If the situation overwhelms us and prevents us from seeing the bigger picture what can we do?

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

Yes, if we are overwhelmed by a situation, we cannot see the bigger picture, what do we do? Well, we will not be able to see the bigger picture at that particular time. But ultimately, each one of us, we have to make one choice, will I act to make things better or will I act to make things worse? So, now we may say that who will act to make things worse, but sometimes if we are going to be caught in that tunnel vision, by that we are going to act in ways that make things worse. So this is the situation I am in, fair or unfair, that is the reality right now.

So how Prabhupada would use the word make the best of a bad bargain. So here now, what can I, how can I make the best of the situation I am in? And generally to make the best, we need to have some hope that some things will work out in the future. So it is sometimes helpful to look back at our past and see if there was some situation in our life where we felt it was the end of the world, but then through that something good came out.

So it is that, it is like one of the things which if we do introspection in life, that at a particular time if we feel what happened to me, what I refer to the incident, what happened to me, I am thinking what happened to my handwriting now here, what happened to me. So actually if we perceive it in life, maybe later we will be able to see that what happened to me actually happened for me, that through it something good came out. So even if there is one incident in our life which you can find like that, that can give us hope that, okay, it is bad and we do not deny that it is bad, but maybe something good will come out of it.

So probably this is one thing which you could do after the session, all of you can just think of in one incident, oh, this happened, something terrible happened to me, but actually it was happening for me, through it something good came out. So if you can think of one incident like that also, that can give us that equipment, that armour to face that situation without feeling resentful or collapsed, hopeless. Thank you.

Yes, fine. I was just thinking in the way that I was asking the question that, throughout your lesson also you were referring to, you said in chapter, you maybe did not say those to us, but that is what you were showing by example, okay, and those situations where we find ourselves in circumstances which we cannot understand the bigger picture, then reading the Shastra, that can give us examples, give us some examples, and by speaking with the spiritual master and keeping association with the devotees, they can also say, well, you know, I have been in situations like that, and as you said, what is happening to you may be happening for you, just have to be patient. Yes, it is a very good point.

See, it is, if the soul is here, the mind is here, and generally say people are over here. So for most of us, is this happening to me or for me? Okay, so for most people, we look at people and the world through our mind. Okay, this person is like this, somebody speaks sweetly to us, maybe in the past somebody spoke sweetly and exploited us, what does this person want from me? So we normally look at everyone through our mind.

And so if our mind is filled with negativity, this is wrong, that is wrong, everything is wrong, and we’ll also look at that person also through negativity, through negatively. We look at life also negatively, I mean. But if we have even one person who is close to us, this is where the spiritual master or the devotees are meant to be.

Then what happens is, for that one person, we look at our mind through that person. Instead of looking at that person through our mind, but we look at our mind through that person. Okay, my mind is saying, oh, it’s all gloom and doom, everything is destroyed.

But the guru sadhu shastra or the teachers are telling me, spiritual teachers are telling me, there is more to life, it’s not over. Krishna has some higher plan. So, if we have not developed that relationship, by which that person has become trustworthy for us, then we will just dismiss such statements as platitudes.

Oh, you know, you speak those things, you’re not going through what I’m going through. And we just pick these things. So, we need to have that, at least with one person, we need to have that relationship where with the whole world, we look at them through our mind.

But there is somebody who can help us to look at our mind. Guru mukha padma vakya chittate kariya ikhya. The idea that we are able to look at our mind and change our mind based on the words of our spiritual guides.

Thank you. Okay. Yes.