How can we emotionally accept that people who treat us like crap are delivering us our past karma?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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Like, some landmine-like relationship is because of my past bad karma.
But emotionally accepting it is very difficult. So, if somebody is treating us like, like crap, then how do we just accept it and move on? Yeah. It’s definitely very difficult.
And more than the past, we can focus on the future. That means that Krishna can bring good even out of the bad. And if somebody is treating me inimically, is treating me hurtfully, then rather than seeing that negatively as simply that other person is hurting me and I just have to tolerate my past karma, we can see it positively as an opportunity to grow, grow in tolerance and not just tolerance, no, it’s more to grow in spiritual purposefulness.
I’ll give one example to explain this point. Say, suppose there is a cloth shop, a big stall where a lot of people are who come and there are attendants who show the clothes. Now, there are some customers who are extremely fastidious they will look at hundred dresses and they will not take even one dress.
And when such a customer comes, all the attendants just go away from there. I don’t want to deal with this person. Such a person who comes along and very difficult customer.
Now, if a particular attendant deals with that customer and after showing hundred clothes, the customer says, I don’t want it. It’ll go somewhere. The customer may say, my time got wasted.
All these clothes I’ll have to sort and put them back again. There are cameras here, the boss. And the boss also knows that so, and sometimes the attendant who does not make any sale, still that attendant may get a raise, may get a promotion.
You know how to deal with tough people. I’ll put you in charge of this. So, the success or failure may not be defined by whether that particular sale happens or not.
Success or failure can also be defined in terms of whether the boss is pleased or not. So, similarly, we are dealing with difficult people. And Krishna knows that the person is difficult.
That person may not be difficult in general, but even if that person, we find it very difficult to deal with that person. So, rather than seeing that this is simply I have to endure the past karma. This is an opportunity for me to try to act in a So, now pleasing Krishna may sometimes mean being avertive also.
Sometimes it may just be tolerating. But, acceptance becomes much easier than it is for a higher purpose. If acceptance is simply because of helplessness, then nobody likes to feel helpless.
So, yes, we may sometimes be helpless, but even through that helplessness, we are growing. Krishna, when he talks about tolerance in the Bhagavad Gita, always he is talking in terms of, at one level, he is telling Arjuna, tolerate. But, he is also telling Krishna, Arjuna, fight the war.
So, there is tolerating our past karma, and there is executing our present dharma. That is my duty, my dharma, my service. So, if my service requires tolerating this person, then it is not just exhausting my karma.
It is actually helping me grow towards Krishna. So, if I keep my eyes fixed on Krishna and how, and then, the difficult relationship may well be the way by which we make a lot of spiritual advancement. Materially, no result may come, or not much result may come, but we make a lot of spiritual advancement to that.
So, if we see that landmine like relationship, which is unavoidable, as an opportunity for growth, not just an opportunity for exhausting past karma, then we can have a more positive motivation for moving onwards. So, I think, we are serving food here itself. So, you can all have food, and if any of you have to leave, you can carry the food and leave, but otherwise we can continue question and answers.
Yes, Kiran?