How can we avoid isolation when people around us misunderstand our intentions and hurt us?

I have a question– what if your genuine care and concern (and intentions) without any ulterior motive is misconstrued? Would the hurt of being misjudged not be the cause of isolation? How do you feel Krishna’s presence in midst of misinterpretations and misunderstandings that arise in a scenario like this?
Thanks and kind regards

Charudeshna Radhika Dasi

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
going beyond that temptation for negative thinking in whatever way. So, thank you very much. Not be the cause of isolation.
How do you feel Krishna’s presence in the midst of misinterpretation, misunderstandings that arise in a scenario like this? Answer, yes, we are living in Kali Yuga. Kali, one of the characters is Kalaha to create misunderstandings and quarrels. So, it’s possible that we may act with genuine intentions and yet others may view it with suspicion.
So, we are devotees of Krishna and we follow Krishna’s principle of ये अथामां प्रपद्यंते ताम सथयुव जाम्याः, that as all people surrender unto me, Krishna reciprocates and so do we. You know, Ishwara Prabhupada was sharing Krishna’s message vigorously in India and Indians were not interested. So, what did Ishwara Prabhupada do? He went to an audience which was likely to be more interested and in America also, he found that the hippies were most interested.
So, hippies would have been considered and they were considered almost like rejects in American society and all of American society from the Smartha Parasvedic perspective is considered to be militia. So, those who were rejects, among those who are considered rejects, the Prabhupada went to them. Why? Because they were not receptive.
So, we can’t predefine with whom we will have intimate relationships based on certain stereotype conceptions. So, we may feel that, okay, I am practicing devotional service here and this devotee or this person, I can have a nice relationship with that person. We may have that understanding but if we find ourselves being rebuffed, we find that person being suspicious or not misunderstanding us, then we don’t have to form a relationship with that person at a very close level.
So, we may have to withdraw ourselves and that is not so much, that is not because we are hurt. Yes, we are human beings and will naturally feel hurt if somebody is misunderstanding us. But then, we have to find out where we can reciprocate emotions.
So, if we are trying to, if we need, we all need emotional reciprocation and we can find out some other people with whom we can develop relationships. Now, in a family, we cannot abandon the family members. Then, that particular intimacy and closeness of relationships may not come if others perceivers doubt suspiciously.
Then, we can act in ways that can allay their suspicion and maybe later on, the intimacy will develop. But in general, we don’t have to make ourselves isolated just because of bad experiences with some people. Ultimately, whoever we are trying to develop relationships with, we have horizontal relationships with different people in the world and we have vertical relationship with Krishna.
So, we focus on developing a vertical relationship with Krishna through serious sadhana, through chanting, through studying scriptures, through doing our services. And if we keep doing this intensely, we get a deep fulfillment just by doing this. And along with that, we also have horizontal relationship.
This is true in the spiritual world. In the spiritual world, the Radharani and the Gopis, they all have relationship with Krishna, but they also have relationship with each other. But then, even in the spiritual world, it is not that everybody has an equal relationship with everyone.
Now, for example, Radharani has a group of devotees and Chandravali, the opposite Sakhi, she has a group of devotees and they are often suspicious of each other. Now, of course, their suspicion is transcendental and it increases Krishna’s ecstasy. When there are misunderstandings among devotees, that doesn’t give Krishna ecstasy.
But the point is, the complexity of human relationships is there everywhere, even in the spiritual world. Of course, they’re not human relationships. Complexity of relationships is there everywhere.
But the important point is that there Krishna is center and even the seeming animosity between the groups of Sakhis actually increases both remembrance of Krishna. So in our case, if we experience any animosity or any frigidity, coldness in relationships, then we can say, okay, Krishna doesn’t want me to, we can see that as an indication that right now I cannot develop intimate relationship over here. So I focus on my vertical relationship and I also explore avenues for developing other horizontal relationships with other people.
Now, if we, there are many people who are receptive to Krishna’s message and they will accept us as Krishna’s messengers in some small way and we can convey Krishna’s love to them. So we don’t have to beat our head against a wall in the sense that if somebody is not reciprocating, we don’t have to spend all our time on that person or too much of that time and emotional energy on that person. So we do whatever is possible.
And if the people don’t reciprocate, then we find out other sources where people will reciprocate. Other places, other kinds of people, other people with slightly different natures. Bhakta Vinod Thakur also says that we should have Sajatiya Shastra.
That means we should have association of like-minded people. So often people are unlike-minded and that’s why they treat us with suspicion. But if we are like-minded, if we find other like-minded people, then they will appreciate us.
For example, if we are inclined and say we try to share Krishna conscious philosophy, people who are not philosophically inclined may feel that we are just trying to show how clever we are and how knowledgeable we are and they may rebuff us. But then we may find other philosophically inclined devotees somewhere else and with them we can reciprocate. You know, I heard this point.
And they will also say and then the relationship will become intimate. So in general, we shouldn’t restrict the arena of our relationships to a specific circle only. If we have to work in a specific circle, if we are obliged to work in a specific situation, then we can have, we can do whatever necessary to have working relationships with others.
But beyond that, intimate relationships, wherever they work, from wherever we get inspiration and wherever we can develop close relationships, we should work towards that and we should take that as Krishna’s blessing and invest time and energy and thought to develop relationships over there. In that way, we can avoid spending our emotional energy unnecessarily on reciprocating, on trying to develop relationships with those who are not interested or those who are not like-minded. At the same time, we don’t have to go into a cocoon of isolation because of not getting reciprocation from them.
We can reciprocate with Krishna and explore other avenues where Krishna will offer us opportunity for reciprocation in horizontal relationships. Thank you.