How important are close relationships with devotees?

Transcript

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how important is it to have close relationships yes it is extremely important at the same time relationships can’t be forced you can’t just have a nice relationship it’s not possible like that so there are in my experience relationships work out in three different ways there may be many but at least in my experience some devotees you just click just meet once, twice you know we just think like we study the same shastra we may like many things we think like that and if we have even one devotee like that it’s very fortunate then don’t bother as far as my Shastri study is concerned some of my best friends are the Rajasthas I find they like Shastra some of them are in academic study of Shastra or wherever so if there are people with whom you click like that don’t bother which ashram it is wherever it clicks that’s where relationship works that’s wonderful that Sangha is the gift of Krishna but this will often find that people with whom we click it is not so easy and then initially we will think oh I click and then you click out it’s not all that great, it takes time but still you find that it’s worth cultivating it’s worth investing time even if that devotee is very far away in some other temple you can take some time out and occasionally contact and stay in touch that may take time to develop now the other two are in our social circle where we live where we do seva so if we have to work with some devotees then it is important that we develop at least a working relationship if not an intimate relationship so that means if we have some preconceptions or reservations or questions about them then in a proper forum we clarify so that whatever unnecessary walls are there they can be avoided and if that is not done then working seems to be like walking in a minefield suddenly what will explode you don’t know so if you have to work with some devotees it’s good to spend some time clarify whatever whatever preconceptions we might have and clarify expectations and that way have a good working relationship and in general if you really work for a good amount of time with devotees relationship develops also because we will see that if they have faults I also have faults, they have some good qualities, I also have some good qualities and gradually that relationship develops but it will require some investment and third is where we are more in a relationship of mentorship we have some devotee guide these two I am talking about equals third is I am talking about a guide so maybe it may be the devotee who brought us into consciousness or it may be somebody else who is serving like a mentor or a counselor so that relationship requires investment of time so that means the devotee may give some instructions we have to follow those instructions and overall unless there are some serious incompatibility issues it’s good to be able to open the heart to that devotee the ideal situation for a devotee is especially for brahmachari is that we need to have at least one devotee, one senior devotee whom we can trust more than our mind more than our mind means what? see our mind is constantly giving us opinion this is like that and most often we look at the world through the filter of the mind so if somebody criticizes me you know the mind doesn’t immediately say maybe there is a fault in the mind it’s always a fault finding person so usually for most of the world we look through the mind but if we have at least one devotee when we hear from that devotee we don’t look at him through the mind we look at him and then we look at the mind his devotee is saying like this and my mind is saying like this which is right so that level of trust will take a long time to develop but if we have that level of trust in one devotee we will be very very safe in our mind because then the mind will not be so easily able to mislead us in the Manthara and Kaikeyi pastime you know Kaikeyi’s mistake was two-fold first she heard Manthara and second is she did not hear anyone else so in one sense Manthara is like our mind and the mind keeps giving us ideas this is wrong, that is wrong this doubt comes up, that doubt comes up so we need to have someone again it need not be a senior also maybe it’s an equal who is not going to be judgmental who is going to be understanding and compassionate and helps us come to a proper understanding so that will keep us spiritually safe so the first association I talked is more for our inspiration, nourishment and that is what happiness in our relationship, we want joyful relationships so where it clicks that will be joyful the second is more of a functional relationship where we will be cohesive our day to day situation won’t be explosive more as cohesive and third is what I am talking about protection where we can trust someone where if we go wrong and somebody corrects us the normal sense of the defensiveness of the ego is that if somebody corrects us we want to counter that but then if we trust someone then we will evaluate so how important are relationships? yes they are very important but as I said we can’t force but knowing that they are important we can try to invest time and energy and thought to try to develop them