How can we move on after painful conflicts with devotees?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
had some conflicts with devotees then how can we move ahead from them with a clean slate and move on in our life conflicts they cause scars in the heart and the hurts cannot be wished away the hurts that are there they are there and what we can do is if we dwell on the hurts they grow if we don’t dwell on them they are still there but they will not grow so basically whenever we face any unpalatable situation any problem, any conflict there are three broad courses of action that we can have one is we change ourselves and talk about the situation second is that we change the situation change the other person a third is we walk away from the situation now there can be many specifics but these are three broad alternatives that we have and it is not that one is right and the other is wrong the Pandavas themselves did all these three things initially when Bhima was poisoned or they were attempted to be burned Yudhishthira told don’t tell anyone don’t make an issue of this just stay calm so they tolerated it but eventually when Draupadi was dishonored then the line was crossed they said we have to but eventually when Krishna departed from the world Pandavas retired they just walked away, no more so all these three options are viable courses of serving Krishna now which will work in what situation will have to be decided according to time and circumstance the most important thing is that we shouldn’t let anyone or anything interfere with our relationship with Krishna sometimes attachment to someone if you are too attached to someone then that attachment can distract us from Krishna basically that person becomes the center of our consciousness this person I love them they love me and we will be happy together and then we feel I don’t need Krishna and this that this is a temptation which is distracting me from Krishna that is very easy to understand because our scriptures talk so much about it that attachment to sense objects distracts us from Krishna but aversion also has the same effect now when we become too averse to someone then that person occupies our consciousness so much that again Krishna has no place in our heart even when we are chanting why did he do that why did he so what is happening is again we have given them place in our consciousness not just place, center place although here we are just imagining beating them, getting back at them so the point is we are not Krishna conscious so what we need to do is we have to make sure that no one comes in the way of our relationship with Krishna so if somebody has hurt us terribly and then that is so much obsessing our consciousness that we can’t that we are not able to connect with Krishna then when we are hurt the most important thing is not to get even the most important thing is to get safe get safe means what suppose say I am going in a forested path suddenly I look down and I find a snake has bitten me and then I see the snake slithering away snake how dare you bite me I will kill you and I start chasing the snake to find it and pound it to death now even if I catch the snake even if I beat it to death the snake is likely to bite me back even if I beat it to death what is happening the poison is spreading in my body and I will die I may kill the snake but I will die in the process so when a snake has bitten me my first priority should be not to get even it is to get safe I have to get the poison out of my body apply some tourniquet cut over there, go to a doctor get an antidote get safe first now the snake is a threat and it needs to be dealt with sometimes I myself may have to go and kill that snake or I may inform someone else and they may go and kill that snake but that is not my first priority my first priority should be to get safe so like that when somebody has done something because of some conflict we are hurt our first impulse is to get back at them but when we are trying to get back at someone we are basically filled with anger and aversion to them and then they dominate our consciousness and that negative feeling of anger and aversion that is like a poison which will kill our Krishna consciousness so we need to get safe first make a distance how that distance can work out whether it is physical or whatever it is first get safe get away from that situation calm yourself down, get the poison out and then yes if some devotee has done something which is very bad that needs to be corrected but that correction again we will not be in the mood of I have to take revenge this kind of behavior will hurt many other people and they should not be repeated so we may tell some authorities or we may ask them to take some action but that is at a later stage so if we recognize that that I am here to serve Krishna and some people you know by their love sometimes some devotees are so loving seeing them we feel inspired you know devotees are so kind I should love Krishna so they inspire us towards Krishna by their love by their affection but sometimes Krishna uses some devotees to kick us towards him that means some devotees behave so harshly so terribly what is my shelter now and we are forced to take shelter of Krishna so at that time it is said in the Bhagavatam that when Vidura was repeatedly trying to stop to persuade Dhritarashtra to stop Duryodhana from here antagonizing the Pandavas so at that time Duryodhana finally spoke terrible words to Vidura and when he spoke those terrible words to Vidura it was a grievous insult what happened is at that time traditional Vedic culture was quite hierarchical so normally even with an equal we won’t publicly find faults with them, we won’t publicly insult them then what to speak of publicly insulting a senior so Duryodhana was one generation younger and Vidura was a generation elder and still Duryodhana spoke such harsh words to Vidura and what was even more painful for Vidura at that time was Dhritarashtra remained silent sometimes what happens is the harsh words of our enemies don’t hurt us as much as the silence of our friends and they were going to speak like that but I expected you should have supported me now Vidura could have been angry with Duryodhana Vidura could have held grudges against Dhritarashtra but Vidura saw this as an arrangement by the internal energy to detach him from this and he just left he went on a pilgrimage met Maitreya Rishi and became invited now Duryodhana Duryodhana had spoken only out of his envy out of his greed out of his arrogance but Vidura saw it as an arrangement of Krishna so sometimes some devotees may deal with us very harshly out of their own selfishness out of their ego because devotees are also in this world we can’t expect devotee we can’t expect to be in an ideal society sometimes how can devotees do like this you know devotees are meant to be ideal if we look for an ideal community of devotees you know we will be searching for the rest of eternity and even if we find an ideal community still we will be searching for eternity because we won’t get entry in that ideal community because we are not ideal so what happens is that we just sometimes Krishna will pull us towards him through some devotees by their love by their affection and sometimes Krishna will push us towards him by the by the unpleasant ways in which some devotees deal with us so if we see ultimately Krishna is doing this to bring us closer to him so how to deal with that particular devotee that particular conflict that is something which is specific detail and that can be addressed but if we understand that just as I will not normally if I understand that I got attached to someone and that attachment is distracting me from Krishna I will fight that attachment similarly if aversion to someone is coming in my way to Krishna then I need to fight that aversion also so if some devotee has hurt us and if we make it our mission in life to get back at that devotee life is not life is not meant to get back at others life is meant to get back to Krishna that is our primary purpose in life so just put that aside Krishna is seeing Krishna is seeing and Krishna knows what is happening and how to deal with that particular situation Krishna will take care of that so I will conclude one example what happens is sometimes we just this devotee did like this so I will do like this and we just have this tit for tat mentality but a devotee relationship means in any relationship there is a third person that Krishna is there suppose there is some suppose there is say some cloth shop where there are some attendants and now customers come and the attendants show the clothes to the customer and that customer takes the clothes now some customers are very fussy customers now they look at hundred clothes and they don’t take even one cloth and then when some customers are known to be fussy then what happens as soon as that customer comes in all the attendants start moving away I don’t want to deal with this person now if an attendant has to deal with that person the attendant can get irritated they will look at hundred clothes and find some small fault here some small fault there and not take any and the attendant it is natural to be irritated at that but if the attendant thinks my salary is not coming from this customer my salary is coming from my boss and there are cameras here my boss is watching and it may well work out that the boss they may not make the same but the boss will say you are a cool person you are a cool headed person you know how to deal with tough customers even when they were so demanding you remained courteous you know how to deal with people and this attendant who did not make a sale may get promoted so like that sometimes in a specific relationship interaction with someone that devotee that person may be behaving very unreasonable and it may be natural to get irritated but if we see that Krishna is watching now whether I send this devotee right or not that is not as important as whether I please Krishna or not because my spiritual advancement is not coming from this devotee it is coming from Krishna so if we have that vision then we can just let go even if the devotee is behaving unreasonably still we can let go now when Krishna knows there is a story in the 10th Canto when Krishna brought one Parijat flower for Rukmini and then Satyabhama became agitated and then Krishna brought a whole Parijat tree for Satyabhama and then Krishna felt that Rukmini will get agitated but when he went to meet Rukmini Rukmini did not speak anything at all and later on Krishna tells Rukmini that you know because you did not protest you did not get angry you won my heart so even if externally it would have seemed that Satyabhama won Rukmini lost but actually Rukmini won Krishna’s heart because she did not complain with him even in the Pruthu Maharaj pastime we see that Pruthu Maharaj was actually doing a dharmic activity he was performing a yajna and Indra what happened Indra was coming and interfering creating this problem creating that problem and what happened eventually Brahmaji came and told Pruthu just don’t do the 100 sacrifices he had done 99 sacrifices and just don’t do it doing a 100 sacrifices is like a record there was one Indian cricketer who was on 196 and then the captain declared the news at that time so for one year after that this cricketer did not talk with the captain and he told the captain if you want to tell me anything tell it to someone else I will not talk with you so he held that grudge for so long so it’s a big thing Pruthu would have said I am right he is wrong why are you not telling him but the thing is Pruthu understood Brahmaji Indra is not mature Indra is attached and Indra was wrong but to force somebody who is wrong to acknowledge they are wrong now that can take so much effort that sometimes it’s just not worth it just leave it so Pruthu just decided don’t do the sacrifices and then what happened by that when he did that Vishnu appeared normally Vishnu doesn’t personally appear in sacrifices it’s only sometimes it’s very very rare that Vishnu appears in a sense what happened here Pruthu failed in completing 100 sacrifices but although he failed he won because Lord Vishnu himself came there Lord Vishnu himself came there blessed him profusely sometimes by just letting go of some things we can please Krishna a lot in the battle of egos the winner is often the bigger loser the winner is the bigger loser because if somebody wins in the battle of egos then what has happened is their ego grows by that and that grown ego is only going to take them further away from Krishna in the battle of egos the loser can very well be the winner because just give up the attachment to the ego and the heart opens up to Krishna of course when I am saying this actually when I go through conflict I also burn with resentment and it’s not at all easy to do that but sometimes by speaking about this and thinking about this by dwelling on it we can try to implement it just about a week ago one devotee in India did something which just made me so angry and almost for so long I was constantly thinking about it and after that I was just, after a program some person was asking questions and then sometimes some people ask questions and they are not asking questions to gain knowledge they are asking questions to show knowledge how much I know and just ask a long question so when that happens then we want to give our time to the people who are really interested so I just tried to shake off that person just politely end the conversation and move on to other people and then it struck me see here this person is right next to me and I am not ready to give them unnecessary time because I would want my time to be better used and there is that person in India and I am giving that person so much of my mental time thinking why did you do like that why couldn’t you have done like this why couldn’t you have done like that I have better things to do in my life he is resenting why someone did something like that so if you consider from the perspective of eternity the conflicts that we have here they are not going to matter at all no and our struggles won’t last forever but our relationship with Krishna will last forever so our conflicts even if we win those conflicts that victory is not going to last forever but our connection with Krishna that is going to last forever so if we can focus on connecting with Krishna then how best to deal with a particular conflict that service attitude we will get whether to change ourselves whether to work to change that person or just walk away from that but the first step is not to focus on getting even but to get away from it get safe does that answer your question? thank you very much