How can we have a spiritual relationship with everyone?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
How can we, what attitude can we have by which we can have a spiritual relationship with everyone? Well, it is good in principle to talk about having a spiritual attitude towards everyone. But in general, the mind is so deceptive that everyone ends up becoming a substitute for no one. What I mean by that? I think that I will try to be good to everyone.
And in saying that, I end up not being good to anyone. That means it is actually more challenging and more enriching ultimately to commit to one deep relationship than a thousand hello relationships. But to smile with thousand people is not as difficult as to smile with one person and that person is… We are going through difficulties in that relationship.
So, we cannot, at one level, in principle we can say that we want to have a spiritual consciousness in all our interactions. And a defining difference between spiritual consciousness and material consciousness is that in material consciousness, whenever we see anyone, we think, what can this person do for me? In spiritual consciousness, we think, what can I do for this person? So, if somebody comes to a temple and somebody is a fundraiser, I can ask for donation from this person. Then if you are thinking like this, I know many places, many… when I travel and talk and do programs for outside people, many people, they tell that they feel very uncomfortable coming to ISKCON temples because as soon as they come, people ask them for money.
Now, they say that, you know, ISKCON devotees at a one-to-one level are nice, but when we go to the temple, we don’t feel nice. In fact, there are some devotees who told me that we go to the temple, we have found out times when nobody will be there in the temple. That is the time we go to the temple because then nobody will accost us for money.
So, now what has happened? Now, a devotee who is fundraising, they are also doing a service to Krishna. But they have to see that their service is not just to get money from this person. Their service is to connect the person with Krishna.
And money is one way of connecting. But if you consider that to be the only connection, then what happens? Our attitude becomes not serving that person, but just making that person a factor in our service to Krishna. Then our attitude becomes very utilitarian.
If I think, okay, this person has come to the temple, let me connect them to Krishna. We talk with them, we tell them about Krishna. And then later on, as a part of the service, we may ask if they would like to contribute something.
But this attitude, in general, we try to see whenever we interact with someone, how can I serve this person? What can I do to help this person connect with Krishna? So, that attitude itself is what spiritualizes our consciousness. At the same time, because we are finite beings, we have finite time, finite energy, so we may have to, in a sense, categorize our relationships based on what is how important to us. The Updesha Amrit, the nectar of instruction also says, points to this when it says that with the very advanced devotees, we offer obeisances to them and we devote our life to serving them.
If they are equals, we offer obeisances and befriend them. Those who are junior to us, we respect them and we try to engage them in some service. So, this is, there is a categorization in this way.
Similarly, we can categorize which relationships are most important for me. And in those relationships, this is the relationship that is most important for me, I will spend due quality and time. And what is spending due quality and time mean? In every relationship, there is an expectation on the other person and there is a contribution from our side.
So, for a relationship becomes strained when the expectation from us is too much by the other person and the contribution from them is too little. Or conversely, they feel the relationship becomes strained when we expect too much and we contribute too little. So, in the relationships that are important to us, we need to give time and attention so that we are doing adequate contribution.
And then, depending on other relationships, we can decide how much time we can give. Krishna talks about the principle of reciprocity. As all people surrender to me, I reward them accordingly.
So, that principle, we also have to apply in our relationships. Those which are closer to us, we need to give adequate level of contribution in that relationship. And in general, we have an attitude of wanting to serve everyone.
But practically, how we do that, that will vary depending on the closeness of the relationship.