If someone doesn’t do their allotted service properly, how can we deal with the resulting anger?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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question? Any comments? Question.
If we plan to do something for Krishna, but because other devotees are not responsible or because of various factors, things don’t work out properly and we become angry. We become very angry. How to deal with that anger? Answer.
See, there are three broad factors here. One is our service to Krishna. Second is our relationship with devotees.
And third is our own consciousness. For each one of us, in different situations, different things will be important. If a particular service may be so important for us, that we may even feel that if there is a little turbulence in the relationship, that’s okay.
I want to make sure my service goes on. But in some cases, we may decide that the service is not that important, the relationship is more important. And overall, it is for us to maintain our consciousness, so that we can move on and do either the service or the relationship.
If our consciousness is to disturb, we cannot do anything at all. Now, let’s take some examples to illustrate this. Prabhupada, when he brought some of his disciples to India, he introduced them to his godbrothers.
And those godbrothers, some of them, they spoke negatively about Prabhupada, saying that some of the things which he has done is not right. And basically, they tried to steal, you could say, some of Prabhupada’s disciples for themselves. And Prabhupada was so upset by this.
I told his godbrother, told his disciples, don’t associate with my godbrothers. Not all of them, but at least some of them. In fact, one of his godbrothers, he called him an envious snake.
It’s a very strong word. But then, when he departed from the world, anybody asked him, where did he go? And Prabhupada said that he went back to God. My spiritual master is very powerful, and he served my spiritual master.
Similarly, when Prabhupada was himself departing from the world, his godbrothers came to meet him. He told them that, please forgive me if I have committed any offenses against you. Now, he said, for the sake of preaching, some nice sort of things have to be spoken, but please forgive me if I have offended you.
He said, I am Mahapatik Prabhupada. Then they said, no, you are not Mahapatik Swami Maharaj, you are Mahapatik Pawan. So, if we analyze these situations, when he had the service of protecting his disciples, he spoke strongly against even his godbrothers.
But, when the time for departing from the world had come, when his part in the service had been done more or less, at that time he recognized that he did give due importance to the relationship. He saw the relationship of his godbrother with his spiritual master, or he sought forgiveness. So, at a functional level, there are certain services which are extremely important, and they just have to be done on time.
And sometimes some services can be adjusted. And yes, if a devotee is not able to do things properly, that’s okay. Then we do them little slowly.
Prabhupada himself started publishing his books, although his own English was not that great. And then eventually when he got started using those editors for improving the English. So, in this case, we felt that the service, even if it is not of a great quality, let’s start it off, gradually we will improve it.
So, basically, intelligence means to see things in the proper perspective, and to understand how to take things ahead, in keeping the more important things more important, less important, less important. If we find that the important things are becoming neglected. Now, the problem here is that in a relationship also, person A may consider the service to be very important, person B may not consider the service to be very important.
And person B may feel this is just so many services like this, why are you making a why are you making such a human cry about this one thing. So then, basically, if we consider, say a sports match, like a cricket match, in which the two teams are keeping score differently, it can become a big problem. We say there’s only one way of keeping score.
That’s true. But suppose there are two different ways of keeping scores and both have to agree that in this match, we will use this way of keeping score and that match will use that way of keeping score. Otherwise, there’ll be a huge amount of confusion.
So, because all of us are individuals, and we have our own principles, preferences, priorities. So, what we give how much importance to varies. If for us a particular service is extremely important, then we need to do that service well.
And we need to try to get people with work people who will do that service well. So, if you can work with people also who are time conscious, quality conscious, who are competent, then we can avoid that kind of provocation, that kind of anger. But if you find that there are certain people who are not so sensitive about these things, and then they tend to be careless, then it’s best that we keep a distance at a functional level and we respect them from a distance.
Anger is at one level, an expression of concern. It’s only when we are concerned about something that we become angry about it. So, anger in that sense is not bad.
It indicates that we care for our service. But then one problem with anger is that it makes us lose sense of proportion. Hanuman burnt Lanka, but then he regretted or he became fearful.
What if this fire has burnt Sita also? What if this fire has gone to the Ashopvatika, where Sita is living, and then it has burnt her also. But then the Akashmani told that actually Sita has not been burnt, she is safe. And then Hanuman felt relieved.
So, even when his anger was a righteous cause, even there he was apprehensive that his anger may be disproportionate. And fortunately, it wasn’t. So, we can see that anger as a positive thing in the sense that it is an expression of our devotion to Krishna.
At another level, it can distort our perspective or sense of proportion. And thus, it can make us do things which may not be appropriate. So, if we find that we get angry in a particular service or in a particular situation, then we have to decide that how important is the service for me? And is it more important than the relationship? And then if that is the case, then let me do the service in a way that doesn’t interfere with the relationship with this person, or it doesn’t depend on this person, because this person doesn’t seem to recognize the importance the way I do, doesn’t feel the importance the way I do.
So, best is to anticipate, understand ourselves, understand the situation and try to work with like-minded devotees.