How can we as spiritual agents better connect with each other?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
individual agents then how should we be in a way that we can connect with each other and help each other? Yes. It is.
Now in every relationship we see that as a relationship not just with that person but we see that also as a relationship with Krishna. Then we won’t just be reacting to what that person is doing. We will be able to see okay in this situation I am not just reacting.
I am going to how can I best serve Krishna in this situation. Then we will respond according to our principles, our values. It is an example to illustrators.
Suppose there is a clothes shop where there is an attendant. Now some people when they go to purchase clothes they just want to look at the whole shop and they look at hundred clothes and they don’t take in one dress after that. Now the attendant can get irritated.
You know I have to take all these clothes, I have to put them back, I have to iron them, I have to do that. And some customers are so finicky that as soon as they come in all the attendants want to go away or deal with that customer. But now suppose there is an irritable customer like that who is coming and then the attendant is taking care.
The attendant thinks that my salary is not coming from this place. My salary is coming from my boss. The camera is here, my boss is watching.
Even if I don’t make the sale, the attendant may not make the sale but the attendant is throughout curtains, throughout politely, well behaving and the boss will see that. You know how to deal with tough customers. Although they may not make a sale but still that attendant, boss may promote you.
You know how to deal with tough people. I’ll promote you. So what happens is when we have a vertical relationship with Krishna, we have horizontal relationship in this world with others and we have a vertical relationship with Krishna.
That vertical relationship with Krishna gives us the stability and the perspective to cope with irritations in our horizontal relationship. If we don’t have that vertical relationship then whatever others do we simply react to that and often small things become very quick by that. But if we focus on trying to how can I serve Krishna in this situation.
I’m interacting with this person but I’m not interacting only with this person. When we are in the relationships, every relationship, especially if it’s a close relationship, it tends to define us. So if I define myself as an employee of this company, if I define myself as the son of this person, if I define myself as the husband of this person, the wife of this person, these self-definitions, if they are what is their primary self-definition then if there is any problem in that relationship we become insecure.
So we start feeling unworthy. So spirituality means our self-definition is I am a servant of Krishna, I am a part of Krishna and as a part of Krishna I’ll function as a son of someone, as an employee of someone, as a spouse of someone, as a parent of someone but those are not So when we root ourselves, when we define ourselves in terms of a vertical relationship with Krishna we can avoid emotional over-dependence in our horizontal relationships. When we are emotionally over-dependent we become too vulnerable to knee-jerk reactions and that makes those relationships very volatile and unstable but when we are rooted in our vertical relationship with Krishna when we define ourselves in terms of our relationship with Krishna then whatever storms come in our horizontal relationships we can weather them with much more maturity.
Thus actually our vertical relationship with Krishna can make our horizontal relationships also better.