If someone is doing something questionable should we try to know their intent-isn’t that a uncomfortable discussion?

This is an AI-generated transcript and it might not be fully accurate:

So, it’s difficult to know someone’s intent and if they are doing something which seems to be a bit making us uncomfortable or something is questionable, then should we talk with them about to understand their intent? Well, yes, sometimes if we are doing a serious service with someone and if we are also seriously committed to that service, then sometimes that will require us to have some difficult discussions because we are investing ourselves in the service, somebody else is also investing themselves in the service and if they want us to be fully invested, then we have to try to understand them. Okay, you are spending so much money on renovating this particular thing in the temple and you want me to raise funds for that, but is this really this important? Do we need this or what funds we have got, do we need it for this right now? So, what’s the vision over here? So, asking that is not a wrong thing. So, questioning somebody’s intent is not necessarily questioning their ethics, but it could be also trying to understand their vision, understand their judgment, that’s something which is important if we are to be invested in that.

But if we feel uncomfortable asking that, then okay, that’s what you want to do, you do it. I am not really so invested in it and in general, the two aspects to consider that sometimes we may be expert in the particular field and somebody else might not be that expert. See, good intention will please Krishna, but good intention alone is not enough in this world.

To do things in this world, Jatayu had the good intention to protect Sita, but he just did not have the skills, he did not have the speed because of his age by which he could or the speed and the stamina. Initially, he was fast enough, but he didn’t have the stamina because of his age, because of which he just couldn’t sustain the fight against Ravan and he was killed. So, in this world, the results don’t come based only on the intentions.

We also have to consider the content of what we are doing. Once the devotees asked, the devotees had done Rath Yatra, I think here only in London and it is one of the first Rath Yatras and they made a big Rath Yatra cart. But then somehow they made it bigger than what was used in America, but they did not proportionately enlarge the wheels of the Rath cart and when they were actually doing the Rath Yatra, the Rath collapsed and it was a disaster.

Of course, they managed it quite well, but Avdi wrote to Prabhupada and asked, Prabhupada, did the Rath collapse because of our poor devotion? And Prabhupada replied to them, it collapsed because of your poor engineering. Poor engineering. So, the point is that in this world, the functional aspect is also important and so sometimes, there is one temple in India where one devotee was a civil engineer and the temple leader was very eager to complete the construction of the temple by a particular date and he was going to have a big festival to inaugurate the temple and the ceiling that he was building for the temple hall structure, it actually was not strong enough, its load-bearing capacity was not strong enough to sustain the whole structure and he was advised by some other civil engineer or something, somehow he had made that decision.

Now this devotee, I knew this person, he was a very intelligent person. He asked me, what should I do? The temple leader was a very very senior devotee and he said, I cannot question his judgment, but at the same time, if the program is going on, at that time the roof crashes and there are casualties, what am I going to do? That would be terrible. I told him that here, it is not that you are questioning the temple president or the temple leader, you are actually protecting the community, you are protecting the movement and you can be polite and respectful, but you also have to make your point clear.

So, my point is that intention might be good, but sometimes the content may not be right at that particular time. Say, if somebody cannot cook for Krishna, somebody is not very good at cooking and they are told cook for a big festival and they are very prayerful, they have big nice picture of Radha Rani, they have kirtan of Radha Rani going on, they pray to Krishna and they cook. They cook in a very very prayerful mood.

Krishna will be pleased with their cooking, but only Krishna will be pleased. They cannot cook. So, in the world, competence is also required for services.

Thank you very much.