I have a disagreeable boss who is also atheistic – how can I deal with him?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so if we have a atheist boss who is also very negative and we can’t see any good in him, that boss is troubling us a lot then how do we deal with that person yeah, sometimes we serve as I said somebody because of them somebody we serve, sometimes we serve in spite of them, so we understand that sometimes some people who come in our life, they are a result of some past karma that we have done so if some disagreeable boss is there, then we see that actually it’s my this person’s disagreeability is the way my, through this person’s harsh behavior, unreasonable behavior it is my past karma that is being exhausted so in a sense in the Vedic literature it is said that actually when we are happy we should be unhappy and when we are unhappy we should be happy what that means is that when we are happy that means when things are going right in our life, that means our good karma is getting exhausted and if good karma is getting exhausted then what is going to happen afterwards the bad karma will be there so when we are happy we should be unhappy because our good karma is getting exhausted and when we are unhappy we should be happy because what is happening is that our bad karma is getting exhausted when we are having difficult situations. And once the bad karma is exhausted, then good karma will remain.
So, of course, when it comes to practical dealings, this doesn’t mean that we should be masochistic. Masochistic means, we take pleasure in hurting us and there are some people who in some religious rituals, say in Islam or some other places, they whip themselves. They inflict hurt on themselves.
It’s not like that. The point is, we can try to see positively whatever situation we are in. So, sometimes through some people, just our bad karma gets executed, exhausted.
Now, having said that, even if we can’t see some good in that person, now we can see the good in that situation. What does that mean? We may not see good in that person, but we can see good in that situation means that all of us in our life have to deal with difficult people at different times. And if we have to deal with a very difficult person now, then after that, even if we have some other difficult people to deal with, it will not be that difficult.
Like somebody who has lived in the freezing cold of Antarctica, that person, in any other part of the world they go where it’s cold, it’s never going to be that cold as it was in Antarctica. They can manage that. So, some situations in life, we can see them as opportunities to discover how tough we can be or rather how tough Krishna can make us.
So, if we see that ultimately this person is arranged in my life by Krishna’s arrangement and if I can tolerate this, if I can move forward, then actually my tolerance muscles are improving. It is Krishna consciousness which is making me tough. Now, sometimes, not sometimes, frequently it will be very difficult.
Just like a person who is in freezing cold is going to find it difficult. But we need to know very well that, very clearly, that difficult situations in life are not permanent. Like everything, we talk about how pleasures are temporary, so problems are also temporary in this world.
And if the problems are temporary means that although they may seem to be very big and very painful now, they are not going to last forever. Sometimes when say a leech bites a person, now the leech catches on to the skin and drinks blood through its tubules. It can be very scary to feel the tubule penetrating into the skin and pulling out the blood.
Some leeches are so strong that if you try to pull the leech out, then the leech holds on to the skin so tightly that the whole skin gets ripped out. And it can become ghastly if the skin itself comes out. But if you just tolerate that and let the leech do its work, the leech’s capacity to drink blood is not infinite.
Once its tubule gets filled, then the leech itself lets go. And then with a simple flip of the finger, the leech will fall off. So like that, some problems in our life are like leeches.
And if we overreact in those situations, then it’s like trying to forcibly pull the leech out and it will rip out our skin. The problems will become multiplied, aggravated. But if you just tolerate, then the problems will pass.
So, you know, some people are disagreeable at the surface, but it’s usually that hurt people hurt people. That means that people who are themselves being hurt, they hurt other people. So if we can see beyond that layer of that defensiveness, which is coming out as aggressiveness, you may find that once we earn somebody’s trust, it may be very difficult.
But if you earn them, then we may become among the few people who has actually weathered that storm, has earned their trust and things may become much better. Of course, if we find that dealing with a particular person is almost impossible for us and just that strain has become unbearable, then we may have to change the situation. And we may just look for some other job.
But that needn’t be the first reaction or a knee jerk reaction. We can try to see that situation positively as an opportunity to increase our tolerance, increase our toughness. And we may decide that let me wait out some period.
I decide this leech, I understand it’s going to take blood out for a few seconds or a few minutes. So we may decide, I will persevere in this particular situation for this much time. And I’ll do my best in this situation.
If we start thinking this boss is going to be like this lifelong, and I have to tolerate this lifelong. Once we start thinking of problems as lifelong, then we can’t even tolerate them for day long. I just have to end this today.
But instead of thinking of it as lifelong, we decide in some finite time, rather than just resenting and being angry and frustrated, I will for the next one month, next 15 days, next two months, whatever, I will do my best even in this very difficult situation. And if after I have done my best, if I find that things don’t improve, then at least I will have the confidence, I’ll have the conviction that I did not run away from the problem. I tried my best and this was not meant to work out.
So then we move on. We don’t have to keep letting ourselves be beaten up. We can move on and look for some other job.
But we don’t have to necessarily get their atheism into the picture here. Because we don’t know why a person has become atheistic. Sometimes the way religion is presented and even practiced in today’s world, it’s quite likely that people become atheistic because of that.
In fact, I have read some of the biographies or autobiographical essays about some of the leading atheists in the world. And the kind of experiences they had with religion, if I had that kind of experiences with religion, I too might have become atheistic. So let’s not get too much negative based on whatever belief or disbelief the person has.
We can just focus on how I can function effectively in that situation. And if we give it a diligent try in a mood of service to Krishna, if it works well and good, if it doesn’t work also, at least we won’t have drained ourselves in resentment. We will have grown in our tolerance.