​How can we smile at those who hurt us?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. Should we smile at those who hurt us when somebody speaks harshly or does some painful thing to us? We become angry. Should we not become angry? How can we genuinely smile at them? And how can we deal with such a situation? Answer? Firstly, the principle is not of the essential point in our dealing with others is not that we smile at what they do nor that we become angry at what they do.
We focus on how best we can serve. How best we can serve Krishna in that situation and how can we serve them in our service to Krishna. So, if we keep this point in mind that we are jeeva krishna das ei vishwas korle to aara dukkha nahi Bhaktivinoda Thakur says that if we just understand that we are sole servants of Krishna and we are meant to serve Krishna at all times, then much of the misery that we experience in this world that gets substantially reduced.
So, now it’s a natural human emotion if somebody hurts us, we’ll feel hurt. And spirituality is not about becoming stone-like and unfeeling. No.
In fact, when we become spiritual, we also become more sensitized to others’ emotions and to our own inner emotions. So, we will feel hurt when somebody speaks hurtingly. But more than our emotions, a spiritualist is defined by our intentions.
Our intention is to serve Krishna and although the emotion of hurt may be there, our intention is stronger. And the intention to serve Krishna helps us to subordinate that emotion and respond in an appropriate way. So, if somebody hurts us, at that time, what should we be thinking? Okay, what is the best way I can serve in this situation? If we just smile and tolerate and forgive, that may actually make that person act similarly, embolden that person to act similarly, not just towards us, towards others also.
And we certainly don’t want to be the cause of aggravating people’s wrong behavior. So, if that is the case, then if we are in a position, we have to point out the error of their ways, not in a judgmental or vindictive way, but maybe not even at that time, maybe afterwards when we calm down, they have calmed down, then we explain the situation and see if they are listening. If they are not listening, then we may report to their authorities or somebody whom they respect and try to ensure that they don’t repeat that behavior.
If we find that there is no way that if they are just, if they are not ready to listen, in fact, worse than that, if they delight in hurting us, then we may have to keep a safe distance from them. So, now when we keep a safe distance from them, that means that we recognize that different people are different and it’s just not possible for us to get along nicely with everyone. If we can’t get along with someone, that’s not necessarily a wrong thing.
We just keep a safe distance and let them, let their wrong behavior be something between them and Krishna and let Krishna and the concerned Krishna representatives take care of that. Now, if we find that they are in a very close relationship with us and we have to work with them, then at that time we may have to strongly, we may have to humbly but strongly clarify that this hurt me. And while communicating our hurt to them, we shouldn’t become judgmental.
I can’t believe you were so insensitive. That was monstrous on your part. How could you have done such a thing? Now, as soon as we make that attack on those person, then they become, they also become bellicose.
They also start counter-attacking and then things become worse. So, rather than blaming them, we can focus on the behavior. You know, when you spoke that, so, stay objectively.
Stay objectively, focus on the action, not a judgment about the action. When you spoke that, focus on the action, then focus on the emotion. When you spoke that, I felt wounded, I felt hurt because then we give a factual situation because, you know, I had never acted in that way.
I had never done anything like that because I had in fact done this, this, this. So, when we shift the focus of the person and especially of the judgment about the character of the person, about the nature of the person and focus on the behavior and how that behavior affected us and why we felt affected like that, then most people, they are not really vengeful or vindictive. They, it may just, they may have a different perception of the situation.
They may not know the complete reality and sometimes they may also not know the complete reality. So, a calm discussion about the situation without any judgmental communication, that often helps in resolving the issue and thus we can move onwards towards a more amicable solution to the situation and should we smile? Yes. It is not that, this kind of, the smile is not something of a masochist.
A masochist is a person who gets some perverse joy in hurting themselves. That’s not what bhakti is. Bhakti is actually about serving Krishna sincerely and while serving Krishna diligently, whatever is the appropriate emotion, we try to adopt that emotion.
So, when Vasudev saw that his wife Devaki was in danger, then he actually put on a sweet smile on his face and he tried to speak to Kamsa in a way that would calm Kamsa and invoke trust in Kamsa. So, that is his mood of service. So, if a smile can help us to communicate with them effectively, we can focus that we are not smiling at them, because it will be difficult at a situation to smile at them.
But we can focus on the fact that even in this situation we have an opportunity to serve Krishna, that Krishna is still there with us and that if Krishna had not been there with us, if Krishna’s wisdom had not been there with us at this time, we would have been far more angry, we would have fallen apart literally and things would have been much, much worse. So, we can be grateful for that fact that Krishna’s presence is there in our life, Krishna’s guidance is there in our life and with gratitude for Krishna’s presence and guidance, we can try to respond as congenially as possible to that situation. Thank you.
Thank you Krishna.