Krishna demonstrates through his devotees how to respond to adversity wisely

[Janmashtami class at Milton, Toronto, Canada]

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. I thank all of you for coming today. Evening for celebration of Dharmashtami.
And I will speak up today on how Krishna descends to this world to demonstrate how to respond to adversity with dignity. Often one of the oldest questions which people have since time immemorial is why do bad things happen to good people? Have any of you had this question? Almost every. So, now that is a complicated question, but a more useful question is not why do bad things happen to good people, but what do good people do when bad things happen to them? Nature of the world is bad things are going to happen.
So Krishna when he descends to the world, even at that time bad things are happening. And he does set many bad things right. But when bad things happen, how do those who are trying to live virtuously, those who are trying to live devotedly, how do they respond? So I will talk about the story of Krishna’s appearance in this world from this perspective.
So Krishna as God exists in another world. There are basically two levels of reality. The material and the spiritual.
The material level is where we all are living. And beyond this is another level which is eternal, which is spiritual, which is infrastructural. And that is where God resides.
And each one of us has a deep longing to love and be loved. And not only to love and be loved, we long for lasting love. The movies, the novels, many of them are about romance.
And much romance is about happy ever after. When we look at the reality of the world, nothing lasts forever. And yet we all long to last forever and to love forever.
So where does this longing come from? Imagine the child we are living, we are not thriving in Africa. It is disconnected from the whole world. And one day that child comes to his mother and says, Mom, Mom, I want a pizza.
Now what do you think the mother will ask? What do you think she will ask? What? What is a pizza? Even if she knows, when did you hear about it? So if there is nothing in her circumstance, which means nothing in the child’s circumstance, which can trigger the thoughts of pizza, then naturally the question will come, where did this desire come from? So similarly, if we look at the world around us, nothing lasts forever. Even huge mountains, they began at a particular time, they will end at a particular time. Our own earth itself.
So if nothing around us lasts forever, where does our desire to live forever and to love forever come from? This desire, the Bhagavad Gita and the spiritual traditions of the world explain that this comes from our core. At our core, we are souls and we are indestructible. And the soul is a part of the whole.
That whole is God, who is known by different names in different traditions. The bhakti tradition knows him by the name Krishna. So, the soul and the whole, we and God have an eternal relationship of love.
Eternal relationship is what we are longing for. So the idea that there is some other world beyond this world, it is not just some religious fantasy. It is actually seen in the deepest longing of our heart.
So Krishna descends from the spiritual world to this world to help us to fill that longing. Now when he is to be born, actually when Krishna’s appearance in this world, we don’t use the word born because he is eternal. So his appearance is like the sun is rising.
To our vision, it seems to have come just now at a particular time. But actually, the sun is always existing. So before his appearance, things were very dramatic and traumatic.
Although God is the source of everyone, God does not delight in bossing over everyone. God delights in the reciprocation of love. And thus he performs Leela.
Leela means that he voluntarily subordinates his God world to have loving reciprocations with others. And for that purpose, he takes on some role. He gives his devotees some roles.
So all the God is the source and the parent of everyone. But he, when he descends to this world, he has his parents. And that is those devotees who want to love him very deeply and love him in the mood of parents.
He gives them that role. The idea is that God, we all want to enjoy a rich gamut of relationships. God is the hope.
So he also wants to be with him. So Krishna, when he descends to this world, he chooses his parents to be two royal couple, Vasudev and Devaki. Now Vasudev and Devaki are just married and it’s their wedding ceremony just ended and Devaki’s brother, cousin brother Kamsa, is so happy that his sister is married that he is driving the chariot of Vasudev and Devaki so that they can go out, go to their home.
Suddenly at that time, a celestial prophecy comes up. A voice is heard mysteriously from the sky saying, Oh Kamsa, you fool! You are carrying the chariot of this person whose eighth child will be the cause of your death. As soon as Kamsa hears this, he is very lovingly driving his sister on the chariot here and the next moment he rips out his sword, catches Devaki by the hair and is about to lock off her head.
The thing is, it’s a disaster. At any time, killing anyone is terrible but killing someone who is your own sister in extreme is much much horrible. And to kill your sister at the time of her wedding is even worse.
So his whole character changes the moment he hears his friend. So basically, everybody can behave like a lady and a gentleman in normal times but adversity introduces us to ourselves. Adversity introduces us to people.
The part of us which we keep hidden when we are provoked that’s the kind of art we do. So Kamsa looking like a cultured person but suddenly he turned into a demonic person, was out to murder. And then at that time Vasudev Vasudev and Devaki were all very pious and devoted.
Now to be devoted has two parts and that will be the central theme of this class. That to be devoted means to be faithful and to be resourceful. To be faithful and to be resourceful.
So what does these two things mean? That in our life, at every situation, some things are in our control and some things are out of our control. So when somebody is devoted to God, when we face adversity basically what happens? Adversity means see, the things which are out of control they go wildly out of control. And the things that are in control, they seem to shrink a lot.
Then we start to be cowards. So when this dynamic is there that something is out of control, something is in our control a devotional disposition is to be faithful and to be resourceful. To be faithful means that that which is gone out of control okay, it is gone out of control but something is in our control.
So, faith doesn’t mean that we just passively oh everything is good, everything will be good. No, faith means faithfulness means okay, things have gone out of order now but when we function in the world, there is always some chaos and some order. When things are orderly that means when we do particular thing, the expected result comes.
When things are chaotic we do something and we don’t know what result will come. For example, all of you are sitting now here for the talk. Now all of you are reasonably confident that the person next to you is not going to suddenly turn at you and slap you in the face.
Now we don’t even know the people next to you but you come for this talk, you have that reasonable amount of faith. So, there is some order and that enables us to function. But sometimes the order goes away and chaos comes.
So, to be faithful means that when from order chaos comes we have the faith that from the chaos some better order will come. We don’t deny the chaos right now but from order through chaos to order that a better order will emerge. One simple example to illustrate this could be when a child is in the mother’s womb.
At that time there is some order. The child is safe, the mother takes all possible care and things are orderly. But then when the labour starts there is a lot of pain and we don’t know why this particular pain is coming which pain will come next however frequently the contractions will come or whatever but through that chaos if there is perseverance then there is a better order.
The child comes out of the womb and then there is new life. The mother is happy and the child is now out of that constricted womb and there is a fresh life. So universe moves for good.
So to be faithful means to understand that when from order chaos is coming, from that chaos a better order will come. But that doesn’t mean this is going to happen automatically. One part is things are out of control we have that faith that something better will come out.
But to be faithful is to be complimented by being resourceful. Resourceful means that that which is in our control we need to do the best of our capacity. So now comes the thought that if her 8th child is going to kill me I will kill her only.
So that she will never have any children and I will not die. Now when this happened Vasudev who was the husband of Devaki at that time it was an emergency for him and his wife, his bride’s hair had been grabbed by this person. Kamsa was demoniac, very powerful.
Vasudev could have fought over there but it had led to him. And normally in traditional cultures the wedding happens at the girl’s place. So that all of Kamsa’s cahoots were there.
So Vasudev was resourceful and Vasudev spoke various things over there to try to pacify Kamsa. And finally he said, he tried to pacify and dissuade Kamsa but it was not very easy. He told him that actually things, life and death happens by destiny.
If you understand it then then this grievous sin to your own sister should not save you from death. It’s interesting, he doesn’t turn around that logic and say, I think life and death happen by destiny and if Devaki is just trying to die, then what am I even trying to reason? She’s going to die. Why? Because he’s not responsible.
He’s not using destiny to become passive and irresponsible. He’s thinking resourceful, what can I do? So destiny determines what happens to us. Destiny doesn’t determine what we do.
That is determined by our responsibility, by our religion. So anyway, he resourcefully comes up with a reason. In the reasoning that will pacify Kamsa.
He said, oh Kamsa the threat for you is not from Devaki. It is from her sons. And he assures her whenever she has a son, I will hand that son over to you.
When a problem and a disaster cannot be avoided the best that we can do is, it can be delayed. Maybe in the interweek some solution will come. So he has faith in that celestial prophecy that has come extremely resourceful.
And here we see Kamsa Devaki they are good people, they are pious, they are devoted but still a terrible thing happens to them. Not a bad thing, but a terrible thing happens to them. And there is no miraculous intervention to stop that calamity from befalling them.
And then they go ahead and they have a child and Vasudeva with his stolen heart hands over that child to Kamsa and Kamsa ruthlessly kills the child. One, two, three, four, six children and all six of them are killed. And then after that there are seven children.
And Kamsa is preparing the seven child also. But apparently Devaki has a miscarriage. And the seven child is killed.
And that seven child is mysteriously taken from Mathura to Vrindavan and that seven child becomes Krishna’s older brother. And then the eighth child is So the eighth child is who is that? Krishna. Now the great sage Vijaya explained that this whole story is historical, but it is not historical.
When when we have in scriptures and traditions certain stories those stories preserve thousands and thousands of years. Because those stories were meaningful for people for religion. And if it’s just simple history it may have some interest for people with historical interest.
But these are stories which demonstrate eternal spiritual truth. And I just showed you history but it is not history, it is moral history. It is telling incidents that happen at a particular time, but those incidents reveal patterns that are universal.
So Devaki is who represents our heart. And the six children that were born to Devaki they represent the six impurities in the human heart. These impurities are lust, anger, greed, envy, pride and illusion.
Now these impurities need to be removed from the heart. And their removal can be painful. It can appear brutal when that happens.
Somebody is proud and then they face a situation that crush their pride. That’s painful. Now when our pride is crushed we have two choices.
Either when the pride is crushed there can be humiliation or there can be humility. Humiliation is when pride is frustrated. Humility is when pride is rejected.
So when I want to be a big person and life crushes me and I still want to be a big person. I want to lord it over others and I can’t. Then I have to humiliate it.
But I accept it. Actually I’m a soul, I’m a part of God and my internal role is actually to serve. Sometimes I serve as a leader sometimes I serve as a follower.
Sometimes I serve in a big position sometimes I serve in a small position. If we develop that humility then we’ll be able to move forward in life. Going through pride is painful but if we let ourselves get humiliated then the pain goes on and on.
But if we let the removal of pride lead to humility then we move on in life. Down here somebody might ask if they knew their sons are going to be killed why would they have sons? They went through it because they had a feeling that something better would emerge. So, in our last time we agree if we get purified of them that can be painful.
But we perceive here something good will happen. Everything that happens is not good necessarily but good can emerge through everything that happens. Everything that happens may not be good but good can emerge through everything that happens.
Now the 7th child which appeared and disappeared that represents Balram. Balram represents the Guru. So the Guru comes in our hearts to purify our hearts.
So, Balram here in the womb for some time purified the womb and then he disappeared so that Krishna could appear over there. So the Guru prepares our heart for Krishna to manifest over there. And then the 8th child was conceived.
The 8th child manifested first in Vasudev’s heart and then in Devaki’s womb. And Devaki became effulgent by that. Naturally a mother who has seen 7 children die, she could be chronically depressed.
But when Krishna came in her heart, she was loving. This is the power of devotion. Even amidst the greatest distress we are uplifted when some kind of sublime happens.
And then I ask love. Earlier she had been fearful what would happen to her child. But this time she was fearless.
And seeing her fearless Kamsa became fearful. What’s going to happen to this 8th child? And he was waiting, he was waiting. Kamsa was a demon but although he was a demon still he was civilising up that he did not think of inducing a post abortion baby.
He waited for the child to be born. And then when finally the child was born. So normally when a child is born we all tell people happy birthday.
On the day of our birth we were not happy. It’s a dramatic change. As I said it’s a chaos from which ordinary people live.
So every child who is born is crying. And it’s curious how paradoxical things are. When the child is crying everybody becomes happy.
And if the child is not crying, everyone becomes worried. So in life sometimes pain brings pleasure and the absence of pain brings anxiety. So we can’t just look at the immediate emotion that we are going through.
We have to look at the direction in which things are going. On the child’s perspective crying is painful. But the very crying indicates the presence of what? The presence of heaven.
So if we get too caught in the present alone in the way how things are right now then we miss out on the big picture. We have to look at the present but human life means we have the intelligence to look beyond the present to how things are going in the future. So even when there is present pain we can accept that pain if it’s going to take us to a brighter future.
And this is the mood of Devaki and Vasudev. And when they had this seven, eight child at the time of the birth Krishna appeared not like an ordinary child crying with all messy clothes around him. Krishna appeared fully dressed wearing ornaments with grown hair, four arms and his parents were stunned to see this magnificent child.
They knew that somebody very powerful was going to come because Kamsa was a powerful demon and whoever would best him would have to be powerful. But still it actually didn’t happen they were stunned. And after that as things moved on they offered prayers to Krishna and Devaki was delighted to see Krishna but still when she actually saw the child she was like what will happen to this child? Kamsa was really trying to kill you because he can know that you are not an ordinary child you are a divine being so please hide your divinity so that Kamsa will not think that hurts you.
Then Krishna obliged and as a small baby changed his form from four arms to two arms. Now when such miracles happen, actually some of our sceptical minds say how can a child be born with four arms? Yeah, it’s not possible for an ordinary child. The universe works according to certain laws but God exists above those laws and therefore miracles are not against science to study the laws of nature.
Miracles are not against science miracles are about science. Krishna appeared with his four arms majestically and then he changed himself to two arms and he changed to two arms then he became like an ordinary small child and then here was something so now again we see this dynamic of being faithful and being blissful manifested. Vasudeva Devaki had seen that this child Krishna has come over here so he’s gone but he’s also a small baby so as they were waiting thinking what is Kamsa going to do now so then suddenly Vasudeva noticed Vasudeva and Devaki had been arrested by Kamsa and they had been kept in a prison cell and not only they had been kept in a prison cell they had been shackled inside the cell so then suddenly Vasudeva Devaki noticed that Vasudeva’s shackles had fallen and as they looked they saw that the doors opened miraculously and then as they looked around there were guards over there the guards had fallen asleep deep asleep then Vasudeva suddenly got the idea he had to do something to protect Krishna here there is Mathura where Kamsa is ruling but across there is a jungle there is a friend a cousin let me take some guidance for him let me take Krishna out immediately let me take him to Krishna instantly now this guidance he got by divine will but still the difficulties suddenly started to rain stormy rains as the river Jamuna was there he was starting to cross it but Jamuna started to overflow and he was carrying he wanted to hold the baby in touch for as long as he could but then he did not get across so he got a basket and he held the basket on his head and the water started rising and as the water was rising he had to raise the basket higher and higher now Jamuna was seemingly rising and thriving and suddenly as he raised the basket higher suddenly the basket slipped off his head it was a stormy wave and he picked up the basket but the baby had disappeared all the panic agony afflicted him and he started frantically searching searching searching searching just couldn’t find him the dog went into the water and looked there and as he kept looking looking he looked around he looked around he dug deep into the river and suddenly he saw Krishna he picked up the baby and found the basket nearby he took the baby in that basket and then as he was working across suddenly the river calmed down the river calmed down so it is described that Jamuna is also a devotee and Jamuna wanted to be blessed by the touch of Krishna’s Padakamana, his lotus feet so once Krishna fell into the river Jamuna was blessed and Jamuna calmed down and after that Vasudev could move straight forward and Vasudev came to Nandana’s house and then quietly he kept Krishna over there and now he couldn’t go back empty handed because Kamsa would know that the child is going to be born let him go so there was a girl child going to be born so he took that child now naturally he would have been worried what will happen to this girl child but he was doing his part and he had to pay something higher than his part when he came back he kept that girl child over there and Kamsa woke up and he came and when he heard about that the child is going to be born he was in charge fiercely over there and then Devaki told him this is a girl, she is not ready to leave Kamsa was taken aback and leaving this girl with him she grabbed that girl and tried to fling her on the ground to kill her as he raised her up suddenly she slipped out of her hands out of his hands and he looked up and that girl turned into a powerful effulgent goddess and he said why are you trying to kill me the one who is trying to kill you is already born and saying this she disappeared now Kamsa was trying to say what happened this girl has disappeared but Kamsa thought that maybe this is all a cheating he thought that actually this whole plot was to fool him that no other child is going to kill me and he begged forgiveness to Kamsa I was misled I killed your children I killed your children I am very sorry but it seems even the god has started lying now that’s why I did all this you please forgive me for the wrong I did now you said children I didn’t kill you but amazingly they will be forgiven now it’s interesting there is a difference between forgiving and trusting forgiving is for the past trust is for the future if somebody has hurt us if we hold what they have hurt against us for the rest of our life it is we who will hurt ourselves so let the past be the past so forgiving is for the past but if somebody has hurt us we cannot again give them the power to hurt us we have to create the distance so forgiveness is to be given but trust has to be forgiven so Vasudev and Devaki were forgiving and saying ok we don’t hold the past to kill our children against you but they didn’t trust Kamsa they didn’t tell him how actually our great child is there that would have been stupid so they were faithful and Krishna only protected but they were resourceful that they didn’t spill the beans and tell that Krishna is there so eventually Krishna grew up and Krishna freed the world of this time that Kamsa but the point over here is that Krishna came as God but his descent did not mean that he miraculously set everything right he guided his devotees to be both faithful and resourceful and in our lives when we pray when we seek help sometimes miracles may not happen but if we learn these two principles then no matter what bad things happen in our life Vasudev and Devaki bad things were happening they didn’t ask why are our sons being killed what wrong did we do no the question why do bad things happen to good people is a difficult question but a more productive question is what do good people do when bad things happen and they don’t fix as we learnt from this story they are faithful and resourceful so for whatever difficulties we are facing in our life faithful means ok this bad thing is happening this chaos is coming chaos is coming in my life but some order is not there rather than simply become depressed, disheartened by the chaos that we are going through we concede the order waiting for the order to come so that’s truthful but faithful is not passivity, it’s not apathy faithful also is resourceful what can I do in this situation and what is the best that I can do in this situation and this is where if we turn towards god if we pray to him if we practise bhakti yoga which is the means of connecting with him we will become internally strengthened we will become internally strengthened to face the difficulties that we are having the difficulties may go away after time but many difficulties are there life determines our problems we determine their size the more we think about the problem the bigger it grows, the more it troubles but if we turn towards god devote ourselves to god then that awareness that god is far bigger than me god is far bigger than my problems and we will orchestrate things so that good will come out of the bad that awareness will decrease the burden of the problems problems are like all of us, we try to carry a big weight it’s difficult so problems are also like a big burden on us but problems are such a burden that the more we think about it, the burden’s weight increases so imagine you’re carrying a 10 kg weight and you keep thinking it’s 10 kg, 10 kg and you find it’s not 20 kg you find it’s not 30 kg you find it’s not 100 kg you feel crushed so our problems are like that the more we think about them, the more their weight increases and the more we feel crushed so instead of thinking about the problem not that we don’t think about it at all but we don’t overthink about it we turn and turn to god in prayer in devotion, in meditation and that, just stopping thinking about our problems thinking about Krishna it was really very strenuous we can either do chinta or we can do chintam then we can just worry about our problems and feel burdened if we prayed as much as we worried we would have to worry much lesser because in prayer even if it doesn’t remove the problems prayer will remove the burden of the problems on us and we will get strength to move forward to move forward and that is the spiritual strength that each one of us can have if we turn inwards so Krishna descends to this world to remind us of our own spiritual strength to help us gain the resources and the bad things happen, we may have to live with pain but we won’t have to live in pain the problem will be a part of our life the problem will consume us in our entire life and if we keep moving forward we will find a new course that whatever bad things happen by God’s grace something better emerges from it so this, how to deal with adversity with dignity this is what Krishna teaches us and if you learn this lesson you can all be informed so summarise I spoke today on this theme of don’t ask why bad things happen to good people but ask what do good people do when bad things happen to them Krishna comes to teach how we can respond to adversity with dignity so when Krishna comes to this world his parents get into big trouble his mother’s life is threatened and then his all children are threatened and then killed but through it all they can see the world what are the two principles corresponding to difficulties do you remember faithful and resourceful so faithful means the things that are not in our control seem to feel terribly bad we have the theme that the universe moves forward from order if chaos has come from chaos life will always move forward the child in the mother’s womb is order the delivery is chaos so if we have that faith everything that happens may not be good but good can emerge to everything so Vasudev had the faith that the prophecy will come true but he was resourceful to prevent the death of Jesus and the prophet cannot be removed so that’s how resource comes and eventually when the 8th child was born the 6 children who were killed it might seem brutal but it represents the 6 impurities in our heart that we plan to clean so that God with all his purity can manifest in our heart and illuminate our heart in our lives eventually when Krishna was born Vasudev had faith but he was also resourceful he took Krishna across to save Krishna and when Kamsa was apologetic he forgave but he did not trust forgiveness is for the past trust is for the future and that way Krishna’s appearance in this world heralded the future and Krishna would deliver the world of Kamsa for all of us whenever difficulties come upon us instead of letting that difficulty that problem burden us because problem is a burden he was waiting 3 years to think about so we think about the problem to the extent what is in my control what can I do about it and if what we can’t do stop thinking about it and learn to go on in prayer that will give us the inner strength just thinking about Krishna can give us strength by which we can face the burden of the problem without the burden and then we take small steps doing what is in our power and if we keep doing what is in our power the problems may remain but they won’t overcome us if we have a little bit faith we won’t have to live in pain and if we persevere we will discover what seemed bad in the moment eventually something good will emerge thank you very much Hare Krishna Death is the death of a young one in this context how will the death of a young one bring order or how will it bring good in the future how will the death of a young one bring order and bring good yes for all of us when anything happens we place the cause effect correlation in different causal boxes say for example right now if the lights go off we could put in one causal box has the power gone off in this case or somebody switched off the power people say oh has the power grid collapsed so we could put this same event the power going off in different causal boxes one causal box is the power has gone off another is the power grid has collapsed another is the switch has been accidentally turned off so now it could also be that maybe Canada is being attacked by terrorists and the power plant has been blown but if we start thinking about that first thing with unassumed time so whenever anything happens we need to find the most constructive causal box in which to place the event and if a smaller causal box doesn’t make sense then we go to a bigger causal box and then we go to even bigger causal box the more knowledge we have the bigger we can expand the causal box the science tells us that there is a sudden solar flare and it comes close to the earth and all the electrical equipment on the earth can stop working so the causal box can only be extended to the sun’s emissions or something as simple as a few light number so similarly when a small child dies if we look at it from the immediate causal box perspective it doesn’t make any sense and that’s why the causal box needs to be expanded and expanding the causal box means causal box means cause effect coordination so the Bhagavad Gita explains that every one of us is a soul and each soul is on a multi-life journey of spiritual evolution and for the soul death is a coma not a full stop it is a coma by which life continues in a different place at a different level of reality so each of us is born we live for a certain time and we die now for some souls in this life they might be destined to live for a very short time so there is nothing that the child has done in this life there is no order or chaos to be considered from this life’s perspective but from a bigger perspective perspective of previous life, next life then it could be that for that soul’s onwards evolution this life with whatever situation that soul was in may not be as conducive as a future life so whatever is in our control we do the best that we can the child is alive parents do everything that they can to take care of the child when the child passes on then the parents will understand that actually this child is not just my child it is God’s child who was invested in my care and the same God who took care of this child before the child’s birth will take care of the soul after the soul’s departure so we have one last question if anyone has you can please raise your hand so that’s our one last question and then after that we will proceed to the next part of Hare Krishna you mentioned that adversity when there is an adversity or something bad happens, I know each people react differently to it like when the child was killed each mother reacts to it in a different way, what recommendations or what are your tips so that we can be calm and cool at the situation and look at a positive thing in life, what would you like to share with us so that we can bear those pains and be more resourceful and look at the positive side of life yes something terrible happens different people react so what can we do to react more positively all of us have a different body temperature drops, some of us may be very cool some of us may not feel that cool each one of us has a different body each one of us has a different mind also so some people might be more emotional and they may need to go through the grieving process, so if somebody is distressed and tell them it will be great pain then you tell them look at the positive that could be cruel, they have to go through the grieving process and they need to vent out their emotions and it’s not it’s not it’s not to be surprised at that time, just like if there is a physical wound somebody got a fracture then initially the fracture means keep your hand motionless that is a part of the grieving process but after that the same doctor who told you to keep your hand motionless will then tell now give me your hands so now it pains so much, I don’t want to move move although it pains, you move keep moving, keep moving and gradually the mobility returns the hand gets restored to normal so what applies to physical wounds also applies to emotional wounds so initially whenever there is an emotional wound, there is a loss there is a grieving process and somebody is going through the grieving process, some people process grief, leave me alone some people process grief by talking about the person who has departed and they leave the memories and whatever the grief is required, so people may need a break from their normal life to grieve and that’s why various traditions had some grieving time but after that if somebody keeps grieving forever that’s like they never move their hands so if they have had the grieving, then now we need to push, initially we need to give them space to grieve and then we may need to give them sometimes people need space and sometimes people need pace pace means they need to be pushed to something so then if they want to grieve, then we need to help them to reintegrate with life again reintegrating with life means start doing some normal activities, start getting involved in life so we need to find out by understanding that person by hearing from that person what phase are they going through and then help them accordingly in general to look at the positive in any situation then broadly we need to acknowledge the negative not deny the negative but then look for the good around the bad ok this is terrible but still some of the good things are there in life if I lost someone the rest of my family is there I have health, I have a good job I have social support, whatever look for the good the mind will keep looking at the bad and will make things worse but we look for the good around the bad then we look for the good that specifically among the many things good in our life we look for the good that helps us to counter the bad suppose somebody has got a terrible disease please before the disease is curable oh I have got health insurance or I have got social security, social support you can take the treatment so look for the good that helps us counter the bad and then look for the good that may emerge from the bad so this is terrible but many simple good will emerge so I call this the ACE acronym I have all seminars on this topic ACE your life with positivity ACE is look for the good around the bad C is look for the good to counter the bad and E is look for the good that emerges from the bad so if we look for the good in this way then again we can’t say that everything that happens is good because bad things happen in life but everything that happens can be for good if we play our part if we are faithful and resourceful so positivity is not just looking at the good looking at the good is important but then acting properly is also important if somebody keeps grieving forever they become a chronic lamenter then even if the good is to emerge the good will not emerge it’s like the child is the mother doesn’t pay but the mother doesn’t push at that time she has to do her part she doesn’t push and the child cannot come so it’s not just looking at the positive but also acting positive we are both faithful and resourceful and if we look for the good then we can always move forward positively in life Thank you very much Shri Janmashtami Lord Krishna Thank you very much Chaitanya Chaitanya