Is sensitivity the same as sentimentality?

Whenever I tell a devotee-friend to be sensitive, he replies, “You are just being sentimental. We should just speak the philosophy straight.” I get confused: what I consider as sensitivity he dismisses as sentimentality. I feel we are talking about two different things, but I can’t put it in words properly. Can you please explain the difference between the two?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6J1b-BzwJg

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
thank you question is sensitivity the same as sentimentality whenever i urge some other people to be sensitive often they say you are just being sentimental you should just present the philosophy straight don’t be sentimental so are the two the same things or are they different answer there is a world of difference between sensitivity and sentimentality sensitivity is desirable even essential sentimentality is undesirable so to simply put sensitivity means to be aware of others emotions and to not cause them any more agitation or hurt than what is necessary sentimentality means on the other hand to let sentiments, emotions feelings govern our whole thinking and deciding process and to basically be ruled by our feelings without proper consideration based on intelligence based on scripture of what is right and what is wrong so sensitivity is awareness of others feelings sentimentality is surrender to ones feelings is almost like slavery to ones feelings now let’s see how this will apply in our outreach context we see Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was very sensitive to his social context because it was expected for sanyasi in his times that he should take food only at the house of brahmanas Chaitanya Mahaprabhu respected that convention he was sensitive why? because don’t disturb the minds of others now he respected his Vaishnava devotees and that’s why when Agatha Acharya actually invited and offered Haridas Thakur the food first among assembly of brahmanas everybody was standing because it was so unconventional it upset the social sentiment at that time Chaitanya Mahaprabhu at some time was so sensitive so now sentimentality means to just let everything be decided by feelings only so that is something which is not desirable Chaitanya Mahaprabhu was going towards of course all his personal feelings are transcendental so we cannot call sentimentality but even he is setting an example that once when he was going in Jagannathpur suddenly he heard Geet Govinda being sung and he was so absorbed immediately he remembers charging towards the person who was embracing that to embrace that person in love now Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s servant Govinda ran with him and tried to stop him but he couldn’t and he kept running finally Chaitanya Mahaprabhu got very close to that person then Lord it is a woman Chaitanya Mahaprabhu heard this and froze completely at that time and stopped and he said today you saved my life you know if i had touched that woman it is terrible i would have died today you saved my life so Chaitanya Mahaprabhu even when he had transcendental feelings he did not let those feelings alone determine his behavior so he was very careful in making sure that his conduct was based on scriptural norms and social expectations of his times so now how do we apply this to our context the difference between sensitivity and sentimentality we all first use a metaphor and then we will come to the examples practically we often compare that a sadhu’s words are like like a sword which cuts off the attachments of the conditioned souls or we can say the devotee preachers preachers are meant to be like a surgeon who cuts off attachments now sentimentality now surgery causes pain sentimentality would mean that we are so afraid of hurting people that we never speak the truth and sensitivity that means like a surgeon who thinks oh if i do this surgery then the patient will have pain therefore i will not do this surgery and then when a surgeon is like that if a surgeon is squeamish about pain then that person should not have been a surgeon and the person is failing in the duty if he or she doesn’t do the surgery so now that is sentimentality that means the fear of the pain making one not do the surgery similarly if for the fear of hurting people we never speak the truth only then we always waffle based on what will please people and never speak we never really educate or elevate them to a higher level then we are just being sentimental in our outreach but sensitivity means what when a surgeon is to do surgery does the surgeon just see someone on the street and start doing surgery on that person no there is so much that goes in the background now first the surgeon and the patient develop a relationship and usually that begins with the patient approaching the surgeon but either way whatever it is the point is that they develop a relationship the patient develops some trust in the surgeon and once the patient accepts the surgeon authority the patient in one sense hands oneself over to the surgeon and then even after this relationship has been developed the consent for the surgery has been given even after that the surgeon gives anesthesia and after giving anesthesia either local anesthesia or full anesthesia depending on the nature of the surgery and then even after the surgery is done the anesthesia continues for some time and after that when the person comes back to consciousness also some pain medication is given to minimize the pain so surgery has to be done with so much background preparation so yes we want to remove people’s misconceptions and that is at times like a surgery, it’s painful but we need to do it all with this background preparation that means we have to develop a relationship with the people whom we are speaking to they have to gain some trust in us trust not just that we are learned in scripture but trust also that we are their well-wishers and that we want their good so the patient has to have faith at one level that the surgeon is competent and the surgeon knows how to do surgery and second is the surgeon actually cares for them the surgeon will not be careless or negligent so that way we have to earn the trust of people and that takes time and after that also there has to be anesthesia that has to be given before surgery there has to be painkillers given after surgery so this anesthesia and painkillers are like sensitivity that means we don’t hurt people more than necessary and that requires us to be aware of their emotions we should know what is going to hurt people depending on their background see for a normal person, touching on the hand may not be painful but if a person has got a sore at that particular point then touching there might cause pain so if a person has got a particular kind of wound then often the doctor needs to ask in advance when doctors do surgery they are not concerned only with that particular part of the body which they are going to operate on they want to know the case history of the whole person do we have any disease, are there some things which are going to be contraindicative something is going to cause a reaction they want to know the full case history so at one time some doctors were going to do surgery on my leg and then the whole surgery was to be done and i was taken into the operating theatre also and finally at that time the main surgeon came to know that i had VSD, a hole in my heart and he said we cannot do this surgery we will need, if you give anesthesia to this person he may never come back to consciousness we will have to have a whole special procedure and actually i was taken inside the surgery theatre and i was brought out why? because the surgery which would have worked normally for everyone else could not be done for me because of my special situation my point here in this example is that it is the surgeon’s responsibility not just to be concerned about only operating that particular part but also to be aware of the full history of the person so that that one particular action does not produce any unnecessary reaction and complication so similarly when we are preaching we have to be aware of what the people’s backgrounds are and what will cause what kind of response in them and some things we just put off some people too much and we need to be sensitive to that so that we don’t hurt people or alienate people the major difference between the surgeon doing surgery to the patient and preachers sharing Krishna’s message is that the patient is usually aware that i am sick and i need the surgeon’s help whereas most people don’t think they are sick and they don’t think they need any preacher to tell them anything that’s the usual condition so if we hurt people because of not knowing what their what will trigger their emotions or because we don’t care for their emotions then all that will happen is people will go away from Krishna and we will be responsible for their having gone away from Krishna so now many times we live in a particular cultural context so there are different things which different people are sensitive to at different times and we need to be aware of those things for example say now Prabhupada used the word cult very frequently in his writings but today if we use the word ISKCON as a cult, the word cult has got such a negative connotation today that nobody will want to associate with ISKCON if you say we are a cult cult means brainwashing cloistered group that manipulates people so actually ISKCON is not just that we don’t want the name ISKCON is not a cult, it’s part of ancient culture so unwittingly using that word can trouble people, so being sensitive means to know what will, because of those people’s past backgrounds, what will trigger certain emotions in them so now say applying this to our philosophy we say let’s look at Krishna and Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita now Krishna when Arjuna says oh the mind is very difficult to control so now what does Krishna, Arjuna says this in 6.33 and 34 and Krishna replies in 35 and 36 and what does he reply, he doesn’t say he doesn’t say, why do you say it’s difficult to control you cannot control it, no he is sympathetic, he is understanding he is sensitive yes Arjuna, it’s very difficult to control the mind but then see if Krishna had just been sentimental he said ok, it’s very difficult to control the mind it’s going to cause you a lot of stress, so don’t worry, no need to control the mind just live like that only, that would have been letting sentimentality govern one’s decision making but sensitivity means people should feel understood you know people don’t open their hearts to us till they feel that we understand them so Saint Augustine said seek first to understand them to be understood and Sri Prabhupada also when he went to America the first few months he was observing Vedic culture American culture, not just he was going to dismiss American culture yes he wanted to bring people to spiritual culture but he wanted to study you know Sally Agarwal at whose house Sri Prabhupada was staying, she would say that Prabhupada was interested in everything you know how the cleaning machine would work how the room cleaner would work how this device would work he was so interested in everything, he said that he was like the easiest guest I had so Prabhupada was not impressed by American culture but he wanted to learn it, to see how these people work so that he could accordingly present Krishna consciousness so becoming aware of our audiences say hot spots, things which will trigger them off their trigger points, we have to be aware otherwise unnecessarily we will alienate people and people will go away from Krishna so sensitivity in that sense is the background in which surgery is done and sentimentality means being so dominated by emotions that one doesn’t do the surgery so Krishna says so he says speak in a non agitating way but that doesn’t mean you don’t speak the truth only and again Krishna says speak it affectionately so Krishna in one sense cushions that so he says that is non agitating and then he says speak pleasingly, speak non agitatingly speak truthfully, speak pleasingly, speak beneficially so this sensitivity is definitely essential in the Vedic culture and it was an integral part of Vedic culture and it is essential in not just our outreach to the fathers, it is essential in our own devotional interactions with other devotees and to confuse sensitivity with sentimentality and thereby to reject sensitivity is to actually be lazy and irresponsible in not doing the necessary service that a preacher is expected to do as a surgeon, it is expected the surgeon to give painkillers surgeon’s job is not just to do the surgery it is to make sure that the background arrangements are done and then to do the surgery so to dismiss sensitivity as sentimentality is irresponsibility and actually it is violent irresponsibility which can cause a lot of alienation to people and especially one way this can happen for devotees is if we take names of spiritual teachers whom people respect and then call them fools and rascals just because Prabhupada did that, now Prabhupada did that only in private forums to his disciples and practically never in his books do we find this and then Prabhupada was asked also publicly should we do this so disciples asked him, Prabhupada said no he said I am an elderly person I can do it and he also said that people will accept it because I am elderly and Prabhupada said there is no need to use names, you just ask them what is their philosophy and then counter their philosophy what happens is when we take names immediately it is like people have a host of emotions associated with them just like I said if somebody has a spot a sore spot you just touch it immediately pain comes although for normal people there is no pain so if somebody is attached to a particular spiritual teacher then just the name of that person brings so many emotions that cloud judgment and if we speak against that spiritual teacher then those emotions just become like a china wall which nothing will go into that person after that there will be a few great souls who may have the purity to break the china wall and there will be a few sincere souls who will wait on the other side till the china wall gets broken but in most cases the preachers don’t have the potency to break the china wall that they have created and the people don’t wait they just go away from there also so the whole purpose of elevating people to Krishna gets defeated by dubbing sensitive preaching as sentimental preaching and actually we end up being anti-preaching driving people away from Krishna in the name of being unsentimental we are not being unsentimental we are actually very unfortunately we are irresponsible and already actually we have lost so many people to who have been sent away from Krishna because of insensitive preaching and I know one of my close friends who was when I was in college I was in one sense like one of the intellectual leaders in the hostel I used to get good decent marks and there was another person who was like a social leader but he was also spiritually inclined so when I became interested in Krishna consciousness at that time he also I used to do a program in my hostel room and he also was coming so one day there was a festival in the temple I invited him and somehow the temple was very crowded so I couldn’t call so I couldn’t meet him in the temple but he came in the temple and met some other devotees and somehow he asked the other devotees what do you think about so and so spiritual teacher a famous spiritual teacher actually anybody in India who comes to know about spirituality they just they read that spiritual teacher’s books and then this devotee whoever it was that devotee replied that oh that person he will not have found a place even in hell first of all does this devotee Paramatma to know where a particular person has gone to say that so definitely and more importantly was that necessary to say that actually that person just just hearing that one sentence he left left the skon temple went out of the gate and all that happened was he went out of the skon temple gate and went to that very mission’s gate and now today he has become sanyasi in that mission and he is one of the most prominent preachers for that mission so what did we do what did we do by our insensitive preaching which this devotee would have been very proud oh I did not compromise I was unsentimental what happened actually a soul who had come to Krishna we send him to Mayavada so actually insensitive preaching is violence and we should definitely not do insensitive preaching ourselves now if some senior Vaishnavas are doing that let them do it we don’t have to judge some senior Vaishnavas may be having the purity by which even if a china wall is created they may by their purity and potency be able to break that china wall and still attract souls towards Krishna I don’t question I don’t know anyone’s heart to know how much spiritual potency they have but I know that I don’t have that spiritual potency and first to create a china wall and then to break that china wall I don’t even have that time and energy or as I said the purity to do that so I will not ever justify my insensitivity in the name as unsentimentality now we should try to be as sensitive as possible but that being sensitive doesn’t mean that we baffle and never speak the truth but that we let the relationship develop let the trust develop, let the person see us as a well-wisher, as an authorized teacher and then with proper buffering like the anesthesia and the painkiller then whatever misconceptions are there we can remove them very carefully and then that person will actually come towards Krishna so preaching is not just speaking the truth preaching is speaking the truth in a way that brings people closer to the truth if preaching is done in a way, if we preach the truth in a way that drives people away from the truth then is that preaching? That may well be anti-preaching so sensitivity is very much desirable, essential it’s a part of the Vedic tradition and it’s essential to help people come closer to Krishna sentimentality is not, thank you Hare Krishna