Healthy self-understanding 3 – Misunderstandings about humility and tolerance

[Retreat in Leicester, UK]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
We will continue our discussion from the morning. I spoke in the first session about how the three modes affect our perception and action, especially how they shape our self-conception.
And then I talked in the second session about the mind acting like an inner screen and showing unwanted imagery which can create bad feelings within us. So, now I will talk about, in this session, about humility, tolerance and self-esteem. So I am connected with one devotee and this devotee had some problems and he went to a psychologist.
And the psychologist told him that your whole, this bhakti philosophy you are practising it is all psychologically damaging, give up this practise if you want to have psychological health. So, now if I had been a few years before, I would have told, this psychologist is a demoniac person, he is godless, he is against this, against that, and I would have told him to reject the psychologist. But I decided to talk with him.
So I met the psychologist and then I came to know that this devotee actually had some very serious misunderstandings about bhakti itself, about humility and tolerance. So without going too much into specifics, he felt that humility means that we should feel bad about ourselves. So feeling bad about oneself is humility.
And he also said that tolerance means when others deal badly with you, being able to suppress your feelings and hold everything inside, that is tolerance. So that means his conception was that if I can feel, the more I can feel bad about myself, the more humble I am. The more I can tolerate when others deal badly with me, the more I can keep my bad feelings buried inside me, that is tolerance.
Now this is a complete misunderstanding. Even if you look at that famous verse of the Shikshashtakam, तुर्णादपी सुनीचेन तरोरपी सहिष्णन अमानिनामानदेन कीर्थनिय सदाःरियन। Chaitanya Mahaprabhu says that by being humble like a blade of brass, by being tolerant like a tree, we can constantly glorify Krishna. So the point is not to feel bad about ourselves or to let others be abusive towards us.
The point is to constantly glorify Krishna. So the purpose of humility and tolerance is so that we can glorify Krishna. So let me talk about both of these first, about humility and tolerance, in the light of this purpose.
Tolerance simply means keeping small things small so that we can focus on big things. Tolerance means that our mind tends to make small problems into very big problems. Okay, this is a small thing, just tolerate it.
Keep small things small so that we can focus on big things. Next example, suppose we are going in a crowded metro train, what do you call the metro trains here in UK? Locals? Cubes. Cubes, okay.
So now in India we call them local trains. Now in India, especially in places like Mumbai or Delhi, the local train may have a capacity of say 80 people and there may be 300 people squeezed over there. So in that train everybody, now suppose we are standing in the train and there is a person standing next to us and that person starts pushing us, trying to assert their space.
You say, how dare you push me, I’ll push you back and we push back and they push us. You think you are strong, I’ll show you how strong I am and we keep pushing back, they keep pushing back and we get so caught in pushing each other that our station comes and goes and we forget it. So this is pointless.
If somebody is on their own space, okay I’ll just move somewhere else, what’s the big deal? There’s no point in trying to push back someone who is pushing us. We have more important things to do. Our purpose is that in that train we want to travel and get to a destination.
So during that train, if we have a comfortable place, good, if we don’t have a comfortable place, not so good. But the purpose is we want to get to the destination. So if in trying to fight for a place in that train, we forget about reaching the destination, then what has happened? We have let this small thing become very big and the small thing has become so big that the big thing was missed out.
The big thing was getting to our destination. But instead, if that person is not just pushing us, they are trying to push us out of the train, then we cannot give them their space, we have to take a stand, because if they push us out of the train, that means that we will not get to our destination. So whether to push back or to just move aside, that will be determined not based on, I want to show my strength or I don’t want to show my strength, it is based on what is our purpose.
So if our purpose is to get to the destination and if somebody pushes me out of the train, I can’t get to the destination. So similarly, tolerance is what enables us to stay focused on our purpose and for staying focused on our purpose, there are many small irritants that will come along the way. The world is filled with many things which will be unpalatable to us.
The weather may be unpalatable, some people around us may be unpalatable, some situations around us, some way things are done that is unpalatable, but we can’t possibly fix everything around us. Even when we come to Krishna’s mission, even when we come to Krishna’s mission, our primary purpose is not to fix things around us, our primary purpose is to fix ourselves, to fix ourselves in Krishna, because fixing ourselves in Krishna is what is going to fix us ultimately. So now for that purpose, we have to choose what is more important and what is less important.
So if I understand that my purpose is to serve Krishna, then if say in the community of devotees, there are some devotees I just can’t get along with. Sometimes if we can’t get along with someone, then we come to the temple, we are not so much conscious of Krishna as we are of that person. Even if we are looking at the deities, we just hear that person’s voice, we forget Krishna is not thinking of that person.
Why are they here? What are they going to do? Are they going to speak? I want to do something. The mind is consumed by that. So now if somehow we have had some unpleasant interactions with them for whatever reason, but once a week we meet them, but they are having their service, their life, we are having our service, our life, there is no need to make this bigger than what it needs to be.
So if you have some unpleasant interaction with someone, okay, we just keep a distance from them and we move on with our life. If we can clarify, we clarify. If it doesn’t, things are not going to be clarified, we move on with our life.
We don’t have to make it our mission to prove to the world how bad this person is. Our mission is to serve Krishna. So in that sense, okay, that person insulted us, disrespected us, hurt us, okay, they did that, let’s move on with life.
So that means keep small things small. The very nature of the world is that sometimes our conditionings and other conditionings brush against each other and that creates friction, that creates wounds. So here it was one incident that happened and it’s over.
But on the other hand, if we are coming to temple and we have to do service with someone and that person keeps obstructing our service, that person keeps misrepresenting us, that person keeps troubling us, so much so that we feel like not coming to the temple itself because of that. Then we have to make sure that I want to tolerate if somebody is doing something unpleasant, but my purpose is not just to tolerate, my purpose is to serve Krishna and for serving Krishna, if tolerating something becomes unbearable, then I have to find a way out. What would be the way out if I can’t tolerate? So now tolerance does not mean that other people do bad things to me and I just passively be like a doormat.
That is not tolerance. Tolerance means that yes, in the very nature of the world is that things will go wrong, we will hurt each other, but as long as our purpose is being served, then we keep it small. So, if you see broadly speaking, when we have unpalatable situations, we have three options of what we can do.
I call that as tolerate, mitigate or immigrate. So the example for this could be weather. If we come to a particular place, it is extremely cold, then we have basically three options.
Tolerate, it’s cold but this is where my family, this is where my job is, I have to stay here. Just learn to tolerate. If I can’t tolerate, then I mitigate.
That means I make sure that I have very good heating, I make sure that wherever I go I have warm clothes, make sure that my home, my car, everything has got good heating, so that I mitigate this situation. And if despite it all, I am always very sickly, I just feel miserable, I just can’t manage the weather, then I may decide to immigrate, go to some other place. So the same we can apply to our unpalatable situations also.
If you look at the Pandavas, their lives, they also did these three things at different times. Initially when Kauravas tried to poison Bhima, initially when they tried to burn the Pandavas alive, Yudhishthira said, this is family matter, don’t publicise it, don’t make a big issue out of it. They did not even tell Bhishma, they did not tell anyone, just kept it within themselves.
But eventually when Draupadi was dishonoured, a line was crossed and even then the Pandavas keeping their word of honour, went to the forest for 13 years. But after that when Duryodhana refused to give them any land, saying that I will not give enough land even to let you put the tip of a needle through. This reply is so defiant.
They say, we invite someone for a programme and they say, I got this, this, so I can’t come for the programme. So there is one way of saying no to a request and another way is saying no to the person itself. We invite somebody for a programme and they say, even if I die, my dead body will not come to your programme.
That means, it’s not just a no to this request, no to the invitation, it’s a no to the person itself. So, when Krishna went on behalf of the Pandavas and said, give them 5 pieces of land, 5 villages and what did Duryodhana say, not even enough land to put the tip of a needle through. That means, he had no interest in any kind of compromise at all.
So, after all these atrocities he had done, he had no reformation, he had no remorse, nor did he even want compromise. Then the Pandavas decided, this cannot be tolerated, it has to be mitigated and they fought a war. Like the same Bhagavad Gita which tells us, tam sthitikshya svabharat, tolerate Arjuna.
That same Bhagavad Gita also tells Arjuna, fight a war. Dhyasvameyatharjivara, give up laziness and fight. So, there are times when things need to be mitigated and third could be emigrate.
Eventually when Krishna departed from the world, at that time the Pandavas decided that, it’s enough, we have done our part, they enthroned Pariksit as the king and they renounced the world. So, they emigrated. So, now all these three can be done with a positive emotion and all these three can be done with a negative emotion.
If I am tolerating, not because I want to focus on a higher purpose, but simply because I feel helpless or because I am repressing my feelings, then that tolerance will be unhealthy. Tolerance, as I said, why should we tolerate? Yes, I have this problem, I have this problem, but here I can focus on Krishna. I can do something valuable.
Say for example, we are sitting here right now. Now, some of us may be under the sun, it might be a little hot. We might just move aside and stand somewhere else.
But if the sun is there, we may decide, okay, sun is uncomfortable, but there is something interesting going on, I want to learn this. So, I tolerate it. So, if we focus on a higher purpose, then tolerance becomes meaningful.
But if that higher purpose is not what we are focussing on, then tolerance becomes simply reduced to an exercise in repressing ourselves. And that is unhealthy. Sometimes, somebody has hurt us, and then we think, I am meant to be a devotee, I am meant to tolerate.
And then we don’t speak anything, but during our chanting, we are saying Hare Krishna. How did he do that? Why did he do that? This person, that person. Our tongue is chanting Hare Krishna, but our mind is just blasting that person.
It’s all going on and on and on. So, then that Tarorapi Sahishnuna, we are trying to be Tarorapi Sahishnuna, but it’s not leading to Kirtani Sadahari. We are not expressing the feelings externally, but is the purpose being served? If the purpose is not being served, then we may have to do something about it.
That doesn’t necessarily mean we have to go and shout at them. But if something is troubling us very much, then just repressing those bad feelings is not tolerance. It is, tolerance is subordinating some temporary bad feelings for a higher purpose.
But if that higher purpose is itself being obstructed, then what is the point of tolerance? If somebody is pushing me out of the train, then what is the point of tolerating that? How will I get to the destination? So, if something is troubling us so much that we can’t focus on Krishna, we can’t do our service to Krishna, then we may have to do something. So, sometimes there is some situation, some devotee has spoken, some person has spoken like this, something has happened. But somehow we start maybe hearing some class, chanting the holy names or doing some service and we get absorbed.
We transcend it. If we are not able to do that, then there has to be appropriate way to process it. Then if tolerance is not working, so tolerance done in a negative way will simply fill us with bad feelings.
And just living with resentment, repressed resentment towards others is not tolerance. It is simply negativity. It is simply accumulated negativity which we are doing nothing about.
So, then we may have to talk with some other devotee, not in a complaining sense, but just in a sharing the heart sense, you know, this happened and I felt very hurt about it. And then they may hear us and they may give us some perspective, you know, okay, this person has this nature, that’s why they did like this. But otherwise they are good people.
Then even when we unburden our heart, that also lightens our load. And that also makes us feel understood. Sometimes when we are hurt, it is not that we want retribution.
You know, you did like this, so this should happen to you. That might be just our mind saying that, but what we actually want is acknowledgement that we have been hurt. It’s understanding.
And if we get that from someone, we may not get it necessarily from that person, we may get it from someone else. And if we get that, then that itself might act as mitigation. Mitigation may also require sometimes, okay, this person hurt me, then I cannot work with them.
That doesn’t mean I hold negative feelings, but okay, you do your service, I’ll do my service. So the important thing is our service should go on. We are here to connect ourselves with Krishna.
And tolerance is meant to increase our focus on connecting with Krishna. But if in the name of tolerating, we are filling ourselves with so much negativity that we can’t connect with Krishna, then that is not tolerance. So this is one danger where we misunderstand tolerance and we just let ourselves stew with negative feelings.
Of course, in today’s world, the other danger is also there that we have a very low capacity for tolerance. A little problem and just quit everything. We have to see things in perspective.
There is small things and there are big things. So there is one American devotee who came to India for the first time and then he attended an Indian marriage, Indian wedding. So sometimes Indian weddings are huge affairs.
They are drawn out over several days. And not only that, there are a lot of people who come, a lot of celebrations happen. Of course, sometimes it just becomes a competition to show one’s wealth.
I can do this much. I have this much money. I have this much money.
But this devotee told me that this one advantage of having an elaborate ceremony for marriage is that when you go through so much, you really realise, I am really married. Take marriage much more seriously. Otherwise, if it’s just two people go to a court and there are a few witnesses and you sign a paper.
But there if you feel that this is a problem, just go again and sign a paper and separate. So in some ways, the external, like when we take initiation also, we have a whole celebration over there. We have a function where we, in front of the sacred fire, we take the vows.
Now all these externals create impressions. So the point I am making here is that through this, through whatever, either it is marriage or it is initiation, through that, if it’s reinforced within us, this is a big thing. Marriage is a lifelong commitment.
With respect to initiation, it’s an eternal relationship. Then when we understand it is a big thing, then if there are some relational issues, okay, they are small things. We can tolerate them.
But if somehow it is not registered within us, this is a big thing, what happens? It’s not working? Just finish it off. Just get rid of it. So that way, the tolerance, what happens sometimes, if there is no tolerance, then small things can be made into very big things.
So I met a devotee in America and he is a divorce attorney. And he was telling me the kind of reasons because of which people divorce is sometimes absurd. There are small, small differences and instead of trying to resolve them, you really want to break up.
So he was telling that there is a couple and they decided to divorce because, and it was a serious case, which actually the court granted. The wife said that the husband did not tell me before he married that he snored at night. And now the husband said, I myself didn’t know I used to snore at night.
So he was, he would not snore in the, he was not snoring as a child and he was living in a hostel, in a college alone in the room. He never knew. So now because of that, the wife said, I want to divorce you.
Now he is snoring such a big thing. But this is just one example, like that people can take small things and make them into very big things. So when Srila Prabhupada explains in the 10th chapter of Parpot that intelligence means to see things in their proper perspective, to see things in their proper perspective.
That means to, proper perspective means to understand what is more important, what is less important. So when we see things in their proper perspective, then we can understand, okay, this has happened. This is a small thing.
Let me tolerate it and move on. This is a big thing. I need to tolerate this.
I can’t, I need to do something about it. I can’t tolerate it. So basically, if we misunderstand tolerance and just think that whatever others are doing, I am meant to tolerate it.
And actually we are not tolerating. If we are actually tolerating, that means we will be focussing on some higher purpose and we will be moving onwards in our life. But we are simply stewing in the negative feelings, then that will make us feel bad about ourselves.
So, in some situations, in some extreme situations, when things are just not working out, we immigrate. Immigrate means, okay, this particular situation is not working, I move to somewhere else. And we continue our service to Krishna.
Srila Prabhupada also did all these three things at different times. When he came to America, many of the hippies didn’t even know how to treat, how to treat a swami, how to treat Prabhupada. They would come to the centre, they would eat food and go away and Prabhupada would have cleaned their plates.
And they started staying in the temple, in the Lower East Side. Then in the morning, they would all use the restroom and there were many people. So Prabhupada would stand in the line with everyone else to use the restroom.
They didn’t even have the courtesy that they should let him use it first. But Prabhupada tolerated it all. Why? Because his purpose was to glorify Krishna, to get people to come closer to Krishna.
And these people were very interested in Krishna. So Prabhupada tolerated it. But then, later on, if you see, there was the Juhu in Mumbai where we have beautiful temple.
The devotees got that land, but the owner of that land, the seller of that land actually, was a cunning politician. And he wanted to take the money and not give the land also. So at that time, Prabhupada fought.
In fact, he said, this Mr. N, over my dead body also you will not get Krishna’s land. So Prabhupada fought for it. And at the end of it, when the land deal was signed, Prabhupada said, it was a good fight.
It’s a good fight. Somebody should write a book about it. Now Giriraj Maharaj has just completed a book about it.
So he has titled the book as, I will build you a temple. And that is the title. Because Prabhupada had promised that it is a rasbihari, I will build a temple for you.
Please come and stay here. So Prabhupada fought over there. He didn’t just tolerate that person’s manipulativeness.
He mitigated it. But there are some times when Prabhupada emigrated. When Prabhupada was, before he started ISKCON, he had started the League of Devotees.
And in the League of Devotees, that was an organisation which had started in Jhansi. And the people who had supported him, somehow after some time, they felt that, okay, supporting a temple, supporting religious organisation is not really worth it. They wanted to do something else.
So the very people who had supported him, they formed a clique against him and they wanted him evicted. Prabhupada had the legal documents and Prabhupada could have fought in court. But he decided it’s not worth it.
He said that anyway these people are more pious than spiritual. They were coming for his classes but it was general religious appreciation. There was no specific spiritual commitment.
And also he felt that Jhansi is a small place. Bhaktasan Swetakar wanted temples to be built in big places. And so then he decided it’s not worth fighting.
So he emigrated from there. So in all these situations, if the devotees who met Prabhupada later, nobody ever felt that Prabhupada was bitter about anything. There were many times when terrible things happened to him.
But there was no bitterness. Because his purpose was to serve Krishna. So tolerance is not meant to let others do bad things to us and to have all those bad feelings within us and not express it.
Rather tolerance means that bad feelings come but because of a higher purpose we tolerate those bad feelings. And we all have that capacity. Actually we are not necessarily afraid of pain per se.
It is not pain that we can’t bear. It is pointless pain. It is purposeless pain that we can’t bear.
Say if I am talking over here. I put my hand down and somehow somebody has kept a needle over here. Or some pin over here, that pen goes in my hand.
And it starts bleeding. I’ll be annoyed. What is this? Why did they keep a pin over here? But if I have some fever and I go to a doctor to do a blood test.
And then the technician, they put a pin in my finger. I’ll myself take out my hand and put a pin here. In a sense the sensation is the same.
A pin has gone to the finger. But there it is purposeful. This is so that the blood can be tested and we can find out what is the problem.
Here it just seems purposeful. Why did this happen? So for us we are not so much afraid of pain. Pain doesn’t annoy us or irritate us as much as is purposeless pain.
So if we keep a higher purpose in mind. Then because of that higher purpose we can tolerate smaller things. So tolerance is basically, for tolerance to be constructive.
We need to have a clear vision of what our higher purpose is. And how I can stay focused on that higher purpose. And then now about humility.
So does humility mean that we should feel bad about ourselves? The essence of humility is to stop being so conscious of ourselves. And to become conscious of Krishna. Again the point is kirtaniya sadahari.
To glorify Krishna. So humility, I write articles on the Gita everyday. At gitaadily.com. Sometimes in those articles I try to take a verse from the Gita and try to condense its essence in one sentence.
So 13.12 in the Bhagavad Gita talks about amanitvam adambitvam. So I wrote an article about it. Humility means to not let our ego come in the way of our purpose.
Humility means to not let our ego come in the way of our purpose. If we have a purpose to do something important. Consider Ishwara Prabhupada.
When he was in India, he was actually respected quite a bit as a sadhu, as a sanyasi, as a Vaishnava scholar. When he came to America, the hippies didn’t know anything. So in a sense, Prabhupada was much more respected in Vrindavan than in America.
But Prabhupada came to America because his purpose of attracting people to Krishna was served better. Although sometimes he was disrespected and neglected in America, but still he came here. However later on, when he came back to India, the devotees organised a festival in Jaipur for Srila Prabhupada.
And then the devotees had made some posters. And they had said, Bhakti Daan Swami with his foreign disciples. And Prabhupada just asked the devotees, why you have written foreign disciples? Write American and British disciples.
He says, now why? Because Indians are enamoured by Americans, Britishers, so he said that. Now if you tell there are American and British disciples, that will attract people to come. So here we could say Prabhupada wanted more honour.
Prabhupada didn’t want honour for himself. The purpose was he wanted to share Krishna’s message. And if talking about his accomplishments could get more people to come to hear Krishna’s message, then why not? So humility means to not let our ego come in the way of our purpose.
Humility doesn’t mean feeling bad about ourselves. Now, there are songs of the Vaishnavacharyas, where sometimes, Amara Jeevan, Sada Pape Ratna, Nahi Ko Punni Ralesh, Bhaktivinoda Thakur says, My life is filled with sinful activities. There is not a trace of good within me.
These songs are from a very exalted spiritual consciousness. And there the devotees feel Krishna’s overwhelming love for them. And at that time the devotee feels that Krishna is loving me so much and what am I doing for Krishna? I am not doing anything at all.
So in the light of Krishna’s love, which is a lived and experienced reality for the devotee, then they feel I am doing nothing and that’s why they feel I am so fallen, I am so sinful. But when we don’t feel at our stage that great love for Krishna, at that time to artificially think like that is not very helpful. It can be damaging.
So now, humility does mean we acknowledge, I have my conditioning, I have my faults, I have my limitations, but we also have Krishna with us. And Krishna is our Lord and Krishna is always there with us. So humility means we stop thinking about ourselves so much and focus on serving Krishna, focus on glorifying Krishna.
So humility is meant to get us out of self-consciousness and get us into Krishna consciousness. So humility doesn’t mean necessarily that I feel bad about myself, rather, however I am, still I am meant to serve Krishna. So let me stop thinking about I have this problem, that problem, that problem, let me just focus on serving Krishna.
So that focus on Krishna is what is important. And sometimes some people are too filled with themselves, I did this, I did that, I did that. Sometimes, say in India some movie stars, they may come to the temple and janmashtami.
Of course, good, they are coming at least on janmashtami. But sometimes some celebrities come to a temple on janmashtami and then what they do is, they are not coming so much to take darshan of the Lord. They are coming because it’s a good photo op.
And they will put there on their social media, it will come in the newspaper. So they are not coming to take darshan, they are coming to give darshan. It’s good at least they are coming to a temple, but there is a problem with that, that kind of attitude.
So some people are so filled with themselves, that they just can’t think of Krishna much. So that is not very good. To be so filled with oneself, thinking I am so great, I am so great.
One’s consciousness is so filled with oneself that there is no time for Krishna. That is, there is no space for Krishna within. That is unhealthy.
But the same self-consciousness, when one is filled with oneself, that can come in a negative way and that can appear as humility, but it is not humility. What do I mean? When I am filled with self-consciousness, that means, I am so great, I am so powerful, I am so intelligent, I am so wealthy, I am so this, so that. So that is self-consciousness which you can very easily seen as ego.
But that same self-consciousness can come in a negative way, I don’t speak so well, I can’t sing so well, I don’t look so good, I can’t do this, I can’t do that. It’s all I, I, I. So that is, sometimes people have inferiority complex. Now inferiority complex is not at all humility.
Inferiority complex is actually, it is frustrated false ego. I have false ego, I want to prove to the world I am great, but somehow there is no way I can prove myself great. That’s why I start feeling bad about myself.
So of course, inferiority complex has to be dealt with in a proper way and a healthy way to deal with is to help those people suffering from it, to learn to see the gifts that they have. All of us have certain weaknesses, all of us have certain gifts. But feeling bad about ourselves and staying locked in the self, that is not at all humility.
So humility means, whatever I am, I acknowledge my faults, but still Krishna is so kind that he is giving me an opportunity to serve him. Serve him, so let me serve him. So humility has to be Krishna-centred.
So the essence of humility is not self-centredness but Krishna-centredness. And self-centredness in one way could be I am so great, and in another way I am so bad, I am so good or I am so bad. Neither of them is humility.
So if somebody is feeling bad about themselves, then that has to be addressed properly. How do we address that? By learning to look at the good within us. Not good in an egoistic sense, but in an objective sense.
You know, this is the thing which I can do, this is something which I have, this is some ability I have, this is some virtue which I can develop. We need to look at that. So that way, the more we focus on Krishna, I’ll conclude with this last point, and then we can have some question-answers, that when the focus is on serving Krishna, now serving Krishna is not just coming to the temple and chanting the holy names or hearing classes.
Our whole life is meant to be a service to Krishna. If we are parents, we are parents with responsibility, so the souls of our children are Krishna’s children who have been entrusted to us. So we take care of them.
If we are in a job, we do that job in a mode of service to Krishna. Krishna says, By your work, worship me. So our work can also be done in a mode of worship.
But when we are doing this, at that time, if our focus is that I am here to serve Krishna, and the greatest source of positivity for a devotee is the understanding that Krishna is always with me, that Krishna never abandons me. In fact, we may all have different weaknesses. Some of us may be short-tempered, some of us may be very pessimistic, some of us may have greed or whatever else.
But these are all secondary weaknesses. Our greatest weakness is our unwillingness to believe that Krishna loves us even now. As we are, with all our conditionings, Krishna is still there in our hearts.
Krishna has not left us. Krishna has not gone away. So our unwillingness to believe that Krishna loves us, that is our greatest weakness.
And somehow, by associating with devotees, by hearing from scriptures, we get that faith. Okay, however I am, still Krishna is with me. Krishna wants me to come to Him.
Krishna is still eagerly waiting for me to come to Him. Krishna will give me opportunities and guidance how to come to Him. So to the extent our focus becomes on Krishna, that will become a source of unending positivity for us.
A devotee’s heart is filled with good feelings. Not good feelings in a narcissistic or sentimental sense, but in the sense that whatever is happening, Krishna is with me. And Krishna will guide me through this.
So actually our bhakti practise is meant to create positive feelings about ourselves. Not positive in a self-serving sense, but positive in the sense that however we are, we are parts of Krishna and Krishna loves us. So if I am meant to love Krishna, we say that when we love Krishna, we also love all the parts of Krishna.
Just as when we water the root of a tree, water goes to all the other parts also. The devotees, they love Krishna as the whole and because they love Krishna, that the devotees are non-envious, well-wishing friends of everyone because they see everyone as connected with Krishna. Now if we are going to see everyone as connected with Krishna and therefore we are meant to love, try to have positive feelings towards everyone, then we are also part of Krishna.
So a part of loving Krishna is to love the parts of Krishna and we are also part of Krishna. Therefore, in a healthy spiritual sense, we love ourselves as a part of our loving Krishna. Self-love in a narcissistic sense is, I am just filled with myself, I don’t care for anyone else.
But self-love in a spiritual sense means that I am a part of Krishna and when I want to love Krishna, I want to offer the best that I can to Krishna. So therefore, the best that I can offer is I myself. I can’t offer someone else to Krishna.
I can try, we can train our children so that they become devotees, we can inspire our family members to practise bhakti, but ultimately they are souls and they have to choose on their own. So the best that we can offer to Krishna, that is in our control to offer to Krishna, is we ourselves. We are not saying the best in the sense that we are better than everyone else, but that is what we can offer to Krishna the most.
That is what is most in our control. So when we have this spiritually evolved understanding that a part of loving Krishna is to love all the parts of Krishna and to especially love those parts of Krishna who are trying to serve Krishna, then among all those parts, I am the part of Krishna whom I have the most control over. This is the part of Krishna that I can change the most.
Therefore, I love Krishna as a part of my loving Krishna. Sorry, I love myself as a part of my love for Krishna and love myself in the sense that when we love someone, what do we do? We value them. We care for them.
Similarly, we value ourselves. Value ourselves, again, not in an egoistic sense. Value ourselves means that we take our service seriously.
We take our purpose seriously. One reason why people nowadays, so many people commit suicide over such trivial things. I was at a mental health care meeting and there one person, he is a suicide intervention counsellor.
Sometimes when people are about to commit suicide, before that they make a phone call. If somebody talks with them at that time and speaks something sensible, they may not commit suicide. So suicide helpline.
So this girl, she committed suicide and then she called us. Committed means she took the poison pills. And then, somehow the ambulance was close by, they rushed to her and she was saved.
And why did she commit suicide? Because she was in a relationship with a boy and she had called that boy and that boy didn’t pick up her phone. So many times we don’t pick somebody’s phone. But in her mind, like I said, the mind is the inner screen and some story goes on.
So, maybe he doesn’t love me. Maybe he is with someone else. Maybe he has rejected me.
Maybe I will be alone. And maybe in future others will also reject me. Oh, maybe all my friends will be in healthy relationships and I will all be alone.
They will all have pity on me. What is the use of having such a pitiable life? Let me end my life. So from one unanswered phone call to a suicidal attempt.
The mind can just start off a horror movie and you can get carried away with it. But the point I am making over here is that people often don’t sense any value in their life. So for her, her value was that somebody should love me.
If nobody loves me, what is the value of my life? But yes, the nature of the relationship, some people, some relationship may work out, some relationship may not work out. So if our value for ourselves comes extrinsically. Extrinsically means, ok, if this person loves me, then I am worth living.
Then I am worth something. Or it can be, if I can achieve this goal, if I can buy this car, if I can buy this big house, if I can crack this exam, then I am someone worthwhile. So if our sense of, if we value ourselves based on extrinsic things, and those extrinsic things go away, then we will stop valuing ourselves.
And something that we don’t value, we may well destroy it. But if we understand our life has intrinsic value, irrespective of what relationships we have in the world, irrespective of what positions we have, what positions we have, our intrinsic value is that we are part of Krishna. And Krishna always loves us.
Then we will not trivialise our life so much. So therefore, self-esteem in the healthy sense is that we connect with Krishna. And see ourselves connected with Krishna.
And that’s how we can love ourselves in a healthy way that inspires us to do our best in whatever situations we are in. I’ll talk about this more in the next session. But here I’ll summarise.
I spoke today about about humility and tolerance. But sometimes it may be that a misunderstanding of some humility and tolerance can fill people with negative feelings, bad feelings about themselves or let others do bad to them. And they think having all, not venting out all those bad feelings is tolerance.
Tolerance means to keep small things small so that we can focus on big things. Like if I’m going in a train, if somebody pushes me, then just move aside and let us get to the station. But if they push us out of the train, then we have to push back.
So if something that others are doing is coming in the way of the big thing itself, then we can’t tolerate it at that time. So broadly, we have three options in difficult situations there. Tolerate, mitigate or immigrate.
It’s like with respect to season or similarly with respect to situation, with respect to environment, similarly with respect to external situations. And in general, in today’s world, that capacity to tolerate has gone down. And so even big things, we tend to make it very small.
So people may trivialise marriage, trivialise spiritual initiation. It doesn’t work out, forget it. No, it’s a big thing and we try to tolerate small things in connection with that.
So intelligence means to see things in their proper perspective so that we can understand what things are small and keep them small and what things are big and make sure that we are moving in that direction. So if we are having negative feelings, unbearable negative feelings, which prevent us from doing our service to Krishna, from going on with the purpose of our life, then we have to deal with them appropriately. Maybe speak them through someone and unburden ourselves or do what it takes to heal ourselves.
Humility doesn’t mean feeling bad about ourselves. It means stop thinking ourselves so much and focus on thinking of Krishna and serving Krishna. Humility means to not let our ego come in the way of our purpose.
Humility means that when if I am filled with myself thinking I am so great, that is the opposite of humility as arrogance. But again I am being filled with myself thinking I am so bad, I am so bad, I am so bad. That is not humility, that is simply frustrated false ego.
So that has to be addressed by learning to see the good within us, learning to see the gifts that we have. The essence of humility is that we move out of self-consciousness and we need to move towards Krishna consciousness. And the genuine connection with Krishna actually fills us with good feelings.
Because we understand that Krishna always loves us. And if I am meant to love Krishna, then I am meant to love all the parts of Krishna. And I am a part of Krishna and this is the part of Krishna over which I have the best control.
So let me handle this part of Krishna as nicely as I can, so that I can make the best offering to Krishna. So we can love ourselves in a healthy, not a narcissistic sense, by seeing ourselves in connection with Krishna and that love for ourselves can be a part of our loving offering to Krishna. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna. So are there any questions or comments? Yes. I want to ask a question.
So who should assign you with your true value? Normally value is something that others perceive in you and they assign to you. Like for example a commodity is not what you see, it’s what others are prepared to evaluate it or pay for something. So in this kind of concept, who should assign you that true value? And how do you know that you cannot misjudge your own value or someone else’s value? So who should assign us our value? Well, in the varnashram system that was there, based on guna and karma, based on the psychophysical nature of people, they understood your value is in doing this particular role in society.
A Brahmana’s value was in being an intellectual. A Vaishya’s value was being in business or dealing with… Basically, the one way to understand is Brahmanas deal with thoughts. Kshatriyas deal with people.
Vaishyas deal with things, commodities, money. And Vaishyas deal with money. And Shudras deal with things.
Of course, it’s not that simple, but that’s just one way to understand it. So we all have some psychophysical nature. And based on that, we are good at some things.
So guna-karma, the way I understand it, if guna is quality, karma is activity. So when we are doing something according to our nature, then we feel internally comfortable doing it. And that is guna.
The guna, the quality means there is inner comfort while doing something. And karma means there is external competence. When we do it, we are good at doing it.
So if we feel good while doing something and we can do it well, we are good at doing it, then that indicates the guna-karma is there. So society will assign some value to us. And it has its own hierarchy.
Like say students, they are assessed based on their grades. Okay, this person is such a very good student, this person is not a great student. Society will have its system of assigning.
We can’t really do much about it. But what we can do is that, while acknowledging that in the functional sense, the system of assigning has to be used, but in the spiritual sense, we focus on our relationship with Krishna and we try to connect with Krishna wholeheartedly. Once you are connected with Krishna, then after that, we will ourselves come more to the mode of goodness.
And in the mode of goodness, we can see ourselves properly. And then we can understand what is our value. And if we have some other mentors, some other guides, some other well-wishers who are in the mode of goodness, then they can also help us understand ourselves better.
So self-understanding requires at least to some level a mode of goodness. To the extent of the mode of goodness we have, to that extent we will be able to understand ourselves properly. Does this answer your question? Thank you.
Yes, please. To what extent should we really tolerate? Are there any examples from this day and age where we should actually mitigate and even go as far as actually punishing someone for any wrongdoings? Like in the Ramayana, Mahabharata, you’ve got examples of Lord Ram in the end. In this day and age, what happens where you’ve got people who may want to deceive you or try to commit a crime against you or hurt you or someone who’s opposed to you? Okay, I agree.
Yeah. Yeah. So… To what extent should we tolerate? Are there some situations when we need to mitigate also? Take action against people to, say, punish them or legally take corrective action? Yes, of course.
There are… we all have certain conditionings. And based on those conditionings, we may act in particular ways. Say, some people may have a lot of anger.
And small provocations, they may start blasting, shouting, shouting, shouting. Well, okay, that’s bad. But somebody else may, in their anger, pick up a gun and start shooting others.
So, anger itself is a universal human weakness. But the expression of anger can be in a spectrum at various levels. So, say, somebody is getting angry and shouting at someone else, it’s not pleasant, but it’s acceptable.
But somebody getting angry and taking up a gun to shoot someone, that is unacceptable. Somebody in between getting angry and you becoming physically violent at someone else, that is also towards the spectrum of unacceptability. So, basically, there are the broad principles of law that are present in every country.
And as devotees, we are not unmindful of those laws. So, where people’s weaknesses, they lead to physical violence. They lead to serious misappropriation.
Everybody has some greed. But in the name of greed, because of greed, some people may just become workaholics to earn a lot of money. Because of greed, somebody may become a thief and rob others.
Now, becoming a workaholic is not good, but they are only hurting themselves. They are not really hurting anyone else. But robbing others is unacceptable.
So, same way, just as there is a continuum in which one side is acceptable expressions of the weakness and other side is unacceptable expressions. So, we have to find out where a particular expression falls. And then it also depends on how much we have been hurt or how much we feel driven to seek redressal for a particular issue.
So, if it is a serious infraction that someone has done and if we feel strongly enough about it, then seeking justice is also a valid way of doing things. Because without that, sometimes people may just keep doing wrong and it is not just we will be hurt or abused, but others may also be hurt or abused. It may just go on and on and on.
And we might be empowering them to do that by our silence. So, we have to see time, place, circumstance and then decide best. But certainly there are times when mitigation is required.
Does that answer your question? Those of you who have questions, if you would like to yourself read it out, that’s fine. I can read out here also. So, how would you tell a Vaishnava without offending them if you need to speak up to serve the higher purpose of serving Krishna? Generally, it is important that we separate people from their conditionings.
In the mode of goodness we see, this person is here, this conditioning is here. And that conditioning may make things very difficult for us to work with. Suppose we are very organised and systematic and somebody else is very spontaneous.
And I say, just start off, everything will work out. For us, you know, do this, do this, do this, then we have plan B, then we have plan C and we have plan D. That’s how we work. Sometimes we may just not be able to work with them.
So, when we have to communicate that because of this, this is happening, rather than labelling the devotee, we can specify the behaviour. You are so irresponsible. Because of the way things are done over here, or because of the way these things are going, I cannot work with you.
So, what happens is, many times when we equate people with their weaknesses and then we pass a moral judgement, you are careless, you are short-tempered, you are this, you are that, so I can’t work with you. Then what happens, people feel attacked. And then they retaliate, then things become worse.
But if you specify this, this behaviour, and this is the problem it causes to me, and that’s why I can’t do this. Then when we make it a little more objective, then people can respond to it. Okay, this is the way I work.
I can’t change this. Better you do some other service. Oh, this is so important for you? Okay, I’ll work to change it.
I didn’t know this was so important for you. So, basically, when we, in an objective way, communicate our concerns, the chances that people will respond positively are much higher. And as far as offence is concerned, anybody can take offence at anything.
So we can’t live in paranoia thinking, oh, I don’t want to offend a devotee. Of course, we don’t want to offend a devotee, that is definitely true. But we also want to serve ourselves, serve Krishna ourselves.
So, if some devotees’ actions are troubling us very much, then just, we have to communicate our concerns. Really serious offence is when we have envy towards a devotee and we want to pull that devotee down. But if that is not there, if we simply want to do our service to Krishna and somehow the way they are conducting themselves is making it difficult for us to serve Krishna, then we communicate in as objective a way as possible by separating the conditioning from the person.
Just focussing on this particular behaviour that is problematic, not on the person, not making a moral judgement about the person. And then if they respond positively, that’s good. If they don’t, then we did our part and we move on and find some other service to Krishna.
Okay. So, people do many things to feel good about themselves. They may just buy new clothes or get a new hair style or go to a gym or whatever.
See, basically, we all have, as I said, it’s all, it has to be centred on the purpose. So, there are many things which we may do to feel good about ourselves. But if those activities in themselves don’t add value to our life, then we are just getting caught in the feelings of the head itself.
This situation A created a bad feeling B. And to get rid of the bad feeling B, I am doing C. But then C itself creates bad feelings again. If I do a new hair style so that I look good and I feel good after that. But then, somebody does a hair style better than me, then again I start feeling bad about it.
Isn’t it? But if I do something which is truly important, which truly adds value to my life. Okay. You know, this was a particular skill I wanted to develop.
I want to learn this new language. Or I want to learn this skill. I want to learn playing this instrument.
And then I try to do that. I absorb myself. Then when I learn that instrument, then I can use it.
I play that instrument. I sing about Krishna. I glorify Krishna.
I get absorbed in Krishna. So, independent of the things that make us feel bad or the things that make us feel good, we have to see what is truly important for us. And then we focus on doing those things which help us move toward that important goal.
And if within that there is something which makes us feel good also, then doing that is healthy. Because otherwise this whole thing is, it’s an avoidance strategy. Avoidance strategy means, I feel bad and to avoid the bad feeling, one strategy is, some people just sit and watch entertainment.
And many times, people just spend hours and hours and hours watching movies and watching TV. And not because the entertainment is so good. It is because they feel life is so bad.
So, what is entertainment adding value to their life? Entertainment as an occasional break from life’s monotony is fine. But entertainment as an escape way, which one keeps doing repeatedly again and again, that is not very healthy. So, we could say that, there is a set of things which makes me feel good about myself.
And these are the set of things which add value to my life. Ultimately, it’s our connection with Krishna and our service to Krishna which adds value to our life. So, we try to find out somewhere these two intersect.
And if we do that, then that is the healthiest way to counter bad feelings, where our focus is not on countering the bad feeling. Our focus is on adding value to our life. And when we add, say for example, when we do something, we like to sing about Krishna.
And somebody has hurt us, we are feeling bad about ourselves. That time just go into a room and start singing Krishna’s name, whole heartedly taking shelter of him. What has happened, that is that intersection.
And that will help us grow spiritually. I will take this question and we will have a break. And then we can continue the question and answer again after that.
So, if we don’t have the capacity to tolerate a negative situation, then do we try to understand why the situation is negative and try to see the big picture by which we can make the situation more bearable? And do we have to quantify the problem and evaluate it from the point of duty and from spiritual progress? And if we have no control, is duty more important than our spiritual progress? Or is it our spiritual progress should come first and even if we are not able to deal with duty, it’s okay? It’s a complex question. Let me take first part first. So, if we find a situation unbearable, what do we do at that time? See, all of us have certain ways in which we deal with situations.
Some of us, we may be more intellectual and analytical and when somebody does something, we need to make some sense of it. Why did they do like that? Or why did this happen? So, if some analysis can help us to make sense of it, then it becomes a little more livable. If you can’t make sense of it, it just becomes unbearable.
For some of us, we may be of a little more emotional nature and when something bad happens, we just need to share it with someone. And even if the other person doesn’t really give us a solution, but they just hear us, that also helps us to cope with it. So, basically, we all have to find out how best we can deal with the difficult situations.
And there is one good way to understand how to respond to problematic situations is to compare them with physical situations. Say, physical situation means what? Emotional wounds are just as real as physical wounds. In fact, they can be felt more seriously than physical wounds also.
Suppose, say, I have got a fracture in my hand. Now, if I had the fracture in my hand or if I have sprained my hand because of which, say, I can’t move my hand fully. So then, I acknowledge that.
I can’t deny that. And if I have the sprained hand and with that sprained hand, I try to lift a heavy weight, all that will happen by that is, I’ll sprain my hand once and afterwards, I can’t be able to lift it also. So, if I have a sprain, I acknowledge that there is a sprain and then after that, what is the next thing I do? I find out how to deal with it.
I may have to give it rest. I may have to give it medication. And then, so, there is a phase when which I need to rest the hand and after that, there is also a phase when I have to exercise the hand.
A few days ago, when I was in Canada, I just fell on the shoulder. So, doctor told me, don’t move your hand at all. And then after that, he told me, now you have to start moving your hand.
When I was moving, it was causing me pain. Now, initially, to not move the hand itself is difficult. There are so many things we just do with the hands.
But then in both cases, the purpose was, okay, this is what is going to heal me and let me do it. So, when there is a physical injury, we acknowledge the injury and we do what is required at that time to deal with it. Sometimes rest it and sometimes exercise it.
And at the right time, both are required. Similarly, with respect to emotional wounds, we have to acknowledge. The hurt is there.
It is there. We can’t deny it or wish it away. And there are some times when we just need rest.
Rest means, you know, at that time the emotional wound is so much that we just have to unwind ourselves, maybe just try to make sense of things, maybe talk with someone, share our hearts. That is, we could say, the phase when we are resting. But then afterwards, again we start exercising the arm.
That means, at that time, we again have to start doing what we can in the situation, learning to move forward in life. Now, with physical wounds, if my hand is injured, it is not that I am deliberately going to aggravate it. I know one person.
He was a cricketer, wanted to be a cricketer. And he had some injury. Somehow, he carelessly did not, he had some, he felt some pain in his leg.
And he thought that his coach or whoever told him, actually this is a minor pain, just exercise the leg more and the pain will go away. And he kept exercising, jumping on that leg, doing high jumps and doing all those things. And actually he had a fracture.
And eventually, because of his exercise, his fracture became so bad, that afterwards he just couldn’t play cricket anymore. So, what happened here? He was prescribed something wrong. Normally, physically, if we are in pain, we won’t do something to aggravate the pain.
It is wrongly advised over there. But unfortunately, with respect to emotional wounds, it is not like that. Sometimes, as I said, emotional wounds have to be acknowledged.
There is a time when, okay, this terrible thing has happened, this terrible situation is there. We need to express ourselves, we need to process the events, process what has happened. But after some time, we have to move on with life.
But sometimes we just stay in the past, keep replaying it again and again. This happened, this happened, this happened, this happened. If we keep replaying it again and again, it doesn’t help us grow.
So, which is the phase in an emotional wound to allow ourselves to be rested? And which is the phase when we have to move on? That is something sometimes we need, as I said, a bigger picture. So, if we have a close friend, whom we can trust, whom we can connect with, they can help us understand also what we need at that particular point. But both are required.
Sometimes we just need to get the bigger picture to see things and to make it more livable. Or sometimes we just have to move forward in our life and then as we move forward, it becomes more livable. So, it is said that we may have to live with pain, but we don’t have to live in pain.
Live with pain means, yes, pain is a fact in my life and I accept it. But live in pain means, I am just constantly thinking about that only. I am not able to think about anything else.
I will elaborate on this in our last session, which I will have for some time. Now, the other question which is there in this only about, it says, spiritual progress takes precedence over duty or duty over spiritual progress. There is no black and white about this.
We are, we are at present integrated beings. We are body, mind and soul. And everything has to be taken care of.
So, if I am chanting Hare Krishna and I am feeling hungry, should I postpone my meal and just chant Hare Krishna and take my meal later on or should I take my meal and continue my chanting afterwards? It depends. It depends, if I feel very inspired to chant, I can chant at that time. If I feel very inspired, no, no, I am feeling too hungry, it is unbearable, I am chanting Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna and mind is saying prasad, prasad, prasad, prasad, Hare Krishna, prasad, prasad, Hare Krishna, prasad, prasad.
Then better take some food and then come back and chant Hare Krishna. So, it is not that one, somebody who postpones their meal for the sake of chanting is a serious devotee and somebody takes a meal and then chants later is not a serious devotee. It may be, it may not be.
It may be that some people just have some acidity in their stomach. So, they just can’t fast. They can’t delay their meal.
But they take their meal and they can chant with greater absorption in Krishna afterwards. So, I would say that as far as material duty and spiritual progress is concerned, it is best to find how the two can be harmonised. And sometimes one may have to be given more precedence than the other.
Sometimes in the temple there is some festival, there are some programmes, there are some special guests, there are some special events basically. Then we may spend more time for our spiritual activities and that time something in the family may, we may not be able to, say in our personal life or other duties, we may not be able to give that much attention. But sometimes, now in a family there might be some big event, say some wedding is there, some pregnancy is there, some health crisis is there.
That time we may not be able to spend that much time on spirituality. That’s perfectly okay. Sometimes a job there may be a huge deadline, huge project deadline is there.
Then we may be consumed by that. It’s a matter of time, place, circumstance. When Shri Prabhupada was in Allahabad, at that time he was a pharmacist.
So there was a doctor who had his dispensary and Prabhupada would give the medicine that doctor would prescribe. So the doctor’s interviews told, his experiences Prabhupada reported in Lila Amrit and he says, it was obvious that Swamiji was a very deeply religious person. But he says at that time, he didn’t call him Swamiji, he was Abhay Babu.
He was not a Sanyasi. Abhay Babu at that time, his main question was, how can I earn more money? Because he was at that situation in his life when he needed money. So that was his focus.
So if I’m going towards a particular destination, if the traffic is clear, I’ll move fast. If the traffic is very heavy, I’ll move slowly. I keep moving in that direction.
Similarly for us, we all want to grow towards Krishna. But sometimes other things come up. A lot of our other duties take a lot of, they demand a lot of time and attention.
That’s fine. That means we’ll move a little slower. But when the traffic clears, again we move fast.
So if a situation comes where our material duty makes us stop the practise of Bhakti entirely, then that is a very unusual situation. Especially in today’s world, generally it doesn’t happen so much that if we are, people, we all have our basic freedom. We can do, the whole idea is live and let live.
So if we are not encroaching on anyone else’s personal life, then they won’t encroach on our personal life. But if some situation is, some material duty is stopping us from practising Bhakti, stopping entirely, then we may have to consult some senior devotees and then at that time, a serious choice may have to be made between one of the two. But in general, both can go together.
So thank you very much. So we’ll meet around 5.10.