we do, something which we choose to do.
I want to eat but because it’s a holy day or whatever reason I’m not going to eat. So when we talk about something as austerity, it means it’s a decision that we are doing. Although it’s a difficult decision but it’s a decision that we are doing.
So when Krishna is saying that satisfaction is an austerity of the mind, what is the meaning by that? The meaning is that we see satisfaction not just as an emotion. We see satisfaction as a decision, as a decision. What do I mean by satisfaction as a decision? Say now after this talk, we are all going to have prasad.
Suppose there is a feast after this and not only there is a feast, there is a special feast in which everybody is going to get a plate with different items. So your feast is going to be different from his feast, is going to be different from my feast. All of us are going to have feast but it’s a different feast.
So now I have got a feast and I can eat it and enjoy it. But if instead of savouring the feast that I have, I start looking oh he has got that, oh she has got that, oh he has got over there that, now actually I have a feast, I can enjoy it. But what am I doing? If I choose to look at what all is there in whose plate, I will become dissatisfied.
If I choose to look at what is in my plate, I will become satisfied. And savour what is in my plate. So in this case, satisfaction is also a decision.
If I look at other people’s plates, there will be dissatisfaction. If I look at my plate, it’s good here also, there is satisfaction. So satisfaction is not just emotion, it is also a decision.
In the purport of that verse, Prabhupada writes that the more we contemplate on sense objects, the more we become dissatisfied. And he says instead how can we cultivate satisfaction? He says if we study the Vedic scriptures, there are many satisfying stories, glorification, glories of the Lord which are described. And the more we study the scriptures, the more we will become satisfied.
So satisfaction is a decision. And how is that decision implemented? It is that instead of contemplating those things which make me dissatisfied, I contemplate the things which make me dissatisfied. So now the same thing, satisfaction is related with gratitude.
If I look at something which I have dissatisfied with, oh it’s good, I am grateful for it. It can lead to gratitude. We are talking about gratitude, talking about how resentment or grudging something that creates a blockage and gratitude releases a blockage.
We are talking about aggressive gratitude. So aggressive gratitude means that say when good things happen to me, I feel grateful. But even when good things are not happening to me, even when bad things are happening to me, I can take a decision to be grateful.
And I can search for things to be grateful. That, how do we do that? This verse offers an example of that. That, my dear lord, this, whatever I am going through, it’s your mercy.
It’s your mercy. Tatte anukampam susamikshamano. It is your mercy, my dear lord.
And, okay, but you are suffering. What is the mercy over there? It’s bunjaneva atmakrtam vipakam. Yes, I am suffering, but the suffering is my own bad karma.
It is the result of my own karma. And, what should I do? My dear lord, you have still given me your shelter. Dhrudhva gopurbhir viddham namaste.
That, with your, with body, mind and heart, with body, speech and heart, I offer my obeisances to you. Jeevetayo muktipade sadaeva. One who lives like this, such a person can attain the lord.
Suppose such a person becomes, basically it is said that, for such a person, in terms of our metaphor, the blockage that is there between us and the lord, that gets removed. And then, we can move towards Krishna. So, I was once in a university in India.
I was giving a talk on the mystery of karma. So, after that, one boy asked a question. He says, you are talking all this about this karma stuff, but is it that you say bad things happen to us because of our bad karma? So, he says, you yourself, he is just telling me, you yourself are physically handicapped.
That means, you have done bad karma. That’s why you have got this. So, if you have done bad karma, what right do you have to instruct us? So, I explained, yes, it’s true that I must have done some bad karma in my previous life because of which I have got this.
But the fact is that Krishna is so kind that he doesn’t let our bad karma stop us from coming to him. He says, the fact that I am serving Krishna and I am trying to share Krishna’s message shows how merciful Krishna is. He says, you have not done any bad karma like me.
If you start serving Krishna, how much more you will be welcomed by Krishna and how much more you can do for Krishna. So, the mood of karma, the karma philosophy is not at all a mood of vindictiveness or that Krishna is not a vindictive God who is punishing us because he is angry with us. Krishna is not a vengeful God.
There are laws in this material world by which natural reactions come. But Krishna is not a, is less a God of justice and he is more a God of mercy. So, by the principles of justice, sometimes sufferings may come for devotees also.
But, by the principle of mercy, the devotee will be able to rise above that suffering. The devotee will be able to rise above that suffering. How? I’ll conclude with this point and maybe we can have some discussion after that.
What do I mean by rise above the suffering? In the Vaishnava tradition, especially in the Madhava Vaishnava tradition, an example is given. Say that there is a child. Child goes to school and the school, the teacher has given some homework.
But the teacher is going to punish that child now. Teacher is going to say, okay, extend your hand, the stick, teacher is going to beat the child. Now, on the hand, and the mother knows this, and the mother doesn’t want the child to be beaten, doesn’t want the child to be punished.
At the same time, the mother knows that the child also needs to learn to study. So, what does the mother do? She knows the child has not done the homework. So, that day, when the child goes to school, at that time, the mother puts a glow on the child’s hand, a nice thick glow on the child’s hand, and then the teacher goes to class, and says, have you done your homework? No.
Come here, just come here, stretch out your hand, stretches out the hand, and then the teacher, one, two, three, the teacher beats the boy, and big noise comes, big noise comes, but actually the glow is protecting the child. The noise is there, but the hurt is minimal. So, we are like that child, the teacher is material nature, and Krishna is like the mother.
So, by the principles of material nature, if we have done something wrong, some reaction is going to come, but Krishna, he doesn’t want us to suffer, so he gives us his mercy. What is his mercy? His mercy is actually primarily his remembrance. If we can become absorbed in remembering him, then we can, the suffering that comes upon us, it gets substantially minimised.
In 18.158 in the Gita, Krishna says, mat-chitta-sarva-durgani mat-prasadata-rishisi, if you become conscious of me, you will pass over all obstacles by my grace. So, that consciousness of Krishna, that absorption in Krishna, that is like the glow. The suffering in this world will come, but the more we think about the suffering, the more we resent over the suffering, the more we obsess over the suffering, the suffering seems to become more and more.
But, if we don’t do that, if we direct our consciousness towards Krishna, the suffering is there, but it becomes substantially minimised. Substantially minimised. So, if we are practising bhakti, we chant the names of Krishna, we practise the process of bhakti yoga, by that we habituate ourselves to remembering Krishna.
We cultivate the habit of remembering Krishna. And when adversity befalls us, at that time also we are able to remember Krishna. And through that remembrance, what happens is, the world’s power to hurt can’t be countered.
But, by the habit of absorption in Krishna, God’s power to heal can be accessed. And when we access God’s power to heal, then although externally a devotee may appear to be suffering, just the way materialistic people may be suffering, but the devotee is internally connected with Krishna. And therefore the devotee transcends much of this suffering.
Unfortunately, suppose the child is going to school, and while going to school, what is this glow? Such a big weight, I don’t want the glow. The child just takes the glow off and throws it away. And then goes to school.
And what happens? Then the child gets beaten. Sometimes what happens? We have the opportunity to remember Krishna, but we neglect that opportunity. We reject that opportunity.
So when we become resentful, when we let resentment consume our consciousness, then what is happening? It’s like we are taking off that glow. We take off that glow, we can’t remember Krishna. And then we become vulnerable to the suffering and material nature.
That’s why we can cultivate aggressive gratitude. Aggressive gratitude means, yes, there are problems in my life, but if I look around at my life, I find there are many things I am grateful for. This has gone wrong.
This is a big thing that has gone wrong. But there are so many things that are right in my life. There are many sayings which even at a mundane level talk about how we can be grateful for things.
I have a complaint that I had no shoes till I met someone who had no legs. So if we look at the world around us, we’ll see so many people who are suffering far more than we are suffering. If you look at our own life, we’ll see that there are many things right in our life.
There are millions of people who don’t even get food to eat. There are millions of people who are in war-torn areas, in the threat of death at any moment. So there are, if we become, if we start cultivating this habit of aggressive gratitude, even at the material level, we’ll find there are many things right.
And especially if you think that if we direct this aggressive gratitude in a devotional direction, that means actually the opportunity to remember Krishna, the opportunity to practise Bhakti Yoga, the opportunity to access God’s healing power, that is such a rare opportunity. How many people in the world have it? Suffering is something which everyone is going through. Specifically, my suffering which I am going through, I may feel that oh this is too much, I can’t tolerate it.
Yes, others are also going through sufferings. Even if I say that okay my suffering is very bad, okay that’s okay, but still how many people have the opportunity to transcend that suffering? How many people have the opportunity to access God’s power to heal? We have that. And if we focus on that, then we will be able to cultivate gratitude.
So gratitude as an emotion may be sometimes felt by us. But gratitude as a decision, if we cultivate and we search for reasons to be grateful, then we will unblock the channel that connects us with God. And then our thoughts will flow towards Krishna, His grace will flow towards us and we will be able to transcend whatever distress is there in our life.
I’ll summarise. I spoke about how we can overcome resentment in our lives. Theme was growing from grudging, grudges to gratitude.
So when things go wrong, when people do wrong to us, it’s natural to become resentful. But if we let that resentment continue for a long time, the resentment of reality hurts more than the reality. And we can be resentful about people, but if we become resentful about God, then we block our connection with God.
And the Bhagavatam’s theme is that it could be phrased as that greater than the world’s power to hurt is God’s power to heal. So the Pariksit has no reason to be cursed to die. Such a powerful person is overpowered by the world’s power to hurt.
We all will be hurt by the world in grievous ways at times. And when that happens, how do we react? So resentment will make things worse. At a practical level, we can try to counter whatever the hurt is there.
But the philosophical vision means to go beyond specifics to universals. And then when we look at this, a doctor doesn’t get obsessed with the symptoms. A doctor looks for the cause of the disease.
So we understand the cause of suffering is our disconnection from God. And resentment will aggravate the disconnection. So we try to move from resentment towards gratitude.
Cultivating aggressive gratitude means even when no obvious reason for gratitude is there, we search for such a reason and try to feel grateful. I talked about how satisfaction is not just an emotion, it’s also a decision. It’s the austerity of the mind.
If I look at the feasts that others have, I feel dissatisfied. If I look at the feasts I have, I become satisfied. So similarly, we can search for what are the things that I can be grateful for.
And when we search for that, that searching will and finding the things to be grateful will unblock the channel between us and God and we’ll be able to access His healing power. How can we be grateful? Materially we can look at the many people who have far less things than we have and spiritually the opportunity to connect with Krishna that is such a rare privilege. So by connecting with Krishna we can, we get externally we may go through suffering but internally we don’t suffer that much because we absorb in Krishna.
So the teacher is going to beat the child because the child has not done the homework but the mother gives the glove and the glove minimises the burden. The teacher is like material nature. So there is justice in this world, there is mercy also in this world.
So by the principle of justice we have done something wrong and some punishments are going to come upon us. Some reactions are going to come. But Krishna is not primarily a God of justice.
He is a God of mercy. And so we focus on connecting with Krishna. Krishna is like the mother who gives the child a glove.
So Krishna gives us the opportunity to remember him. And by having resent, being resentful while practising bhakti like we are throwing away the glove and then we will get hurt when we are beaten. But by finding ways to be grateful we will make sure that the glove is tightly fastened on our hand.
And then it’s tightly around Krishna’s remembrance, our consciousness is enveloped in Krishna’s remembrance. And then we will be able to transcend, tolerate and transcend whatever suffering comes in our life. By that connection to Krishna, ultimately we will attain Krishna.
Thank you very much. Pray Krishna. Any comments, questions? Thank you very much.
I really appreciate this. Sometimes in this world it seems to me like a suffering’s Olympics. Everybody is trying to see my suffering and see your suffering.
Suffering’s Olympics, yeah. It’s too beautiful. What is the psychology behind that desire to obsess and promote our suffering to be really exceptional and to see what everyone is seeing there? So why do we tend to promote our suffering as if my suffering is the worst? What is the psychology behind this? There are many reasons.
I would say to some extent when we as small children or babies, we learn to get our needs met by being unhappy. When a baby cries, that is when the parents come and offer attention. So, now of course if a person is growing with loving parents and the parents give attention other times also, but if the parents are negligent, are not so attentive, then the child knows, if I have to get my parents I have to cry.
So, sometimes psychologically it may happen that we feel that I will get attention only when I will get my needs fulfilled by being unhappy. That’s an unhealthy attitude. So, people will give me attention when I tell them how much distress I am going through.
So, that could be from the childhood it comes up. That’s one possibility. Another is that actually the nature of the mind in the condition stage is that it is attached to material things.
So, it is attached to material pleasure. That is always thinking of material objects. So, when there are pleasant objects then we think a lot about them.
And we could say material pleasure and material pain are like two sides of the same coin. So, to the extent we are attached to material pleasures and we delight in those pleasures, to that extent we will obsess over material suffering. It’s just like, say, I come from India where people are mad for cricket.
Now, say, India wins a very important cricket match and people delight, dance and sing and drink and they do all sorts of celebrations. And the next day, India loses the cricket match. They can’t say, oh, I’m detached from cricket.
It doesn’t work like that. They may say, I’m fed up with cricket. But inside they will be miserable.
So, to the extent we delight in, say, in victory in sports, to that extent, we will be miserable when we suffer. So, pleasure and pain are two sides of the same coin. We can’t have one side of the coin.
So, if we overall decrease our material consciousness, that means when things go right in our life also, we don’t exult over that too much. Prabhupada says that when things are going right for a devotee, devotee says, Krishna is so kind that Krishna is giving me better opportunities to serve him. But the devotee’s focus stays on serving Krishna.
Not, oh, now I have arrived, now I have done, now I have become a big person, just see what I have done. If we start delighting in good things in our material life, then to that extent we will suffer when bad things are there. So, at one level it could be a childhood impression, at another level it is general materialistic consciousness.
And, to some extent, one of the defining realisations for spiritual growth is to recognise the democracy of misery. The democracy of misery means, in democracy everybody has equal rights. So, everybody has equal rights to misery.
Nobody is exempt from it. If the purport of 9.233, Prabhupada talks about how, he is saying about kim punar brahmana punya bhakta raj rishas tatha. So, he says, that even the low born can practise bhakti, then what to speak of the high born.
And, therefore, the conclusion anityam asukham lokam imam prapya bhajasvama. So, in this temporary miserable world, just practise bhakti. So, there, Prabhupada says, it is a fact that in this world there are differentiations.
There are wealthy, poor, wealthy and poor, there are good looking and not good looking, there are intelligent and less intelligent people, but the fact is, this world is not a happy place for anyone. So, to the extent we can understand this democracy of misery, to that extent, we can stop obsessing over the specific misery that we are going to and look for the universal cure. The universal cure is spiritual growth.
So, does it Thank you. Any other comments? Yes, ma’am. Can you help describe the fine line, sometimes it seems like there is a fine line between tolerating our experience and being patient in this upbringing and then being in a situation where perhaps we are being hurt by someone else.
Yeah. Correct, yeah. So, how do you differentiate between tolerating a situation and just being patient or just leaving because we are hurting too much in that situation.
Yeah, tolerance does not necessarily mean subjecting oneself to injury. It does not mean that actually. If you look in the Bhagavad Gita itself, the Bhagavad Gita tells Arjuna tolerate.
But in the whole Bhagavad Gita is spoken in a context where Arjuna is told to fight a war against the injustices that the opposite party, the Kauravas have done. So, Krishna is telling Bhagavad Gita to tolerate. But Krishna is not telling Arjuna to tolerate the atrocities of the Kauravas.
So, he is saying rather while doing your duty of fighting the war, there will be inconveniences, there will be distresses. You tolerate those distresses. So, we, tolerance is important but tolerance we can’t elevate anything except our relationship with Krishna except our service to Krishna as the supreme virtue.
No, our purpose in this world is to serve Krishna. We want to serve Krishna, we want to go closer to Krishna and we want to make a contribution here while we are serving Krishna with whatever gifts he has given us. So, our service to Krishna is what is our, it should be our supreme virtue, supreme parameter for deciding what I should do and what I should not do.
And sometimes for my service to Krishna, I may have to tolerate many things and I will tolerate them. But, if tolerance means giving up my service to Krishna itself, then that is not tolerance. Or tolerance means putting myself in a situation where I am not allowed to serve Krishna, then I cannot tolerate that situation.
So, by serving Krishna, I am not just simply chanting and doing bhakti activities. It also means we have a service in this world, we have a role to play in this world. So, basically tolerance, the way I see it is, tolerance is the virtue that enables us to keep small things small, so that we can focus on big things.
So, tolerance does not mean that I let even the big things go down the drain. So, if I am, say, going for a programme and I am going in a vehicle and somebody just cuts me in a dangerous way, I can get angry, you know, you could have caused a fatal accident and that person starts rushing away, I get angry, you know, I chase this person, I chastise this person, I just go all over the town chasing that person and I get late for the programme that I am supposed to go. So, it is a small thing, forget it.
So, keep small things small. So, tolerance basically means it is a virtue that enables us to keep small things small, so that we can focus on the big things. And when something is troubling us in the big thing itself, then we have to do changes.
So, we see, in the life of the Pandavas, Pandavas, Arjuna is one of the Pandavas to whom the Bhagavata is spoken, we see that they do, they respond differently at different times. Initially, when their cousins try to poison them, try to burn them, they say, okay, let’s keep this, it’s a conflict in the house, let’s tolerate it, let’s not publicise it, hopefully their animosity will go down, they tolerate initially. But eventually, when they try to dishonour their wife, when things go beyond a particular limit, then they decide to fight.
So, tolerance in terms of just patiently enduring things, that’s what at one time they exhibit, another time, they aggressively counter it. And the third time, eventually, when Krishna departs from the world, at that time, they decide enough is enough, just walk away from the situation. So, basically, whenever there is a difficulty in our life, there are three alternatives.
One is just change ourselves and tolerate the difficulty. Second is, change the person or change the situation. And third is, walk away from the situation.
Walk away as in not running away, walking away means that we feel, I have better things to do in my life, I don’t want to get caught in this. So, now, each of these responses may be appropriate in different situations. And executing each of these responses also requires tolerance.
Why? Because, when something goes wrong, there is an impulsive reaction which comes within us. And that impulsive reaction often makes things worse. So, tolerance enables us to check that impulsive reaction.
And then, with our higher intelligence, we decide what to do. So, if something is, if a particular relationship is repeatedly hurting us, and there is no indication and that relationship things are going to improve, then we may have to create some safe distance between us. The tolerance doesn’t mean that we have to let ourselves continuously be hurt.
But, in any relationship, sometimes just as we are imperfect, we have our conditioning, others have their conditioning. So, it’s not that a small infraction, we make it big and you did like that, forget it now, I am ending this relationship. No.
So, there has to be a sense of perspective. And that sense of perspective comes when there is some distance. So, instead of, so, the basic application of tolerance is no knee-jerk reactions.
Whatever I feel like doing right now, stop it. Let some time pass, let the emotions subside, then let me think about it. Then if I think calmly, I will be able to understand.
This is a small thing, let me, let it pass. This is a big thing, I have to address it. And then we can appropriately respond.
Does it answer your question? Yes. It is very helpful. I mean, the admission of something that somebody with low self-esteem might think about being humble in a situation where they actually need to leave for no service.
You know, like their own God and their relatives. Yeah, yeah. It is possible that those with low self-esteem can make it seem as if, for them it feels that tolerating being hurt or injustice is humility.
See, again, humility, it has to be clearly understood. Now, Prabhupada defines humility in 13.8.4. Humility means to not be anxious to have the satisfaction of being honoured by others. That means, being honoured by others is not the motive of our doing things.
So, I try to phrase it in a different way. Humility means to not let one’s ego come in the way of one’s purpose. Something is important for me, I’ll do it even if I’m disrespected while doing it, even if I’m derided while doing it.
But the point is, I have a purpose and I have to do that. So, whereas, when people have low self-esteem, often they don’t feel that they are worth any purpose at all. They don’t feel they can do anything.
So, low self-esteem is actually injurious. And the difference between, this is a whole big subject, I have a seminar on humility and low self-esteem but I’ll just put in two sentences. Let’s see, we have an ego and we could say low self-esteem or inferiority complex.
That is, this ego which is frustrated. It is a false ego frustrated. Whereas, humility is a false ego transcended.
That means, when a person is having low self-esteem, they are still on the ego platform. Why are people not respecting? Oh, I am good for nothing, that’s why people are not respecting. But humility means that, you know, I am not the centre of my world.
I have a higher purpose to live for. And that becomes the centre. And I live for that purpose and I make decisions based on that purpose.
So, in one sense, low self-esteem is the negative, is a negative form of the same self-obsession that sometimes comes off as megalomania. Now people think I am the centre of the universe. So, that same idea can come off in a negative way as low self-esteem, inferiority complex, where we are thinking too much about oneself.
So, the whole process of bhakti is when you talk about humility, it is not that I am so fallen. Yes, that is a part of it, but the essence is Krishna is so great. I am meant to serve Krishna.
Krishna is so kind that he is allowing me to serve him no matter how I am. So, humility is meant to help us shift our thoughts from ourselves to Krishna and service to him. Whereas low self-esteem means that we just get caught in our own thoughts.
So, if you practise bhakti and associate with devotees who infuses the proper understanding of bhakti, they will help us understand that no matter however we are, usually our low self-esteem comes from certain material things which we may not have and which are say glamorised in the social circle that we are there and they feel you don’t look good enough, you are not smart enough, you don’t carry yourself so well, whatever it is, because of which you start feeling low self-esteem. But in devotional circles we get an understanding that who I am doesn’t depend on all these things. Now, whatever I am right now, Krishna still loves me and Krishna has given me gifts by which I can make a contribution.
So, bhakti actually gives a spiritual foundation for our self-esteem and then the material things which make our self-esteem go down, they become not so prominent in our consciousness. That’s how by bhakti we can develop our self-esteem and we can be assertive in our purpose. Thank you.
Any other comments or questions? Yes, please. Thank you for your amazingly well thought and organised presentation. It’s very inspiring.
Thank you. The different verses came to mind about that theme and I just like to share verses so much. I just wanted to quote one of them.
It basically goes, Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah.
One of the things that I like to speak about is when I was in Alaska one devotee said that somebody did a study where they interviewed 500 devotees who left and they find out why they left and they found that people had faith and respect for Sri Lankan but they were unable to apply the verses they spoke and because of that they ended up giving up the path to the association communities. Would you like to say something about that? Yeah. Okay.
So according to survey it is that many devotees left because although they had faith in Prabhupada but they couldn’t apply the mood of this verse Tenu Kampam. That’s why they left. Actually I would say that now that applying this verse is something which is for the individual to consider but for the institution they should be considering why did we put the devotees in a situation where they had to suffer so much.
Because there is always this symbiotic relationship where say for example it is said in Vedic culture that when people grow old, when you are old you should just renounce the world, go to the forest and give up the pursuit of fame, absorb yourself in God and die alone. Prabhupada says this is actually ideal death. Just leave the world far behind.
But this is for the individual. At the same time, the same Vedic culture says that there are five elements of society that are always to be protected and one of them is the elderly. So from the individual’s perspective as I grow old I should just focus on spiritual growth and not have so much material expectations from others.
That is from the individual’s perspective. But from the society’s perspective, elderly people have given their life for us. So it is our duty to take care of them.
So it is true so similarly sometimes what happens when some people leave a spiritual movement especially an insular spiritual movement like ours. Then what happens? Even one person leaving creates insecurity. Why did they leave? Is there something wrong with it? And then afterwards when we meet together, the meeting often just becomes a way of reassuring each other.
We didn’t do anything wrong. There is something wrong with that person. That’s why he or she left.
But there could be something wrong with us also and we may have to do something which need to be rectified. So we could say from the individual’s perspective, yes, they should have understood whatever wrong things have happened, it’s Krishna’s mercy and they should have still continued in the practise of bhakti. That is true from the individual’s perspective.
But the institution’s perspective should be that institutional leaders as members, what could we have done? So that when they were going through the situation, see it is that it is the devotees who are the prominent representations of God’s mercy in this world. That is how does Krishna’s mercy come in this world? It is through his devotees. So if they could not see their situation as Krishna’s mercy, that means somebody did not come to them and tell them how to access Krishna’s mercy.
So as a movement, as an institution, we should not just be self-righteous. They could not apply the philosophy they left. You should see that it is my responsibility.
I could not help them apply the philosophy. We should have done something about it. I was in Phoenix, one of the Bible belt states.
So there I saw one note, probably it was an atheist, he had put it on his car. Oh God, please save me from your preachers. So actually God is meant to save us.
God saves us through his preachers. But if the preachers come up as self-righteous, then I don’t want to have anything to do with his preachers. So as an institution, we should see our responsibility to try to help those who are in need.
So that they feel, oh, Krishna’s mercy is coming through this devotee. Krishna’s mercy is coming through the community of devotees that I am a part of. Does that address your comment? Thank you.
Yes. I’ve been studying your courses for the past two weeks or so, at least. And you’ve really inspired me.
In the Vedic teaching they talk about the sword of knowledge. To me it seems like you’re very expert. You have the sword of knowledge.
So I stay on it. Chaitanya, your classes bring about clarity, especially when you speak about austerity. The sword of knowledge is built on the fire of life experience and reinforced by sastric reference.
It’s decorated with gems of good humour, and it’s cooled by the waters of humility. Expect nothing in return for your good work. Rest assured that the light of souls will find your sacred courses on the holiest of verses to be worshipable.
For it’s rare to see such a divine sense of clarity spoken with utmost sincerity. Your transcendental word has changed our worlds. May we be able to serve better now that your words shine in our lives.
Sometimes Krishna uses even impure souls to speak to benefit those who are more sincere even than the speaker. So sometimes Krishna speaks through me and you are sincere, so Krishna benefits. So I hope that whatever I am speaking, I also will be facing sooner or later adversities.
So I shouldn’t take off the gloves. Bhakti, we also have to walk our talk, but the wonderful thing about Bhakti is talking is also a part of the walking. So by talking we remember more, it gets reinforced and then we can walk the talk also that way.
It’s a sign with which no one will want to argue. Prasad, I’m coming. Thank you very much.
Prantraj, thank you. Shri Prabhupada