How should we receive criticism constructively?

From Manoj P

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you Hare Krishna Question How can we receive criticism constructively when someone else criticizes us? Answer First and foremost when anyone criticizes us it is our normal reaction to go into a defensive mode. We want to prove that I am right, I am not wrong and that is natural human reaction at the same time we also know that if we are to improve it is often difficult for us to see what is wrong with us. All of us our nature we can divide into four boxes A, B, C and D So A and C the vertical is what I know about myself and the horizontal is what others know about me So the first box is what I know about myself and what others also know about me.
The second is what I know about myself and others don’t know about me. The third is what I don’t know about myself and others don’t know about myself. And fourth is neither I know nor others know, only Krishna knows.
So the our nature, our personality our character can fall in these four categories So So actually speaking, if we are to improve what we know what others know, those we can both use for, we can use for improving So therefore what we need to do is we should see when others criticize us as it is an opportunity for self discovery that I can know something about me which others don’t know, which I don’t know and which others know. So if we see it that way, then we can take it positively. But at the same time it is also possible that others may be assuming something about us which is not true So that’s why rather than taking others criticisms personally, we can try to be in a more analytical mode and observe objectively So that means, I am this soul and whatever this person is speaking actually this person is not speaking about me, this person is speaking about the body-mind complex that I have right now and in that way we just mentally distance ourselves What is this person? Actually we say we attend discover yourself course but the first discover yourself is to understand oneself as the soul the second discover yourself is to understand what kind of body and mind I have and how this body and mind can be used in Krishna’s service and how this body and mind can obstruct me in Krishna’s service.
So this is discovering our material nature and how that nature can be best used in Krishna’s service So if we have that mood of discovery and objectivity then we can observe what other people are saying and see whether it is true Now, in this there are three different possibilities First is that others are completely wrong they just misunderstood the situation completely then when they speak it then we clarify that actually you thought like this but it was like this, this was my intention and this was what I was doing then the person becomes free from misunderstanding if that person is friendly and wants to help So for example, let’s say somebody saw us overeating Why do you want this? Actually, I had tuberculosis and doctors told me that if I don’t eat a lot I will not get my strength back Persons whole perspective will change then So it could be that way Another possibility here is that that person has some negative feelings towards us and just wants to find faults and whenever we try to clarify the situation and the person just thinks that you are just justifying, person doesn’t listen So if the person falls in that category then we just need to recognize that this relationship is not healthy for us and keep a distance avoid hearing the criticism but we shouldn’t put people in this category too quickly because often we can learn from them So there will be a few people who fall in this category also but in general if people speak something if we are objective then we can find out either there is something, first possibility there is nothing wrong with us but they have a wrong perception then we can either correct that perception or understand that this person within my relationship is not going to work out so let me keep a distance Second possibility is that there is something wrong with me and there is something wrong with that person’s understanding also So in that case we can clarify the misperception of that person and we can clarify whatever we were doing wrong and third is that there is something wrong with us which needs to be corrected So if that is the case then we can thank that person for telling and then we can also tell that actually I myself have been working on it but it takes time for me to change myself and I will keep it in mind or if we did not know about it, we come to know about it or if we feel it’s a thing which is difficult for us to change immediately, then we can humbly tell that also, we see that when Narada Muni told Dhruv Maharaj that actually you are a child, just go back don’t take this so seriously he said no, I cannot then he said if you think you are elderly then understand that pleasure and pain are basically temporary dualities of this world you don’t have to bother about that then Dhruv said humbly what you are saying is true but I am not at that level I have Kshatriya blood in me and I cannot tolerate insult I must do what I feel like doing I must get a kingdom greater than my father’s please guide me how I can get it so he admitted that he was not exactly up to Narada Muni’s instructions but then he candidly spoke so there is candid communication so even if rectification is not possible for us at that time if there is clear communication, this is where I stand this is what I am trying to do and this is how I will be doing it then the person also understands that this person is not unreasonable so actually none of us are perfect and in general nobody expects us to be perfect unless that person is like a terrible taskmaster people understand that all of us have limitations so if we have this communication, so rather than seeing criticism as an attack on ourselves, we can see it as an opportunity to understand ourselves and understand others better in that way we can take it without becoming too defensive or without becoming too offensive, sometimes somebody criticizes us, the worst thing that we can do is we criticize them back you tell I over it, I saw how much you ate on that day at that particular time that person’s behavior is not what is being discussed we are discussing our behavior and we can learn and in general devotees should have a culture where we should not be too eager to give corrections and criticism to others we have to know that only when their relationship is healthy and strong then anybody can receive criticism from others so it’s good for us to have a set of close friends who will tell us, whom we can ask also for feedback and who will also give us feedback and these friends can be selected carefully, cautiously and through them we can learn and beyond that other devotees if they give us some comments, if we find that they are injurious they are simply discouraging us then we will find some people like that they whatever we do, they just seem to criticize us and if we hear their criticism then we will simply get discouraged, so at such time we should just keep a respectful distance from them so to summarize firstly criticism, if we see it as a mode of discovery, not an attack on myself but an opportunity to understand the kind of body mind I have then we can clarify the other person that person is wrong we can both clarify that person’s misconception and our small misunderstanding that might be there or if only we are wrong then we can either try to change it ourselves or tell how we are working to change it or tell where we are and how we can communicate even when we are at this level, so that way criticisms can take the relationship deeper also in fact generally speaking it is only when two people have candid communication of course respectfully the relationship with them, then only the relationship becomes deeper but if criticism is just thrown casually like passing comments then they can hurt a lot and in those cases we can keep a distance in that relationship, thank you Hare Krishna