Sensitivity in relationships 3 – Dealing with insensitive people

[Seminar at ISKCON, London, UK]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. So, there are books there for anyone who wants to purchase. Hare Krishna.
Thank you for coming today evening. And today we’ll continue and conclude our discussion on sensitivity in relationships. I talked in the first session about the importance of sensitivity, how relationship distresses are one of the main reasons why people look for something higher, where they want a sense of community and belonging.
And to the extent we can have a warm relationship, people get attracted and people stay attracted to the path of spirituality. And yesterday’s session I talked about how when we are practising spirituality, we may need to correct others. But that also, being sensitive doesn’t mean being sentimental.
There are sometimes wrong things which are happening and which need to be communicated. But they need to be communicated carefully. So, I talked about how a surgeon has to first, surgery is never the first line of treatment.
Surgeon has to get consent and surgeon has to give pain medication. Similarly, no, it’s not that we have to correct people as soon as they come. Nor do we correct them till they accept us as authority or at least accept us as their well-wisher.
And correction need to be given in the context of a loving relationship which acts like a pain medication. When some surgical words have to be spoken. Today I will take this around and talk about how to deal with insensitive people.
We should try to cultivate sensitivity. But if in our social circle there are people who are insensitive, then what do we do about that? How do we deal with them? So, if you see an interaction, there are three things. There is other person, there is we and there is the interaction.
So, sometimes we may be super sensitive about some things. And the other person may not be sensitive at all about it. So, when we are practising Bhakti, we need to recognise that we are aspiring to develop a soft heart.
A heart devoted to Krishna is a soft heart. Krishna steals butter. Butter is certainly soft.
Similarly, Krishna steals a heart that is soft with affection like butter. So, you want to make our heart soft. At the same time, while we are practising Bhakti in this world, that soft heart needs to be covered with a thick skin.
Thick skin means that when we are practising spiritual life, we will inevitably face criticism. We will face harsh words. We may initially face them from non-devotees who don’t want us to leave their ranks and join some other, what they see as another group.
So, they feel they are losing something or they feel threatened by our practise of spiritual life because they think maybe my materialistic practises are wrong. So, we will face criticism from them. And then as you keep practising Bhakti, after some time as our social circle more or less becomes a devotional circle and people over a period of time come to peace with it.
They understand that for this person, their Bhakti practises are not just a one time fluke. They are just practising it month after month, year after year. Then people stop pushing us.
They just accept us as we are. Then the criticism that often hurts us the most is the criticism that comes from devotees. Say some devotees are insensitive.
They don’t understand our situation and they speak harshly to us. That hurts us. Sometimes we feel these are the people I am working with.
These are the people I am working for. So, if you are fighting a war and the enemy attacks us, then the enemy shoots an arrow and hits us. Enemy shoots a bullet and hits us.
Enemy throws a spear and hits us. We are prepared for that. It wounds, it hurts, but still we are prepared for that.
But if a bullet comes from behind, from the very army we are fighting for, then that feels like a betrayal. I am fighting for this army. Why would somebody shoot me from here? So, when generally our emotions are functions of expectations.
That means, say if we are meeting someone whom we respect and whom they respect us, we have affectionate relationship with them. And when we are expecting a pat on the back and they give a punch, that it hurts us not just because of the punch, but also because it is so unexpected. Similarly, if we were in a boxing match and we are expecting a punch at that time, that time also it hurts, but we are ready for it.
So, sometimes in a close relationship, where we expect understanding, where we expect appreciation, where we expect support, if there we get the opposite, it becomes unbearable at that time. Can this be closed fully? Can you pull it closed fully? Close it fully. Thank you.
Thank you. So, when we, are you getting extension? So, when we are trying to, when we expect affection and then we get criticism or condemnation, that time it becomes even more difficult to bear. So, this is what is the theme of the story in the 4th canto of Srimad Bhagavatam, where Daksha, Prajapati, he is one of the progenitors of the universe and he has a daughter, Dakshayani or Sati.
And this daughter, he had married to Shiva. Now, Daksha felt that Shiva was not respectful enough to him. And that’s why he was not very pleased with this marriage.
But his elder, his father, Brahma had said, you know, get her married to him. So, he couldn’t refuse. So, he had that, first he did not like Shiva and secondly he had been forced to marry his daughter to Shiva.
So, he had that negative feeling towards him. And he had organised a big celebration, a big sacrifice and all guests, people from various parts of the far near and far were being invited. And he did not invite Shiva and Parvati.
So, that time Parvati was very eager to go. Actually, her name at that time was Sati. Later on she was reborn and she became Parvati at that time.
Sati was very eager to go. And Shiva said, no, they have not invited us, better not go. Sati said, that’s my own house.
I don’t need an invitation to go to my house. He says, no, but they have not invited you. He says, no, no, come with me.
He says, no, I am not coming. You also should not go. He says, I am going.
And she came. And she came there. At that time, her mother, her sisters welcomed her.
But her father did not even speak one word of greeting to her. She felt very hurt. And eventually, when she saw that in the fire sacrifice, all the devatas had fire sacrifices going on for them, there were chairs for all of them, but there was no chair for Shiva.
She felt so disrespected, so hurt, so angered that she decided to immolate herself. And even at that time, Daksha didn’t stop. Even an ordinary person, if he sees somebody hurting themselves, they’ll want to stop, protect.
It was his own daughter. But he did not stop. Why was that? That was because he was having a story going on in his mind.
Normally when we interact with people, I say, I am behaving kindly with this person. I am being polite with this person. Why is this person being so impolite with me? So we may not understand this because we may not know what is going on in their head.
So what happens is that when something is going on in their head, at that time they just pursue things in a particular way. So Sati was identifying herself as the daughter of Daksha. But Daksha was no longer identifying her as his daughter.
She was identifying her as the wife of the man who has disrespected her. So people have different relationship with different people. But he had boxed her into one category.
He had removed her from the box of his relationships and had placed her in his box, in that box. And now he thought that by neglecting her, I am getting back at the person who has disrespected me. And because of that, he knowingly disregarded her, knowingly neglected her.
And even when she was hurting herself, he did not stop her. So what had happened, his view of things had desensitised him. And now, how can anyone become so desensitised? This is not just something which happened thousands of years ago.
Some things like this happen now also. People, normally they may be sensitive to each other’s feelings. But if they have put somebody else in a particular box, then they can’t be sensitive at all.
When I was in America last year, I went to a college programme for several weeks. So some of the students became close to me. So one of them told me that he had grown up in a foster home.
Then once I asked him, what happened? Did your parents die in an accident or something? He said, no, both my parents are alive. I said, really? Then why did you grow up in a foster home? So he said that, actually, when I was five, my parents separated. And when they separated, at that time, they said that this marriage was the biggest mistake of our lives.
Both of them, the father and the mother. And they told this boy that you remind me of my biggest mistake. So both of them said, I don’t want anything to do with you.
Because I want to erase this chapter of my life. And despite having two parents, this boy became an orphan, became a ward of the state. Now, OK, if you two can’t get along, why bring that boy and put him in a box like that? That boy is a person of his own right.
But they put that boy in the box that you are a product of that mistake. And you remind me of that mistake. So normally people who would be sensitive can become desensitised because they put people in certain boxes.
It’s not working. OK, thank you. So basically, now, sometimes when we are looking from an outside perspective, we say, how can parents reject their own son? Or how can Daksha reject his own daughter like that? But when people are going through certain situations, they have a particular story going on in their minds.
When we interact with each other, we just don’t interact with person A interacting with person B. Person A, when we observe people, we often put in order to just make sense of the world, whatever events we experience, we try to put them in some categories. So this is just required for processing the world. Say, for example, if we meet someone who is from India, then we may, if we are Indians, we may speak in Hindi.
If we meet someone who is from the West, we may speak with them in English. If we meet someone who is from our own state, we may speak in our language. If we are from a particular country or whatever.
So now what happens? Just putting people in certain categories helps in functioning. It’s a practical requirement. At the same time, people may belong to particular categories, but people are not restricted by those categories.
Every individual is an individual in their own right. So we may have a conception of people of this particular group, they are very miserly. Or people of this group, they are very loud mouthed.
People of this group, they are very aggressive. It may be true, but in general, you cannot put a broad category of people with one label. There will always be nuances.
In every category of people, there will be people in goodness, passion and ignorance. So here, but if we have got some experiences, basically when we say some people are biassed or prejudiced. Now what does bias or prejudice mean? Prejudice means we look at one feature of a person or we look at one feature of a person and make that into absolute.
We reduce that person to that one feature. So in the Western world, in the past there was racism. And there are traces of that even now.
In India, there was casteism. Again, there are more than traces of that still in India also. So now here what is happening? People are reduced to the colour of their skin or people are reduced to the family of their birth.
Now those are, they are one attribute of a person, but they are not the full person. When, so now with respect to race and caste, because these are widely known, we can understand, okay, this person is behaving like this because of this. But people have like this many mental categories in their heads.
And because of that, we don’t know in what category they have placed us. Sometimes you may think, I am trying to be nice to this person, but why is this person like this? Sometimes it may be that there may be something wrong within us which we can correct. But sometimes it may just not be about us.
It may be something associated with us which they have got some experience about. So Krishna says, Krishna talks that there can be knowledge also in the three modes of material nature. Goodness, passion and ignorance.
In 18.20, 21 and 22, he talks about knowledge in goodness, passion and ignorance. So 18.22 is knowledge in the mode of ignorance. Now this is a, this sounds like a self-contradictory idea.
Knowledge and ignorance are two opposite things. So how can we have knowledge in the mode of ignorance? So what it means is that knowledge in the mode of ignorance, it is knowledge, but it is knowledge that perpetuates the ignorance. That aggravates the ignorance.
That knowledge doesn’t lead to expansion of understanding. It just leads to deepening of the misconception. Say for example, let’s see what Krishna says about knowledge in the mode of ignorance and then I’ll give examples to illustrate it.
yattu kruchnavad ekasmin karyesaktamahetukam atattvaarthavad alpamcha tatpamasamudharitam So he says that yattu kruchnavad ekasmin. When one takes one thing to be everything, kruchnavad. So people take the race of a person, the colour of the skin of the person and they reduce the person only to that.
yattu kruchnavad ekasmin karyesaktamahetukam, one just irrationally becomes attached to that thing without seeing any proper correlation of cause and effect. atattvaarthavad alpamcha, there is no holistic understanding of truth. There is knowledge, but it is meagre.
Of a small fragment of reality, the knowledge is there. tatpamasamudharitam, that is knowledge in the mode of ignorance. So knowledge in the mode of ignorance would mean, if somebody has an idea, people of this race, they are criminals.
Now if somebody has got this idea, then there may be many people who may be upstanding citizens, there may be award winning citizens also, but in the news, in the media, that person’s mind will latch on to instances where that bias is confirmed. See, people from this class committed this crime. So their knowledge doesn’t expand their understanding, it deepens their ignorance.
Whatever ignorant conception they have, they seek knowledge which increases that. There is an American comedian, he said, I have already made up my mind, don’t confuse me with the facts. You don’t make up facts, how did you make up the mind? So it’s like some people’s, a polite way of saying is that some people’s opinions are facts free.
They are fact free opinions. That opinion is not based on any fact. Fact is here, the opinion is here and that’s how it is.
So it’s a fact free opinion. That’s fact free, that’s a polite way of, it’s a baseless opinion, but some people are like that. And we all may have some people in our lives who have got some perception of us.
Now what mental category they have put us in, we don’t know. Sometimes we may try to find that out and sometimes it may be possible, sometimes it may not be possible. So here when we are talking about how to deal with insensitive people, one point I said is that we all need to develop a thick skin.
Now what I am talking about is how can we thicken our skin? How can we get the inner strength to tolerate when people are insensitive with us? So the whole point I am making is that often when people are insensitive, people are harsh, it is not about us. It is about something else which is going on in their head, which somehow they are associated with us. About some mental category, some inner story in which they have somehow incorporated us.
So if we are trying to be nice, we are trying to be polite, if we are trying to be helpful and we try to find out what is wrong sometimes. But if that person is just not reciprocating, is just not interested, then we may just have to understand that this relationship will best work at a distance. We cannot get close to some people.
We all would like to please others. It is not a very pleasant experience to have somebody having inimical emotions towards us. And we may not want that.
But sometimes it may just not be in our power. So we have to let go. Pleasing others is an expression of a service attitude.
But wanting to please others is one thing. Having others pleased with us is not in our hands. I can do something to please you.
But whether you will be pleased or not, that is in your hands. So if we become too dependent, I have to please this person, then that wanting to please others can become a compulsion. And it can lead to over-dependency.
It can lead to emotional over-dependency. If somebody feels emotionally over-dependent, then what happens? That person just speaks one harsh word or one neglectful action. And for this person it is like a big blow on their heart.
Well, we, each of us is a soul, each of us is an individual in our own right. And we have a right and a responsibility to protect our own hearts and our own lives. No other human being should be given so much authority over our heart.
And we should not become so dependent on them that their small words or small actions have devastating influences on us. Naturally we are in different kinds of relationship with different people and we have certain expectations from them. But we have to also understand that each of us is an individual in our own right.
There are three modes of relationship. There is dependence, independence and interdependence. So each of us, if we are too dependent, then we can’t actually function in proper relationships.
We want to be spiritually dependent on Krishna, spiritually dependent on Vaishnavas. But practically we have to take our initiative, we have to take responsibility. Actually Prabhupada was spiritually dependent on his spiritual master.
But practically the whole Krishna consciousness movement he established single-handedly. He didn’t say that, oh I have to depend on the spiritual master, I’ll depend on my senior God brothers, let them help me, they are not helping me, what can I do? He was ready to do what it took to do his service. So this independence that is there, only people who are independent can become interdependent.
People who are dependent, they cannot actually become interdependent. They may be in a relationship, but they will always be prone to be manipulated in the relationship. Even in a spiritual relationship, the spiritual master is meant to be obeyed.
And the spiritual master’s instructions we follow. At the same time, the spiritual master’s responsibility is also to help the disciple to grow so that they can take their own decisions. Prabhupada said he wanted devotees to be independently thoughtful.
Independently thoughtful means that we should be able to think on our own based on what we have heard from Guru Sadhu Shastra and take natural decisions. People who are in the army or in the jail, in the army in very subordinate positions where always they have some lieutenants or some colonels telling them do this, don’t do this, do this. And in jail, do this, don’t do this, do this.
For those people, when they either come out of the army back to normal life or come out of the jail back to normal life, one major problem is in reintegrating the society is that they have lost the habit of taking decisions. They are always dependent on others. Do this, do this.
And now they don’t have anyone to tell them what to do. They don’t know what to do with their life. So that sort of situation is not a very healthy situation to be in.
So if somebody’s actions are hurting us too much, they find that they are being very insensitive, they are being very hurting, then we have to see whether we have become over dependent on them. They have some story going on in their head and we don’t know what the story is. They are not ready to reveal that story to us.
We are doing our part to please them. But if it’s not working, then pleasing others can be a healthy habit to have in relationship. But it can also become unhealthy.
We can have the disease to please. Disease to please means, I want everyone to be happy with me. Wanting everyone to be happy with us is the easiest way to be unhappy with ourselves.
That’s how it unfortunately works. We are finite beings. Wanting everyone to be happy with us is the easiest way to be unhappy with ourselves.
Because whatever we do, there are some people who will be unhappy with us. If we practise spiritual life, materialistic people will be unhappy with us. If we become materialistic people, spiritual devotees will be unhappy with us.
Even in bhakti, there are some devotees who want to do one service, other devotees want to do another service. If we start doing one service, other devotees say, no, you should be doing this service. Do you know the story of that father and the son and the horse? Most of you know that story, isn’t it? So the father and the son had a horse with them.
And both of them, they had purchased a new horse. Both of them were riding on it. And passes by said, how cruel are they? You know, probably they are people from Petta.
It’s cruel to do animal, double load on this animal. So then they said, oh! Father said, son, you get down. And son started walking.
And they said, oh, come on. He says, what has happened to parental love for children? The father is riding comfortably, making his small son ride, walk along the foot. Son said, you climb up, I’ll get down.
And then they started walking along. And people said, what is this, you know? The son is young and energetic. The father is aged.
Why is he making his father walk? Doesn’t he love his father? And then the father said, son, you also get down. And they were walking and the horse was walking. He says, what foolish people! What is the use of having a horse if you don’t ride it? So no matter what we do in life, some people will be displeased with us.
So we don’t want to intentionally displease people. But at the same time, our life’s purpose is not simply to please people. Our life’s purpose is to live according to certain principles.
For us, we are practising spiritual life. We want to live so that we can serve Krishna, purify ourselves and ultimately grow towards Krishna. And we want to be in a community where others can also go towards Krishna.
We can go towards Krishna with others. But sometimes it may just not be possible to please some people. So at that time, we just have to let go.
This person, there are some people with whom developing relationships is a project that we may have to leave for a future lifetime. This doesn’t mean that we become averse to them. It’s just that we don’t have to have an agenda against them.
But it’s just that we have limited time, limited energy. And we have to focus on doing the things that are important for us. So if some people are insensitive, just keep a distance from them.
Often insensitive people will hurt us to the extent we want to be close to them. If we just decide, I can’t expect much from this person. Whatever be the reason.
Again, it’s important that we don’t judge or condemn them. We don’t know what is the story going on in their head. But we just say, I can’t expect much from this person.
Then that itself may help us to decrease the hurt that may happen in the relationship. So they may be insensitive simply because, not because of us, but because something which they have associated with us. Now, of course, we may say that I need that, but I need some loving relationship.
I need some loving reciprocation. I need some support. Yes, we need the support.
And we need to find out how to get the support. One definition of maturity. One definition of maturity is to understand that no one is obliged to fulfil our needs.
Maturity means to understand that no one is obliged to fulfil our needs. A small child is there. A baby is there.
The baby starts crying. And the baby expects the world to come and feed her. My need is the world’s responsibility to fulfil.
But when we grow up, the baby may be hungry and the baby may cry. If we are adult and we start crying because we are hungry. Well, maybe somebody will come and help.
Somebody will not come and help. We have to know that hunger is my need and that doesn’t mean it will not be fulfilled. But getting it fulfilled is my responsibility.
No one is obliged to fulfil my needs. If they fulfil it, it’s good. It’s a part of the relationship.
But it’s not their obligation. So in that sense, it’s not that our need will not be fulfilled. But we have to find out where it will be fulfilled.
Some people may just not be equipped, psychophysically equipped to fulfil a particular need. Some people may just need someone to talk with. I have this issue.
I just want to talk with. Some people may be on the mode of fix it. What is the problem? I’ll solve the problem.
No, there’s a problem. I don’t want to talk. I don’t have time to talk with you.
Tell me what is the problem. I’ll give you the solution. But for some people, the solution is just hear me.
Just hear me, understand me. But for some people, I am helping you. You tell me the problem.
I’ll tell you the solution. So what has happened? For one person, the way of expressing their affection is You tell me a problem. I’ll solve the problem for you.
I’ll do the practical thing for you. For the other person, they say, you sit here. I want to talk with you.
But some people are just not in that mood. They just run. Running around and doing, they’ll do hundred things.
But sit and talk. When I joined the temple, at that time one senior devotee told me that if you have any practical issues to deal with, come to me. If you need someone to talk with you, never come to me.
Go to that person. So he told me clearly that in the beginning. So he said that I don’t sit and talk with people.
So now once, I was a little taken aback by that bluntness initially. But I appreciated that. There are some devotees, some people, they just love to talk.
They discuss different issues from different perspectives, get some understanding. But some people, they feel that talking is a waste of time. Do something.
Why are you talking so much? But different people have different needs. So getting our need fulfilled is our responsibility. But no one is obliged to fulfil our need.
And understanding this is maturity. So here I’m talking about a second concept. First is that people might have a particular story going on in their mind because of which they may be insensitive to us.
The other is, people may be just made up slightly different from us. Their psychophysical, their body-mind makeup may be such that they may not be suited to fulfil our needs. So at that time, rather than thinking, Oh, nobody cares for me, nobody loves me, nobody values me.
Instead of that, we focus on, okay, who will value what I’m doing? Who is interested in catering to my need? So I had, or I still have, quite an intellectual nature. So the first book I read, a small book, maybe 70-80 pages book, and after that I came to the temple and I had 8 pages of questions written down. And I was asking this question to this person, this question to this person.
And it was amazing, devotees were very patient and answered the questions. But after some time, I found that some devotees, if you ask them questions, chant Hare Krishna, all questions will be answered. And initially I was taken aback, I’m already chanting but answers are not coming.
Then I realised that I can’t ask these questions to these people. There are some devotees who are analytical, intellectual, and they love, oh, this is a clever question. Somebody, some other devotee is saying, why do you ask so many questions? Can’t you just practise bhakti? For me, actually, practising bhakti is using my intelligence in Krishna’s service.
And using intelligence means, okay, I try to understand concepts, answer questions, analyse, ask questions, get answers. That’s the way I practise bhakti. Somebody else may practise in a different way.
So, if I have an intellectual need, I have a need to get my questions answered, then it is not that other devotees are obliged to answer my questions. Yes, there will be devotees who will answer my questions. Bhaktivinoda Thakur says, even in devotee association, we need like-minded association.
Krupalu Swami says, that means those who are like-minded, those who have the same way of thinking as us. If my interest is in studying scriptures, and somebody’s interest is primarily in distributing books, then I sit and ask, why does this verse come after this verse? They are thinking, why should I go from this city to this city to distribute books? They just don’t connect only. People are at different levels.
So, when that happens, we have to be, we have to recognise that if I have a particular way of thinking, if I have a particular set of needs, getting it fulfilled is my responsibility. So, it’s not that the other person is being insensitive. It’s just that they are not made like that.
So, we may be thinking that they are insensitive, but they are not equipped, they are not made up in a way to fulfil our needs. The universe is reciprocal to us. That means if we give affection, we give love, we give respect, we will get affection, love and respect back.
Just that we may not get it from the same channels. We may offer a lot of affection, love and respect to one person. We may just want a little bit of kindness from that person.
But we do sometimes hundred things for one person, and we expect one word of appreciation. And they have only words of criticism why we have not done the 101st thing. So, when that happens, we just understand that, yes, I am offering this to this person.
Now, we will also see that there are some other people in our lives. We just spend a little time with them and they are so kind to us. They respect us so much.
They are so loving with us. So, if we give affection and love, we will get affection and love. But it’s not necessarily we will get from the same channels.
So, we have to find out if it’s my need, how can I get it fulfilled. I may have to serve with a particular devotee, but that devotee may facilitate my service, but that devotee may not be so tuned into the emotional side of things. Maybe somebody else is tuned in and they will give me a proper perspective, they help me to understand things and we move forwards in our life.
Another thing is that, as I said, in continuing this theme itself, that some people are not made up in a particular way. There is a difference between being insensitive and being desensitised. Some people just don’t have some sensibility.
So, like if I want to talk with someone and I pat on their shoulder, they don’t turn around on me. I pat more. And still they don’t turn around.
Then I pat more. They are not turning around. And then they just pull them around.
Hey, what happened? And they act as if they didn’t know. What are you doing? I said, I was tapping you. And they come to know that they have got some wound or some issue because of which their skin has become desensitised on the shoulder.
They didn’t feel the touch of it. So, they were not being rude, they were not being insensitive, they were just desensitised. Insensitive means not caring for others’ feelings.
Desensitised means not being able to feel anything. And the skin is desensitised sometimes. So, some people are desensitised about certain things.
For example, some people may be very, very sensitised to cleanliness. They want to keep everything spick and span. They come into a room and they will immediately look at it and clean things up.
Some people, they come in and it appears as if they bring a storm with them. Within three minutes, the room that was cleaned is completely a mess. And say, it’s not that, and you go, why is this room so unclean? Oh, is it unclean? I didn’t notice it.
Now, they are not being infuriating, they are just like that. Maybe an easier example to understand is, say some people are tone deaf to music. So, suppose some tone deaf person comes and in the kirtan they pick up a kartal.
And they are playing the kartal. And when they are playing the kartal, they are thinking they are glorifying Krishna and they are in ecstasy. But they are doing it all out of tune and everybody around them is in agony.
What are you doing? So, here, that person is not doing that to annoy others. They are just desensitised. I am a writer, so I try to be very particular about words.
I try to spell words properly. So, whenever I come to any place, more than the pictures that are there, the decorations that are there, my eyes go to the text. And any text that I see, I proofread it.
It’s almost an instinct within us. And especially Indians, and especially Indians in India, they treat English very functionally. That means, as long as you get the message across, it doesn’t matter even if you massacre the language.
So, many times, the notices are so messed up. And if I tell some devotee, there is a spelling mistake over here. Everybody understands.
Why don’t you understand? So, it’s not that they are insensitive. They are just desensitised. Everybody understands.
What is the problem? So, now I realise that there are some people who just love it. Sometimes there are some devotees who also love English. We just make jokes about all the spelling messes that we have seen.
One time a devotee came to me after class with a big smile on his face. He said, your class was terrible. I said, what? And he had a broad smile on his face.
Then I realised that he wanted to say terrific. So, basically, we all have to find out that some people, we have to recognise that this person may be doing like this, not because they want to annoy me, they want to irritate me. It’s just that there is a strike in them.
Today, in today’s language, people ascribe all behaviour to genes. It’s not correct. Our behaviour doesn’t come from our genes.
It comes from our mind and impressions over there. But the way they put it is, some people just don’t have, say, some cleanliness gene within them. They don’t get it.
I have to keep things clean. If they notice it, they will keep it clean. But they just don’t notice it also.
So, at that time, rather than thinking that they are doing this to irritate me, we just have to understand that they are desensitised about this. And maybe we have to divide the labour and I do something, they do something. Maybe I take care of cleanliness, they take care of something else.
So, this is how, by understanding in various ways, why people may be behaving like that, we can become, we can increase the thickness of our skin. Either by understanding they have some story going on in their head, in which they are putting us in some category, or they are just not made up to fulfil our needs. And getting our needs fulfilled is our responsibility.
Or some people are just desensitised. And at that time, we stop expecting it from them and we take care. If that is our need, we take care of it.
And we don’t demand it or expect it from them. Having said this, now, if we consider I expect something from someone, that person is not doing it. That person is doing rather the opposite of it.
And I am feeling hurt by it. And that person is doing something which I find very difficult to tolerate, which I find very difficult to live with. So, at that time, especially if somebody is passing judgemental comments about me, if somebody is passing rumours about me which are not even true, then what can we do? Broadly speaking, we have three alternatives.
One is, sometimes if some people are just known to speak negatively about others, then the devotee community or the community around us also knows, this person is a big gossip. Sometimes they say, this person has a motor mouth. Motor mouth means, their mouth is like a motor which just keeps emitting sound vibrations.
And people also don’t take it seriously. And what happens with such people, the more seriously we take their words, not seriously in the way we accept that, but even we try to counter it. How dare you say like this about me? No, no, no, this is like this, this is like this.
See, sometimes some people get a sense of kick in arguing, proving their point. So, if in general they are known to be critical, they are known to label people, and then nobody takes them seriously. It’s said, I think George Bernard Shaw said that, I have learned long ago not to enter into a wrestling match with a swine.
He says, why? Because you get dirty and the swine enjoys the fight. So, sometimes if we just keep doing our service, just keep being the way we are, our actions will speak louder than our words. And sometimes the more we try to refute someone, counter someone, simply they become more and more vociferous.
They are just itching for a fight. And if we don’t give a fight, they will just bandage, they will shout, they will scream, and they will find somebody else to fight afterwards. Just move on in life.
So, in some cases, some people’s harsh words, we just neglect them and move on. Of course, sometimes it may be that they may not be like that, but they have got some conceptions. So then, if it’s possible, we just talk with them.
And a lot of issues can be resolved if we talk just calmly. Rather than saying, why are you spreading rumours about me? Rather than making a judgement about what they are saying, I would like to understand your take on this issue. And I would like to explain that.
Generally, one of the greatest human needs is the need to feel understood. So, if somebody is doing a particular thing, and then we get so angry, why are you doing like this? But instead of questioning them, we just try to understand them. We don’t have to agree with their understanding.
Many times, conflicts can be resolved if we just hear people and just show them that I understood. Okay, I did that, and you thought that I was doing it because of this. I understood now why you spoke like that.
Then you tell that actually I did it because of this. So, especially people who are not known to be just habitually critical, if they are being harsh with us, then if we just give them an understanding ear, not just hear them, but also by reflecting our understanding of their understanding, we show them that we have understood them. And that itself makes them feel pacified.
It can actually resolve the issues to a large extent. So, that’s the second possibility. Third possibility is that somebody has some harsh words to speak with us.
So, somebody is speaking harsh words to us, and we try to clarify with them, but they are just not ready to understand. They stick to their opinion. Some people are just like that, that whatever we speak, from that they will take the one point which reinforces their idea.
It is said about, public speakers are told that normally when you speak, people get at the most 20% of your talk. 20% is generous. But people get 20% of the talk, but which 20% who gets, only God knows that.
So, sometimes we may speak something, and they may just catch on to one thing, which reinforces their idea about us. So, if we try to clarify, we try to connect, try to communicate, but it doesn’t work, then we might just want to clarify with some senior devotees. This person is saying like this about me, this is what the actual reality is, and we leave it at that.
We don’t have to tell the whole world about it. But sometimes, so basically, I said sometimes we just tolerate, sometimes we just neglect people who are criticising, sometimes we clarify with them, and sometimes we clarify with others. But in general, if we just go on with our life, the best way to deal with, I will conclude with this point, the best way to deal with insensitive people is to have some strong purpose in our life.
If we have something important to do, then that important thing to do itself gives us, it gives us a direction, it gives us absorption, and by that we can tolerate many things. If I have an important exam, and then I am studying, and somebody is making some noise, then I will tell them please be silent. If they are not silent, then I will just find some earplugs, put something in my ear, then I will continue working.
But if that exam is long time away, and I am studying, then I will tell them to be silent. And they are not silent. Why are you not silent? And they say, okay, okay, I will be silent.
Again they are not silent. And then, even when we are reading, in our mind we are cursing them, you know, why don’t you listen to me? Why are you infuriating me like this? Why are you irritating me like this? So what happens, even if we are not talking with them, we are actually mentally yelling at them. We are mentally yelling at them, and our time and energy is going in that.
So some people will just, people are people, and the nature of interactions is that some people will hurt us, some people will just not get us, and some people will want to get us. Want to get us, not understand us, but want to target us. But what we need to do is, we need to have a strong purpose in our life.
So our purpose means that ultimately our purpose is to serve Krishna, to love Krishna, to attain Krishna. That is the ultimate purpose. Along with that, we also need some intermediate purposes, some immediate purposes.
Okay, what do I want to do in my life? I want to develop love for Krishna. That’s good, that’s very long term. What about now? Okay, you know, I have to cook for the deities, I have to distribute these books, I have to read this, I have to give this Bhakti Shastra exam, I have to do this.
So set some goals for ourselves. And by that, our consciousness gets a purpose to be absorbed in. So then once you get that purpose to be absorbed in, then small things fall apart.
If I am sitting on a chair, just so that I can relax, I don’t have anything to do. Then how comfortable the chair is, is a big matter. But if I am sitting on a chair to do some work, as long as I can do my work, even if the chair is not very comfortable, it doesn’t matter.
Of course, if there is a comfortable chair, that’s best. We can work better also. But what I am saying is, when we have some big thing to be conscious of, then we don’t let small things occupy our consciousness.
But if we don’t have any big thing to be conscious of, then that small thing comes into our consciousness and then it becomes a big thing. It completely occupies our consciousness. So there will always be people in our lives who will hurt us, who will be insensitive to us, who will annoy us.
So we have to define ourselves in terms of our relationship with Krishna, not our relationship with others. What does it mean? That means I am first and foremost a soul who is a servant of Krishna. And my purpose is to serve Krishna.
Secondarily, I may be the husband of someone, I may be the wife of someone, I may be the brother of someone, I may be the sister of someone, I may be the mother of someone, I may be the father of someone, I may be the son of someone, I may be the team member of someone, with someone. All these are secondary relationships. So if we define ourselves in terms of our primary relationship, I am the servant of Krishna and I am meant to serve Krishna.
And all these relationships are ways in which I can serve Krishna. So if that is firm in our mind, then these other relationships, even if there are some upheavals, we will not get so agitated by them. But if one particular relationship becomes our defining identity, if say, I define myself as a parent, my defining identity is I am the parent of this child.
And if that child starts becoming insubordinate, that child starts going on a wrong track, and I start feeling as if my whole life is a failure. It’s not. We have done our part, whatever we could, and that child is a separate soul, a separate person on their own.
And they will have to make their choices. So if we define ourselves as a parent, then if the child starts going on a wrong track, it’s not just the child going wrong that affects us, it’s the sense of personal failure that affects us more. Oh, my life is wasted.
If we define ourselves in terms of say, a spousal relationship, something goes wrong in the relationship, we feel as if my life is a failure. No, we want our relationships to work, but our defining identity is a servant of Krishna. And as a servant of Krishna, we try to do what we can.
Sometimes if we are too invested in a particular relationship, then the small upheavals, small disturbance in that relationship, they stimulate overreactions from us. So when our child starts going on a wrong track, we want to overcontrol them. And the more we try to overcontrol them, the more they rebel.
And the more things become worse. Mark Twain is an American thinker. He said, when I was 15, my father was a fool.
Now I am 25, and I am amazed how much the old guy has learned in the last 10 years. It’s not that the father has learned in the 10 years, rather the son has become mature, and the son has started appreciating what my father said is right. Sometimes people have to go through certain experiences to learn certain things.
So it’s best that we want to be responsible in our relationships, we want to be responsible in our roles, but we don’t have to become obsessed with them. These are all channels by which our consciousness moves towards Krishna. But we don’t reduce the flow of our consciousness to Krishna to only one channel.
If this channel is getting blocked, there are other channels by which my consciousness can move towards Krishna. And that way, we can stay steady. That’s how developing a thick skin ultimately means developing a heart that is focused on Krishna.
Bhakti is not just about chanting Hare Krishna or coming to the temple. These are important. But these activities should lead to the essence of bhakti.
That is, the essence of bhakti is to redefine our identity and redefine our purpose. Bhakti is meant to redefine our identity as a servant of Krishna and redefine our purpose as service to Krishna. And that is there.
Then even if difficulties come, even if people criticise us harshly, we will not be too disturbed by it. We will just move on with our purpose. Shri Prabhupada, when he started preaching in the West, because he was preaching in the West, he had to do certain adjustments.
But some of his god brothers just did not get it. And they criticised. And Prabhupada was quite hurt when his god brothers criticised him.
He just went on with his purpose. And as he kept going on and on, hundreds and hundreds of people started becoming devotees. And they also became serious devotees.
So his god brothers also started appreciating. And then eventually, now everybody recognises Prabhupada as a great saint. As the foremost follower of Sri Jaitanya Mahaprabhu has spread.
Jaitanya Mahaprabhu’s message all over the world. And when he was doing his final days, many of his god brothers came and he had very warm exchanges with them. Even people who had criticised him, he apologised to them, they apologised to him.
And Prabhupada didn’t have to apologise to anyone. He did not do anything wrong. But it was his humility.
So Prabhupada, although people criticised him, he did not let that criticism deter him. Just kept moving on. Because his purpose was to serve Krishna, to serve his spiritual master.
To the extent we situate ourselves in the determination to serve Krishna, to that extent, we will be able to become so focused that others unpalatable dealings will not hurt us so much. Because we will understand, I am meant for something bigger in my life. If this person does like that, okay, it’s one incident, let me move on.
So, if we become fixed in Krishna, then whatever happens in this world, it won’t shake us so much. Shaking will be there. It will recover so much.
Our relationship with Krishna is like the anchor. When a boat is in the ocean, the boat needs to be anchored. But if the boat is not anchored, then whichever wave comes, the boat will get shaken by that wave.
And sometimes we may try to fix the anchor to a wave. The anchor can’t be fixed to a wave. So, if those who fix the anchor to a wave, just get swept away.
So, we cannot fix our anchor to anything other than Krishna. Once you are anchored to Krishna, then the stormy waves will come, they will shake us a little bit, but soon we will recover and we will move forward in our life. So, I will summarise.
I spoke today about how to deal with insensitive people. And I talked on this about… Basically, in any relationship, there is the other person, there is we, and there is the interaction. So, I said that we can’t change other people.
If other people are being insensitive, what we can do is, we can change ourselves or we can change our interaction. So, changing ourselves means, we have to develop a soft heart to connect with Krishna. Also, we need to develop a thick skin.
And how do we develop a thick skin? By expanding our understanding of why others are doing some things. Sometimes people may behave harshly with us, but it is not about us. They have put us into some mental box and they have some negativity about that box.
Like Daksha’s harsh dealing with Sati, were not about Sati. They were about her relationship with… his relationship with Shiva and he was seeing her in terms of that relationship. So, similarly, we don’t know, when people are interacting with us, what mental box they have put us in.
So, we can try to communicate and clarify, but if they are not understanding, then just keep a distance. Knowledge in the mode of ignorance means, that people see one thing and make that into everything. Just like racism or casteism.
So, similarly, people have that knowledge in the mode of ignorance tendency by which they will see one feature and they will reduce us to that whole… reduce our entire personality to that feature. So, second thing I talked is that sometimes people may be… people may act insensitively simply because they are not equipped to fulfil the need that we have. Maturity means to understand that getting our needs fulfilled is no one’s obligation.
It is our responsibility. The baby may cry and get food. We won’t cry and get food.
We have to work to get the food. We have to arrange for it. Our needs will be fulfilled, but we have to find out who will fulfil them.
Rather than demanding that this person should fulfil and getting frustrated, we can look for like-minded association. So, the universe is reciprocal. It is just that the reciprocation may not happen in the same channel on which we are offering contribution.
So, we may offer a lot of respect to some person, but we may not get it from them. We get it from someone else. And thirdly, some people may not… may appear to be insensitive, but they may be just desensitised.
They just don’t have that capacity to perceive. Some people may be musically desensitised. Some people may be linguistically desensitised.
Some people may be hygienically desensitised. Whatever. So, at that time, we just stop expecting that from them and we divide things in such a way that we take care of that which we are sensitised about and they take care of other things.
And then, lastly, I talked about how when we are trying to develop a relationship with Krishna, that relationship has to be our foremost relationship. If we become too… There can be dependence, independence and interdependence. So, if we become too dependent on someone, then their small neglect will seem catastrophic to us.
But we need to be independent in the sense that each of us is a soul who is meant to have an eternal relationship with Krishna and each of us have to chart our path to Krishna. And we want to connect with others because that’s a relational need. But it is independent people who can become interdependent.
And bhakti is not just about doing some chanting or studying scripture, but it is about reconceptualising our identity and purpose. To the extent we make Krishna our… define us as the servants of Krishna and serving Krishna as our primary purpose, then even if people act hurtfully, we will not aggravate that hurt. We will see it in context and move on with our life.
We will learn to keep something small so that we can focus on the big things. And ultimately, Krishna is our anchor. So, if we are not anchored in Krishna, then we will be shaken by the waves of ups and downs in relationships.
But to the extent we are anchored in Krishna, to that extent we will be secure and we will steadily move towards Krishna. Thank you very much. Hare Krishna.
Are there any questions or comments? Yes. Is there any way of changing desensitised people, especially if they could be children or husband and wife? Is there any way we can turn them around? Is there a way to change desensitised people? Children, they keep their house unclean or something and you spend so much effort cleaning. If they are desensitised, how do you get it to them? It’s a challenge.
Generally, laterally communicated knowledge enters with much lesser resistance than vertically communicated knowledge. What that means is, as a parent, if we tell it to them, it’s very difficult. Parents keep telling me so many things.
But laterally means, if in their friend circle, there is some other child who keeps things clean. Maybe they go to their house, they see their room, how things look so nice. So then that has a lot more effect.
So basically, sometimes you just have to find out how to convey a particular point without needing to feel that I have conveyed the point. Sometimes what happens, we have this sense of doership so much, we feel I want to train this person, I want to correct this person. But our purpose is just to convey the message.
When it’s conveyed to someone else, that’s also fine. So I would say that, if we are telling them repeatedly and they are not listening to it, then having that communicated literally through someone, that works much better. Especially in childhood, much more things are caught than taught.
Taught is didactic, do this, don’t do this. Caught is just by observation. And children are observant.
And sometimes, it’s not that they can’t be clean, sometimes they may just want to annoy us. And that’s why they are keeping it unclean. So then, if we can understand, what is their need, what is their psychology a little bit.
If something is important for them, and then, if you do this, you will get this. Not in the sense of carrot and stick kind of thing, but it’s just that reciprocation. Then, they will take care of it.
Basically, the door to personal change is a door that can be opened only from inside. Some doors are like that, you can’t open them from outside. This door is like that.
Somehow or other, we have to create an inspiration within them. Basically, one human being can influence another human being only in three ways. One is, provide knowledge.
Second is, give inspiration, by a certain example. And third is, provide facilities. So, provide knowledge.
If say, we want our children to learn cycling, then we can give knowledge. You know, you ride like this, ride like this, ride like that. And then, what we are going to provide a facility.
If you learn a cycle, but they don’t have a cycle only, how will they learn? Provide a facility for that. And third is, give inspiration. You ride a cycle, and say how much fun it is.
You know, take them on a cycle, ride sitting there, and say how much fun it is, you can move so fast. Okay, I want to learn this. Similarly, basically, these three things are what we can do to influence others.
So, we can see, what is it that I can do more? Now, maybe we provide them some facility. Okay, even if you want to keep things unclean, just keep all of them in one place over here. Don’t just scatter them everywhere else.
And you can sort it out maybe, maybe once a day or once a, but don’t make the whole thing a mess. Just keep all your mess over here. So, provide them facility to help them.
So, we have to find out, sometimes some people just are slow to get some things. So, if some child is dyslexic, then if they are learning, they are learning slowly, we understand. So, similarly, some people may need some more support.
Again, in today’s world, we say that, we don’t say people are handicapped, they are special needs kids. So, that’s a nuanced way of putting it, which indicates that it’s not that they are bad people or they are wrong. It’s just that they need some more help.
Or sometimes if you just provide some more facility to help them do it, they will be able to do it. Okay, thank you. We should be focused on our relationship with Krishna.
But then, there is also a danger of becoming insensitive while doing that. Somebody may think, I will just serve Krishna, I will serve my guru and then sometimes they become totally insensitive to others. Okay, yeah.
Yes. So, if you say, we should be focused on our relationship with Krishna, can that make us insensitive to others? Yes. Say, suppose, you know, a spiritual master is giving a class and then he calls us.
He says, run towards him. And there are all other devotees sitting and we kick all of them along the way. The spiritual master says, you know, you can’t, you should kick devotees, come gently.
Isn’t it? So, yes, we want to serve Krishna, but serving Krishna is not just a particular activity. It’s a whole way of life. So, when I say we should be focused on serving Krishna, that doesn’t mean that we become neglectful of others.
It just means that we don’t become oversensitive to others. It is, say, if, if, say, if you are going to give a class. And obviously, you have to see whether people are understanding or not.
People ask, if you are asking questions, try to answer the questions properly. Make sure that we are well prepared, we are present nicely. So, our, when our purpose is to serve Krishna, serving Krishna includes a lot of things.
Say, if we come to a temple, okay, to either give a class or to attend a class, we have a clear purpose. We focus on that. When we come, okay, just let me go to the temple and then we start chit-chatting, and we hear this, and we hear that, and you know, this person did this.
In temple also, gossip can happen. So, basically, being purposeful doesn’t mean being insensitive. It just means being focused on important things.
So, if our service, sometimes some service require a certain amount of connection with people, and we do that. And sometimes, some services require disconnection from certain things. We also do that.
So, it’s a service, serving Krishna is not just an isolated thing. It’s an integrated thing. But when I am talking about serving Krishna and focussing, that simply means that we don’t let ourselves get distracted by any passing stray things that anybody may be doing.
Okay. Yes, Pramod. Swamiji, you mentioned that if you are independent, if you are dependent, then you manage it.
They are trained like that. You don’t see interdependence. Okay, yes.
Good question. So, if people are independent, then just they say like that, they don’t become interdependent. So, is independence good for interdependence? See, independence and interdependence are two separate things.
If we are independent, we can become interdependent. It’s not that we will become. Sometimes some people may just value their independence so much that they just not want to connect with each other.
See, there is, I would say there are two different concepts. There is independence and there is self-centredness. Independence means that I, for fulfilling my needs, I am ready to take responsibility.
I don’t wait and cry asking others to fulfil my needs. So, independence means taking responsibility for fulfilling our needs. Self-centredness means thinking only of our needs and not thinking of anything else at all.
So, there is, so, basically, I read a anecdote about how a particular community of people, how they are self-centred. Now, it’s a stereotype. It’s not true, but it’s that in a village, suddenly a flood, a dam broke down and there is flooding.
This person said, oh, you know, oh, the dam has broken. Oh! Is that good for us or is that bad for us? Our community, that means. They are not thinking, oh, our whole village is in danger.
No. Is the dam breaking good for our community or bad for our community? They are thinking so narrow-minded. So, that is, that kind of thinking is self-centred.
So, I would say that two are very different things. Independence and self-centredness. So, to some extent, people in the world, people in the western world claim to be independent, but to a large extent, they just become very self-centred.
They are very individualistic. We are all individuals, but sometimes individualism can become obsessive, where I care only for myself. You know, people are I-specialists.
So, I-specialists, not E-Y-E-I, but I. So, they are I-specialists. So, that sort of thing becomes, we find it very difficult to develop relationships. So, they just want to use other people for their purposes and then discard them.
What we are talking about independence is not in terms of being obsessively individualistic. It’s just being not demanding or depending on others to fulfil our needs. But then, independent people, they can understand, okay, I want to, this person I want to develop a relationship with, or I have a relationship with, and they have certain needs, I’ll take care of their needs, and they may take care of my needs.
So, independence should not be mistaken with obsessive individualism. Thank you. Yes, go on.
So, you talked about understanding the story of another person. Sometimes we think we’ve actually understood the other person, but we haven’t really understood after. So, how do we actually properly, is it just asking questions or… So, if we want to understand what story is going on in people’s head, how do we do that? It is, yeah, one way is asking questions, one way is trying to, if that person is very important for us, then you can just try to ask questions in non-judgemental way, just try to understand them, or we can spend a little more time with people who know them, by which we can get a more broader perspective of them, not just based on how they interact with us, but in general, it’s very difficult to enter into anyone else’s head.
In everybody’s head, there is a movie going on. And in that movie, they are the heroes. And everyone else is an extra.
Everyone else is an extra. Some extras are more important, some extras are less important. But… to the extent we can understand, to that extent it is good.
So I would say, what are the ways in which we can understand what is going on in some side, someone’s heart or mind or whatever inside us. Either it’s through their words, or through their actions. And it’s not the words and actions that they are speaking with us, it may be words and actions they speak with others.
So based on that, if we can gain some understanding, it is good. But if we can’t, then we just leave it. Sometimes some people may just be going through a phase in their lives where they want to be living in their shell.
And we try to draw them out. The more we try to draw them out of the shell, the more they go inside the shell. Sometimes you want to meet someone and they don’t want to meet us.
You knock on their door and the door is bolted. You knock on their door further, they pull another bolt and lock it in noisily. You knock another time and they put a second door on top of it.
And they are just showing us that they don’t want to talk with you. There is no point in knocking at that time. So, basically, if some people are just not ready to reciprocate, then it is going to be very, very difficult to understand.
There is a joke where one person went to God and he pleased God very much and God asked, what do you want? He said, you know, I want to build an expressway from New York to London. He said, that is very difficult. He said, I want to understand the mind of my partner.
God said, how many lanes do you want on your expressway? So, it is not so easy to understand each other. And especially if people don’t want to be understood. People are living in a shell.
Maybe they have a bad experience in the past because when they shared their heart with someone and the other person used it against them. So, then we may just have to give them some time. And after they get some time, they start to see, observing us, they trust us, then maybe they will open up to us.
So, do our habits come from our genes? See, genes have been made into the biological substitute for God in today’s world in many ways. So, genes do determine certain things. But what genes determine is certain, primarily certain structural patterns within us.
Say, the pigment colour, the size of the eyes, the facial structure. What are genes? Genes are basically, we could say, in computer language, they are certain programmed codes. And our body grows as per that programming.
But we are not determined just by those codes. There is a concept, I have talked about this in my reincarnation book, that there are some twins who are monozygotic. Normally, when twins take birth, it is like two sperms enter into it and they unite with two eggs.
But sometimes, one sperm unites with one egg and then that splits into two. So, when that happens, all twins are genetically similar. But here the twins are genetically identical.
And even such genetically identical twins, they are not identical in their behaviour. They have their own personalities. Like last year, when I had come to London, I was giving a class to the Western Outreach Programme.
And there I spoke this point and then one person raised his hand and said, I have a genetically identical twin. And till now, I couldn’t understand why we are so different. He said, I am introvert, he is extrovert.
He just loves art. I don’t like art at all. I love music.
He doesn’t have a sense for music. So, he said, we are so different. So, basically, genes determine certain aspects of us, but they don’t determine our entire behaviour.
Even the impressions that come from our past, they are not in the genes. The genes are what we get from our parents. Now, it could be that sometimes parents and children have not just physical similarities, they can also have behavioural similarities.
But most often, those behavioural similarities come from the upbringing. Also, the behavioural similarities can come because the soul of a particular disposition will be sent sent as a child to parents of similar dispositions. So, for example, if a brahmana and a brahmani unite, then a soul who is of a brahminical consciousness will be sent to their womb.
And that’s how a child may even behaviourally be similar to the parents. But beyond that, actually speaking, the soul is individual and the soul always has free will. So, the impressions from the past life are stored in the mind.
So, genes may create certain structural features within us and maybe some minor behavioural influences might be there. But major behaviour is shaped by our impressions in the past. Basically, there are five factors that determine our behaviour.
I have a whole seminar on this. One is our past karma, the impressions that are there in the mind. Second is our upbringing.
Third is our association. Fourth is our free will. And fifth is Krishna’s grace.
So, these three things, past impressions, upbringing and association, these three push us to act in particular ways. But they don’t force us. By our free will, we can push back.
And by Krishna’s mercy, two things happen. The capacity of our free will to push back increases and the force with which these other impressions they push us, that decreases. And that’s how we become positively transformed by Krishna’s mercy.
Thank you. So, yes. 400,000 different types of the Bhagavad Gita says.
Okay, yeah. So, the 400,000 types of human beings that are talked about, what does it refer to? It’s interesting. It comes in the Padma Purana.
And it’s clear that there is no other species in which other beings belong. Say, for example, in the Vedic universe, we understand there are devatas living, there are yakshas, there are so many other beings living. So, obviously, devatas are not going to come among the insects or the birds or the animals.
So, this 4 million human beings or 400,000 human beings, that basically refers to souls who have human-like consciousness. That means consciousness which is capable of spiritual enquiry, you could say. So, now it may be associated with 4 million kinds of species and there may be that many, 400,000 species.
It may be at, there may be some on earth, some on other planets, some on other levels of existence. Or it could also refer to that, it’s just a level of consciousness. And it could be that within the same species, people on earth itself may actually be belonging to, although they are human beings broadly speaking, but their level of consciousness may be very different.
That’s how they may be said to be different. So, overall, the species classification, although it is in a broad biological category, like aquatics or birds or animals, but more specifically, if we go, this categorisation is given in the context of the soul’s evolution. So, that categorisation is based on levels of, primary is talking about the evolution of consciousness.
That categorisation is based on the levels of consciousness. Thank you. Yes.
Okay. You had a question? Someone here? Last question. Yes, sir.
Please. What is like a pretty good general guideline of how we can help devotees or people who are going through a relationship problem, how we can assist them in the course of our own preaching to come across many such places? So, any general guidelines you’d like to give us, general advice, how we can assist them? Yeah. If people are going through relationship crisis, how do we help them? Broadly speaking, in every relationship, there are only three things which are in our control.
I gave a whole series of seminars on spiritualising our relationships. There I talked about, say, there is A and B. Now, B is doing something which is hurting A. But what can A do? We can’t change the other person’s behaviour. What we can do is change our understanding of that relationship’s place in our life.
As I said, if that relationship is the sole relationship in my life, that is a defining relationship, then I will overreact. So, if I understand this relationship is important, but this relationship doesn’t define me. I am a person in my own right separate from this.
So, we can understand how we see that person and their role in our life, how we see our role in that relationship, and how we contribute to that relationship. These are the only three things which can change. How we see the other person, how we see ourselves in that relationship.
So, if I am thinking that I am meant to be this person’s guide, this person is meant to obey me, but they are not doing that, then maybe I have to change this person not accepting me in this role, maybe I just have to change my role over here. And how we contribute in that relationship. So, if we work at these three things, and many times relationship conflicts come not because the two people are bad, but just because they have had a history of unmet expectations creating a mountain of frustration.
Now, each expectation that we have in a relationship when it is unmet, it creates some hurt, it creates some irritation, it creates some frustration. And as that keeps growing, growing, growing, eventually it becomes like a wall between two people. There is an American comedian, he said that, he is talking about mimicking a couple, he said that, you know, we enter and leave from our house in different rooms, we travel in different cars, we eat at different tables, we watch different TVs, we sleep in different rooms, we are doing everything possible to keep our marriage together.
That means the wall has become so big that all that they can do is, they cannot repair the wall, at least keep that wall inside the walls of the house. That’s all that they are doing. But, sir, basically why are these walls created? The walls are created because unmet frustrations, unmet expectations have created frustrations.
And those frustrations have accumulated. So, if the two people are open to understanding what the expectations of the other person are and are ready to modify themselves to meet those expectations, then it is possible to break down the wall. But in general, you cannot break down the wall, only one person can’t break down the wall.
One person can begin the process of breaking down the wall and they can see that how does the other person reciprocate. Now, if we are breaking down the wall, other person is building the wall. Break it down, other person build.
They may just be responding based on the way they think we are going to act. But if this person stays patient, break down the wall means what? Try to understand what the other person’s expectations are and try to meet them. Each expectation that is met that will bring the wall down lower.
Each expectation that is met. If the expectation will be spoken, it will be unspoken. But as the expectation is met, the wall comes down.
But if that other person is interested in reconciliation, then what happens? They will also start breaking the wall down. I gave a class in America, in Portland on can we love someone whom we hate? What that meant, the theme of the class was love often we see in terms of only emotion. I feel love for that person.
Or, you don’t love me. Here what it means is love is an expectation. And that expectation is not being fulfilled.
But love is also an action. It’s an intention and an action. When you say people say I fall in love.
What that means is that their love is referring to attraction. So basically love can mean these five different things. You can refer to emotion, you can refer to attraction, you can refer to expectation, it can refer to intention, it can refer to action.
So, if love is an expectation, other person doesn’t love me, then what can I do? I can choose as an intention and as an action. I will act in a loving way. I will try to meet their expectations.
And if I keep doing that, and I may decide I want this relationship to improve and I will give my best best attempt to it. I may decide in the next one year I will try as much as possible to meet the other person’s expectations. And sometimes it is just good to ask that I want to improve this relationship.
If there is something which you expect me to do, what would you want? What is the most important thing you would like me to do? I can ask them two, three things. What would you like me to do? And then try to do them diligently. The other person sees and reciprocates.
And in general, when there is hurt in close relationships, even if two people are very different, people say that we are just incompatible. Some people can be incompatible, very wildly incompatible. More often, it is not that people are intrinsically incompatible.
It is rather they have just had so many unmet expectations that they just feel that we are not compatible. But if they consciously make an effort to meet expectations, then gradually more and more areas of compatibility can be found. So you may decide that maybe for one year, I am going to sincerely try to meet these expectations.
And then, over a period of time, the other person may say that okay, the other person is saying this, it is not reciprocating. So generally, it is very difficult in every relationship there is expectation and there is contribution. We want the other person to do something and we have to do something.
And if we are contributing, that means contribution means we are meeting the other person’s expectation. But the other person is not contributing anything to meet our expectation. Then it becomes very difficult to continue.
That is where having Krishna in the picture comes in very valuably. That means that I am acting in this relationship not just to please this person. I am acting in this relationship to please Krishna.
Now, is it that Krishna will be pleased if I just let myself be abused or neglected or rejected? No. That is not the point. Sometimes we may also have to take a stand.
But, I will act in this relationship not simply based on how that person is acting, but based on what will best please Krishna in this situation. I was in Melbourne, we had a question-answer session. And one day, we had written questions being asked.
One devotee asked a question that, you know, there is one devotee with whom I am serving and that devotee has told me that he doesn’t like me. So, when he has told me like this, what can I do? And if that devotee is here, what would you like to tell him? So, I told that the difference between the relationship between devotees and the relationship between non-devotees. Or a relationship of a devotee with others and a non-devotee with others is that for a devotee, there is always a third person, Krishna, involved in the relationship.
And our action, that is not just on how they are acting, but on how we can act to best please Krishna. Suppose there is an attendant in a cloth shop and some customer comes in. Normally, these attendants, they can make a sale, they get some commission.
So, they all want to make sales. Whenever a customer comes in, they want to approach the customer. But suppose some customer is extremely demanding, they will look at 100 pairs of clothes and they will not take anything.
And they keep doing it repeatedly. Then what happens? People understand, the attendants understand this person is a difficult person. So, normally when a customer comes in, everybody wants to go to the customer.
When this customer comes in, everybody goes away. It is said that some people bring happiness wherever they go. And some people bring happiness whenever they go.
So, now in this situation, say there is an attendant who is attending to such a person. Now this person, this is wrong with this, this is wrong with this, this is wrong with this. And they look at 100 clothes and just reject it all.
Now it is natural this attendant may feel a little irritated. But, that attendant thinks that there is a camera over here and my boss is watching. And my salary and my job comes primarily from the boss, not from this customer.
And no matter how rude that customer is, still the attendant stays polite, stays courteous, behaves nicely. And then, the customer doesn’t make this, the customer doesn’t buy the product. The customer goes away in a half.
But the boss sees. And the boss says, you are a cool guy. You know how to deal with difficult people.
And despite not making that sale, the boss may promote it. You look after this whole floor and you train other people how to deal with difficult people. You do that.
So, the success for the attendant is twofold. One is making the sale, second is pleasing the boss. So, now sometimes this may just not work.
But that can always work. Similarly for us, when we are interacting with others, Krishna is there in our hearts. He is like the boss.
He is watching. And if we act to please Krishna, then even if that person doesn’t behave well, just by our consistent good behaviour, that person’s heart may change. And even if that person doesn’t change and eventually we decide, I tried enough.
This relationship is not working. We have to move on in my life. But still what will happen? By our efforts, we will have pleased Krishna.
And we will have grown spiritually. We will have grown in our tolerance. We have grown in our sensitivity.
Grown in our service attitude. So, basically trying to meet others’ expectations by understanding them. Sometimes we may say, I am doing so much for this person.
But that’s not what they want. They want something else. So, we have to understand what their expectations are.
And take care of that. So, if we do that, it’s a very good way to to at least create a momentum towards resolving the relationship conflict. So, thank you very much.
Shila Prabhupada ki Gaur Bhakta Vrinda ki Nithaya Gaur Premanande So, let us thank Chaitanya Charan Prabhu for his amazing insights and, you know, such deep knowledge which can be practically applied. You know, he has given us so many tools. And yes, he had made us laugh throughout the… It wasn’t a boring… He made it so interesting.
So, let us thank him by loudly chanting Hari Ho! Hari Ho! Hari Ho! So, Chaitanya Charan Prabhu will also be giving class continuing with the Nourishing the Bhakti Lata Beej series