If the devotional ambience around us is unfavorable because devotees are rude, what should we do?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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if you find the devotional ambience around us, some devotees are behaving rudely with us then how can we either stop it or what can we do to transform it in that situation with respect to the externals we have to know that our spiritual growth is our responsibility and the devotee association whatever is there it is meant to help us grow I’ll give you two examples for this if I go to a hospital my purpose in going to the hospital is to get healed once I was in Pune and I went to a government hospital, I had some minor cough I went there and there I got tuberculosis the cough would have lasted for three days the tuberculosis would have lasted for nine months so sometimes we may go to a hospital for getting healed but we may get some disease over there so we have to be at one level the hospital authorities have to be careful that they keep a hygienic atmosphere there at another level we also have to be careful that I am going to the hospital and I have to be cautious if somebody has an infectious disease I should not go too close to them so similarly the association of devotees, the spiritual movement that’s meant to be a hospital for healing us the problem however is that when we go in spiritual association we think or we imagine or we expect that everyone should be healed but different people come with different forms of diseases and we go there primarily to associate with the doctor and to associate with those who are either serious about healing themselves or who have learned enough about healing to share about how to heal somebody may not be a doctor but somebody may nurse, somebody may be an assistant doctor they may also be able to help so if my purpose is clear that I am going in the association of devotees to remember Krishna to increase my attraction to Krishna and if I find that by the association of someone my after I come back from the temple rather than remembering Krishna I am remembering how that person dealt with me then I am not creating any positive memories for myself so in that case I may have to decide that I will not associate much with that person we may have to keep a little distance, we don’t have to be disrespectful or offensive we don’t even have to judge that person they may be having a particular disease by disease I mean that we all come from different conditionings and we are all going through different circumstances all of us are carrying all of us are carrying invisible burdens we all have our anxieties our problems our issues sometimes a person walks very erect, nicely and some person may slump down and walk just looking at them they are depressed and just looking at them makes others feel depressed sometimes people are like that but if we saw some porter who was carrying luggage on their back and the luggage was very heavy that’s why they were bent then we wouldn’t blame them because there is a big luggage so sometimes people are emotionally burdened and it may not be anything that we have done actually it may be something which they are going through at one level our philosophy is personal, Krishna is a person, we are a person we have to have a personal relationship with Krishna at the same time when others behave inappropriately we have to learn not to take it personally in many of our interactions with others the way others behave is not so much because of us it is because of them so they must snap at us because of something that has gone wrong in their life that’s why don’t take it so personally but if that’s what is happening repeatedly then that indicates that they are not able to process the issues very well keep a distance is that answer your question yes