How do we see when senior devotees act inappropriately and rationalize it based on their seniority?

Anwser Podcast

Transcript

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That is fine. So sometimes if proper disciples or senior devotees behave in an inspiring way even with an entitlement complex where they behave inappropriately and say that we justify saying that you cannot you cannot say anything to me because I am a proper disciple. How do we see that? See over the years I have found that there is something like there are ultimate values and there are functional values.
From the perspective of ultimate values anyone who has come to the path of bhakti they know the ultimate value. Krishna is God, we are His servants and we have to attain Him. But functionally we all are products of our upbringing our past karma our culture especially the way we grew up in the childhood affects us a lot.
As of course does our past karma. So now there can be atheists who may be in the mode of goodness. Why? Because of the past karma they have that disposition of not being too attached to material things not to be enamored and they may also be able to go on in the detached frame of mind but they don’t meet any intellectually satisfactory version of religion.
So they become atheistic. So That doesn’t mean they are bad people. That doesn’t mean they are bad people.
From our perspective atheists are like a demon. But from the lifestyle point of view there are many atheists who are environmentally conscious very aware of the rights of minorities and other people like that. Right.
And they are doing a lot of charity work. So the point is that they are they are good not because of their atheism they are good independent of their atheism. Their goodness whichever is there is a part of their inborn nature.
In contrast somebody may become a devotee but if they had been born and brought up in a rough and tough culture where that is the way they learned to grow up then you know how much of that will change there are examples where that changes drastically but there are examples also where that doesn’t change so much. So the ultimate change is that they love Krishna. And by their love for Krishna by their love for Sri Prabhupada they will they do a lot of service.
But we will see that even among Prabhupada disciples there are some who were born and brought up in very cultured families they are very cultured now. There are others who were born and who lived in the streets. Not necessarily that’s a bad thing but they had to be tough to stay alive and they had to act tough and their whole mannerism may be rough and tough and it’s not necessary for Bhakti to change that.
Bhakti may, may not. But it’s now it’s a little dicey to say that whether this rough and tough mannerism is a part of say somebody’s Kshatriya nature they are part of Kshatriya nature or is it a Kshatriya will become a Brahmana by practice of Bhakti not necessarily. Not necessarily.
Although we give Brahman Diksha Brahman Diksha is more for the sake of recognizing for society’s sake that this person has practices has practiced the process of purification so that they can do deity worship. You see we give Brahman Diksha but Brahman are not supposed to take salary. Is it a Brahman Diksha Daan that the activities of Brahman Dars Vyagya Daan Tapa No, Yajan, Yajan, Patan, Patan Naan Parigraha It’s not that the Brahman are doing that.
It’s not that the Brahman Diksha people are necessarily doing that. So I would say that from the material perspective I don’t expect I stopped expecting that the nature of people will change. Their purpose will change.
What they are aspiring for in life will change. But introverts will not become extroverts. Most likely not.
Sometimes it may happen. I would say that’s the exception. So I would say that extra similarly somebody who is rough and tough it’s not necessary that they will become soft and sensitive by the practice.
They may, but they may not. You can’t say that. So in general in the association of devotees we need to focus on that association which inspires us.
I met one devotee couple at one place. Vataji was very intelligent. She was born in a very pious family.
And then this was a devotee. She was not exactly a devotee. She had also become a devotee but not born in a devotee family.
A very pious Brahminical family. And she said when this boy came he was also a very serious devotee. She said what I wanted to know is how he was before he came to bhakti.
Before he started practicing this process. Because if he gives up this process again he will relax to that level. Very intelligent way of thinking.
So if somebody is you know he was also born in a Brahminical family. His aspiration in life was to actually become a pujari for a temple. A priest.
And then he has become a devotee now. So that was how he was. So then basically most of us our Krishna consciousness can change our trajectory.
But if we are not feeling Krishna consciousness we will fall back to our earlier trajectory. So when we say that we should not look at a devotee materially that means we should not think that their material nature limits that person. That means Krishna’s spiritual potency can flow through them in spite of their material nature.
Now Prabhupada was asked by by the by the DHP leader of Mumbai Swamiji you pronounce your shloka Sanskrit verses not in the Sanskrit way but in the Bengali way. He said what can I do I come from Bengali. So Prabhupada admitted that.
But Prabhupada emphasized that that the pronunciation is Bengali or South Indian or whatever. Potency is there because purity is there. So Krishna’s potency is not limited because of certain circumstances.
But the practical practical action may not necessarily change to be more appealing. So sometimes it may happen that we may have to that we may have to see beyond we may at a spiritual level we see beyond and say that this person is serving Krishna I appreciate them. But at a personal level if they don’t inspire us we have limited time we have limited energy in which we can actually get associated with devotees also.
So we need to choose the association that inspires us the most and move on. And some devotees have been inspiring me there could be many reasons for this. One could probably be their past conditioning.
Second is that even if somebody is very advanced that doesn’t mean that they don’t face problems in life. Because of problems they might be going through a very troubled situation right now because of which this anger might be coming out. Or it might just be that sometimes this is we have been dealt with we are finding their dealings a little inappropriate and harsh.
So others may have dealt with them like that within the devotee community also. Because of which they may think that this is the only way I can get some position I can get some respect I can get some I need to fight for my space in this moment. They may think like that.
So rather than if we don’t feel inspired we just keep a distance. It’s not that just because somebody has been practicing bhakti for many years that means they will inspire us. We have to have that means association that is like-minded.
So if we keep that in mind then we can focus on an association which inspires us and keep it at a distance or an association that does not inspire us. And rather than judging those people we focus on the point that they are getting purified in a particular way which I may not understand. And it’s not inspiring me so I’ll keep a distance.