Spiritualizing our relationships 4 – Changing our input in relationships

[Seminar at Alachua, Florida, USA]

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so the last session which we will be talking about how much how can we change our input in our relationship with others by which we can have them sorry is better now Hare Krishna is it better audible okay okay so we will move to the last part of our session now where we will talk about how we can or how much we can change our input in the relationship so we talked about the modes effect how we perceive process and pursue so I talked about perceive and process how we look at the other person and how we conceive our role in the relationship and thereafter how do we act what can we do so that the relationship can move forward in a healthy way so I will skip a couple of slides right now so as I mentioned here our mind determines our language that means that each one of us for us certain things are important certain things are not important so I may do something which in which I am expressing my concern care for somebody else but for that person that is not very important they need something else so love needs to be not just offered but offered in a way that it is felt as love for all of us our mind is a storyteller and it tells stories in different ways at different times so in my early years in Krishna Bhakti once we all would hear classes of senior devotees and then prepare our own classes which would be just based on mostly their classes repeated according to our understanding so one of my friends he gave a very good festival class and after the class I asked it was a great class whose class was it or on whose class was it based so he felt very insulted what do you mean I can’t prepare my own class you are asking on whose class was it based it was my own class so I had no intention to offend him in that way so if say we tell somebody to give a class and we can use these notes to give the class now some people they may feel they may feel very much helped you know I have to prepare for a class I don’t know what I will speak it’s good you have given me some notes I will speak based on this they will feel helped but somebody else may feel don’t you trust me to give a class don’t you think I have enough ability why are you giving me notes so the same activity which we do for one person giving notes to give a class is seen as assistance and for other person giving notes for giving a class is seen as a questioning of ability so the person’s intention may not be like that at all but it may come out like that so why because different people have different natures so based on their particular frame of the mind they will see things differently so say there is a programme when somebody offers you know I will cook something I will cook and drink something most people will say it’s good you know I am cooking something you cook something and get it but somebody else may say you think I can’t cook what do you mean I can arrange for it so different people’s minds work in different ways so we can’t assume that other people’s minds work the same way that it does ours so say as a writer somebody tells me could improve this writing skill like this I sometimes feel very I am trying to learn how can I improve it by writing but for somebody else you think I can’t write that same correction is given but for somebody it may be seen as a help somebody it may see again as it may become discouragement you think I can’t write the person is in the mood of I can’t write only actually this person is correcting me that person is correcting me better I stop writing so when we want to give an input in the relationship what is important is not just that we do the right thing but also that we do the right thing in the right way Krishna talks about interacting with others even to help them grow in Krishna Bhakti says na buddhi bhedam janayet ajnanam karmasamjnanam joshet sarvakarman vidvanyukta samachar 3.26 says don’t disturb the minds of ignorant people but don’t tell them in such a way that they can grow so it’s interesting that Prabhupada uses the word don’t disturb the minds the Sanskrit is na buddhi bhedam janayet buddhi is intelligence so bhedam means to create disruptions or dissensions so don’t disrupt the intelligence of people now what happens is for most people once their mind forms a particular conception then they use their intelligence to justify that conception so then when somebody criticises them or corrects them they just find it very unbearable so the purpose should be people should be elevated when we are interacting with someone if somebody has done something wrong and we may need to correct but as much as possible at the end of the interaction the person should feel encouraged not condemned not rejected so when we are giving our input sometimes we may offer a lot of positive support also but if that is not what the person needs or that is not what the person values then it will not be seen as positive support so so find the fault of fault finding sometimes we may think that this person is doing something wrong I want this to be corrected so earlier I talked about being in the we are all a team together and in a team you can bowl like this or you can bat like this this is good but if there is constant criticism then two people are working together in a team and one person wants the other person also to do better but when there is constant criticism the other person starts thinking are we the same team together are we working for the same purpose and then so in a team people may always disagree because we are all individuals I have this way of doing this you have that way of doing it the disagreement is natural but if the if say one team player starts doubting the other player is this player really playing for the team at all or sometimes there is match fixing there is corruption in sports so then if there is a suspicion about the basic character of a player itself then they can never perform as a team so when we may criticise or correct you with a good intention but if that person starts feeling that we are not their well wishers then that criticism or correction cannot have much constructive effect so through the overall interaction if we have created a positive impression we care for them, we value them and then within that context some correction comes that will work otherwise even if they are wrong and even if we are right the speaking of the right thing may not have the right effect Krishna says in austerity of speech Anudveg Karam Vakyam Satyam Priyahitam Chaitam Swadhyaya Abhyasinam Chaiyava Vaanmayam Tapauchyate austerity of speech means to speak in a way that is not agitating to others Anudveg Karam Vakyam of course we have to speak the truth speak the truth in a way that benefits others so going further if we want to correct someone and they are doing something wrong and it’s important for us that what they are doing wrong is troubling us a lot so we need to communicate that then it is helpful to separate the behaviour from the person earlier I talked about the modes of passion and ignorance where we just take one attribute of the person and make that as the whole person so that can be with respect to race or caste but that can also be with respect to behaviour somebody may be not punctual somebody not keen somebody may be forgetful and yes that’s one feature of them but that doesn’t mean that whole person is worthless sometimes when we have a problem with a particular behaviour of that person our criticism comes off not as a criticism of that behaviour it comes off as a criticism of that person and if we don’t separate the behaviour from the person as it is hate the sin not the sinner so we hate the wrong doing not the wrong doer so what will happen is when we are trying to communicate earlier I said in the modes of passion and ignorance emotion is not balanced by reason so when we speak for us this person has done something wrong and that has made us so angry so we focus on giving vent to our anger without adequately communicating what is the wrong that has happened so when we it is important that we speak our feelings also but it’s important to separate the fact and the feelings earlier I said our mind tells stories it’s not necessarily wrong it may be true also but there is a fact and there is our feeling about that, our understanding of that our interpretation of that when we mix the two then people feel personally offended by that say somebody was supposed to do something and they forgot to do it you are such irresponsible fool that that just becomes an attack on that person what I said when we separate it when you don’t do this I feel exasperated, I feel irritated, I feel disappointed I feel betrayed because I can’t do this, this, this so the language that we use in the modes of passion it is just our emotion dominates a lot in the mode of goodness we are able to see this is the situation and this is the emotion both need to be communicated but both need to be separated and communicated we all get angry sometimes but the other person needs to understand why we got angry what was the exact situation if we don’t tell that and they just get an assault sometimes it happens to us we just meet someone and that person just starts getting angry with us and for them it will be obvious you know you did this thing wrong but I don’t even know about it so we see in the Ramayana there is a story of Vali and Sugriva so Vali and Sugriva were the best of friends, they were brothers and best of friends but then once they had both gone to fort to fight with a demon and then Vali went into the cave in which the demon had disappeared and he told Sugriva wait outside and Sugriva waited for a long long time Vali didn’t come back and he heard the screaming of the demon but he did not hear the sound of Vali so he thought that Vali had been killed and he covered the cave with a huge boulder and came back after some period of mourning he arranged for the courtier set and then his coronation was arranged for and while it was raining then Vali came back and Vali was furious he thought that Sugriva in order to usurp the throne from me had put the boulder and blocked me and now he is sitting on the throne and he just attacked Sugriva Sugriva tried to clarify, explain but Vali was not ready to listen at all but Vali was not ready to listen so Sugriva had to flee for his life and eventually what happened was that Sugriva just was threatened dispossessed and eventually Ram had to intervene and Vali had to die for his wrongdoing so their best of friends they became mortal enemies it all happened because now if you see from the perspective of Vali and from the perspective of Sugriva we all are finite beings so we can never have complete information about everything so we have certain information and based on that we arrive at certain inference so for Sugriva he was outside the cave and he heard the screaming of the demon but he didn’t hear Vali’s sound so from that he inferred that Vali had been killed and he thought that if this demon could have killed Vali then he will kill me also and destroy our kingdom also so better let me curb his menace by blocking him in a stone blocking him in a cave so Sugriva’s inference from the information was wrong similarly Vali’s inference, oh the stone is blocked the stone is blocking the cave Sugriva is sitting on the throne that means Sugriva must have done all this to grab power so in a sense both of their inferences were logical but both their inferences were wrong however the difference was that in the case of the inference that Sugriva made, he had no opportunity to seek any clarification, whereas Vali had the opportunity at that time and Sugriva was trying to explain things to him, he just did not hear just jumped to his conclusion and stayed stuck over there it is people do high jumping, sometimes people jump from parachutes from aeroplanes, they jump from mountain tops this is considered dangerous jumping the most dangerous jumping is jumping to conclusions we see some situation and we observe something and just jump to a conclusion so what happened over here was, there was a behaviour which was objectionable from Vali’s side from Sugriva’s side, why was the throne blocked, why was the cave blocked but what Vali did was he conflated the behaviour with the person that you did like this, that means you are a traitor, you acted against me so he did not so his feeling was natural he had gone for the sake of the state, for the sake of virtue to fight against a big demon and his brother who was supposed to be guarding was not there, he said block so his anger, his suspicion his resentment, his irritation was natural but he just let the feelings blind him to the facts so the facts were there but from the facts he had got an inference and that inference was driven by his feelings so if we we cannot wish away our feelings but those feelings may not necessarily be the reliable guides to take us from the facts to the inferences so based on our situation certain feelings will come but if we can separate I am feeling like this because of this not that you are like this so when we do that then we just block the other person because other people have already judged and labelled me what is the use of my trying to communicate so then alienation happens, so our input we have to give our input but if you could separate the behaviour from the person, this was the action and this is what has made me feel like this, so then that other person does not feel threatened or condemned or labelled but we give them a positive understanding where we are coming from and then we see whether they have some reasonable explanation or not so that same point in the mode of goodness in the mode of passion and ignorance we let ourselves be carried away by our feelings so fight or flight, you did this wrong I will show you this bang, bang, bang, bang, I just hit out at the other person or you did this you are a cheater, you are a betrayer I am leaving and nothing to do with you so fight or flight, the emotions carry us away now our emotions are for us as real, we can’t wish them away but then if we channel the emotion properly then that can help us to come to some more clear conclusion that is in the mode of goodness now this is going to be the last part this is a little elaborate I have spoken some of these things earlier in the last seminar if we are in a difficult relationship with someone, that person is repeatedly troubling us then we have broadly three options that is tolerate, mitigate or emigrate say somebody is living in Canada and it’s very cold for them now there are three options it’s cold, this is where my work is, my family is, so I learn to tolerate it if I can’t tolerate it then I have to make sure that I have lots of warm clothes, I have proper heating in my room, in my car wherever I go, I try to mitigate it but if I can’t do that then I have to emigrate I have to go somewhere else so broadly speaking in any difficult situation we are in, we have these three options tolerate, mitigate or emigrate and with respect to relationships also if we are having some difficulties, then what do we do some things we just can’t change them and we can’t change them but it’s livable we can live with it that’s we tolerate it some things, they just we can’t live with them they can’t not be changed, so we have to mitigate them and some things, changing them requires so much effort, that it’s not worth it just end this now, emigrate so I’ll give examples of this and then I will further discuss this so generally speaking if we talk about the material world view versus the spiritual world view in the material world view the focus is on changing of the externals if something doesn’t work, just quit it, just give it up so that’s why we see the materialistic world view of relationships don’t work, then just abandon them so the material approach is change the externals the spiritual approach in the spiritual world view change the internals become more tolerant, become more patient become more thick skinned, so that you can endure it so changing internals is the stress of the spiritual approach changing externals is the stress of the material approach now it’s not necessary that one is right and the other is wrong it’s just that these are the approaches, easier approach if taken to the extreme can become a problem if we focus only on changing the externals then we end up with decreased commitment to any relationship because people just keep changing, changing, there cannot be any sustained relationship, there is lack of fulfilment in relationships and there is the Harvard Medical School which did a survey of these people who were the youths who were the product of the free love generation or the free sex generation and when they were interviewed they all felt very lonely and guilty, they knew that we are using others and others are using us so although their bodies were in contact with many other bodies, their hearts were not touched so essentially when we keep changing externals then there is no opportunity for committed relationships without commitment there cannot be any fulfilment the heart just stays untouched by the relationships so therefore changing externals too much leads to a lack of fulfilment on the other hand if one focusses only on internal change then one may give in to atrocities one may become too apathetic to things that are going wrong, one may just let oneself be subject to abuses so just taking this to an extreme just tolerate, tolerate, tolerate that is also not right, we see in the Bhagavad Gita Krishna tells Arjuna tolerate but the same Bhagavad Gita is also calling Arjuna to fight fight against the Kauravas Krishna doesn’t tell Arjuna the Kauravas are performing austerities, tolerate it no, so tolerance also is important but it is not to be taken as a supreme virtue it can lead to fatalism where we think everything is destined nothing is in my hands, this is my fate and I have to live with it so how much can we tolerate tolerance has to be seen in the light of our purpose say we are going in a metro, in India we call locals so in India because the population is so much the local coach its capacity may be 100 but 400 people are squeezed in it and then people just squeeze touching each other now suppose there we are standing near somebody and that person is constantly pushing us and then we get annoyed and we push back and that person pushes and we push back and we get so caught in pushing each other that our destination comes but we are caught in pushing you know what is the use of that if that person is too pushy you just say ok, you have your space, I will move somewhere else and we tolerate that because our purpose is not that we want a permanent space on that train, our purpose is that we want to get to our destination but suppose that that person starts pushing us so much that they want to push us out of the train itself then we can’t tolerate that we have to take a stand at that time we have to push back, we have to defend ourselves so how much do we tolerate the tolerance has to be seen in the light of our purpose my purpose is to get to the destination and if resisting this is taking so much of my energy that I don’t get to the destination or I get distracted from the destination then resistance is not worth it but if in tolerating I just get so pushed around that I can’t get to my destination again that’s not worth it so our purpose is to grow towards Krishna, our purpose is to practise bhakti and grow in bhakti and for that we have to tolerate so tolerance basically means to keep small things small so that we can focus on big things so to keep small things small so that we can focus on big things so this person is pushing me in the train it’s a small thing let me move aside and a big thing is I want to get to my destination so in our life we will all have difficult people in our vicinity somewhere now we have to see how much is the difficulty that is being caused by that person if overall I am able to practise my bhakti and I am moving forward then I will tolerate it but that person is causing me so much difficulty that I can’t practise my bhakti only then in tolerating that I will not be pursuing my spiritual life, I will actually be blocking my spiritual life or my spiritual growth so tolerance is an important virtue in the light of our purpose of practising bhakti so some scriptural examples of these three alternatives tolerate, mitigate and immigrate so the Pandavas when they were subjected to the various schemes of the Kauravas initially they tolerated when Bhima was poisoned when they were sent in a house which was set on fire Yudhisthira said this is just a family matter don’t aggravate it just let’s keep quiet and we will become more cautious but when Draupadi was dishonoured when the Pandavas were exiled and even after coming back they were not given back their rightful kingdom when Krishna came to seek peace Duryodhana was so that in the same assembly where Draupadi had been dishonoured earlier he tried to dishonour Krishna by arresting him so at that time the Pandavas recognised that this this person is not going to reform there is no sign of reformation there is no sign of repentance also then they cannot tolerate this and they mitigated so they mitigated means they fought a war to ensure that Duryodhana was removed from power and the virtues Pandavas were established in power so mitigation is required at certain times and eventually when Krishna departed from the world the Pandavas said our role was there in this world Krishna has gone, our responsibility is over they enthroned Yudhisthira as the king and they left so in different situations different approaches may work in all situations the Pandavas were devoted to Krishna were practitioners of Dharma but how that Dharma is to be practised will vary according to situations similarly we consider Prabhupada’s life also when Prabhupada came to America he was staying at Stalin Gopala Garhwal and in their house he used to take meat and Prabhupada would keep his bhoga in the same fridge in which their meat was there Prabhupada tolerated that Prabhupada he was in America and the hippies would just eat the food and go away and Prabhupada had to wash their plates he tolerated that because that was what was the situation where he could live and he could share Krishna Bhakti but as I mentioned earlier when somebody, when Mr. N was trying to cheat the devotees and take away the Juhu land, Prabhupada did not tolerate that Prabhupada fought against it vigorously so he mitigated similarly when Prabhupada was in India trying to preach in various ways but people were not being very interested then Prabhupada decided that ok let me go to America so Prabhupada could have said ok people are not coming but I am doing my duty, I am speaking, that’s good enough he could have said that but he also wanted to transform people, he wanted the message to reach receptive ears so he emigrated so through whether tolerating, mitigating or emigrating, his purpose was always to serve Krishna and for the service of Krishna which particular course of action would work best, that will vary according to time and place now all these three approaches can be done with a service attitude and all these three approaches, three strategies or approaches can be done with a negative attitude if I tolerate because I have something more important to do that my focus is on that important thing and this tolerance is ok, but if I do it with a negative attitude that means it’s a grudging tolerance this person is like this I just don’t have the power to do anything, if I get the power I will show you what I can do where if it is grudging tolerance then that will not help us grow much spiritually because what is happening, the whole point is we don’t want our consciousness to get entangled in other things we want our consciousness to be available for Krishna, if we get caught in too many small small battles, our mind gets consumed and we can’t focus on Krishna so ok, this is not worth fighting, let me focus on Krishna but if our tolerance is grudging then we are tolerating but our consciousness is consumed by that thing, we can’t focus on Krishna even if we are mitigating the Pandavas fought the war they did not fight it for revenge, they fought for establishing Dharma for removing those who are adharmic, if revenge had been their purpose if they were seeking Vendetta then they would never even have proposed gone with the peace proposal at all so their purpose was not seeking Vendetta similarly, sometimes if somebody has done something wrong and it’s a serious wrong which cannot be tolerated, it has to be corrected our purpose is not just to get back at that person our purpose is ok, this is what is the right thing, this is Dharma and this is my Dharmic duty so I will do it so if we do it with that attitude then you won’t get mentally consumed by it if it works, well and good, if it doesn’t work I did my part, I’ll move on even when we emigrate we decide this issue is too complex I don’t want to get involved in it, it’s not worth it just move away from there then also if we do it with a positive attitude that means I have better things to do in my life, that’s why I’ll not get involved in it, but if we do it with a negative attitude then the whole point is we are running away from that situation but our mind is still in that situation, oh this person is like this, this person is so terrible, this person is like this, then our mind will not be available for growing so emigrate all these three, if we do them with a service attitude Krishna I’m your servant how best can I serve you then we can we can do them in a way that will help us grow towards Krishna so there was earlier a question about forgiving, if somebody has done something wrong can we forgive them or how much should we forgive them broadly speaking forgiveness can be in our intention and forgiveness can be in our action as devotees internally we don’t hold grudges or seek revenge against anyone if we hold those grudges then that will hurt us more than the other person this happened, this person did this it’s over, so in terms of not holding a grudge forgiving should always be done but there is a difference between forgiving and trusting forgiveness is for the past trust is for the future forgiveness can be given but trust has to be earned if say we had given some money to someone and they lost the money now we may forgive them but it will be foolish for us to again give money to them they have to be responsible if somebody has hurt us then we may forgive them for that but again if we put them in a position where they can hurt us then that is being foolish so we can forgive we should forgive others but trusting is not something which we can do undiscerningly they have to exhibit trustworthy behaviour only then we can offer them our trust so sometimes those people change and they really become trustworthy at that time we offer them our trust also sometimes those people just remain the way they are and they take our forgiveness as a licence for continuing the wrong way then in that case we have to understand that here by such forgiving they are hurting us they will hurt others also and ultimately they are hurting themselves because the karma that they are doing they are going to get the reactions for that so then we may have to seek some corrective action over there some disciplinary action over there so forgiveness is a very important virtue for a brahmana at the same time in society there are not just brahmanas there are kshatriyas also so generally brahmanas are not brahmanas are not the ones who maintain law and order in society so at an individual level the brahmana will forgive oh you did this, I forgive it of course scriptures also have examples of brahmanas who get angry and curse but that is un-brahmanical behaviour of a brahmana but kshatriyas cannot just forgive kshatriyas have to maintain law and maintaining law means there is the principle of mercy and there is the principle of justice so sometimes justice is what is required Krishna himself decided that when the Kauravas were unrepentant Krishna decided to seek justice he told the Pandavas we have to fight a war now sometimes some people if they take the forgiveness as a licence for continuing their wrongdoing then at that time some strong action also has to be taken so in intention we don’t hold resentment against anyone in that sense we forgive always but in action we have to see what will have the best result so we forgive we don’t trust and we observe that person becomes trustworthy, good if person doesn’t become trustworthy then we can’t just keep forgiving forever we have to take some disciplinary action then we have to decide whether it is our position to take that action or it is somebody else’s position or we just move on and leave it so again tolerate, mitigate or emigrate these three options which we have broadly speaking we have to choose which one works best in that situation so broadly if we have this attitude of service then Krishna will guide us forward so when we have some difficulties in relationships we have to look beyond the problematic person or the problematic relationship to Krishna and if our sense of self identity and self worth comes from our relationship with Krishna then we will have inner stability we all define ourselves in terms of our relationships I am the mother of someone, I am the father of someone I am the husband of someone, I am the wife of someone I am the brother of someone, I am the sister of someone and each of these relationships define us so if there is a problem in that relationship and if that relationship is our defining identity then that problem will become unbearable for us if I define myself say as the son of someone and if my father is upset with me I feel what is my life meant for what am I living for, now a days we have like sexual market place where people in their teenage and youth they define themselves in terms of their capacity to attract a partner and if the partner abandons them and breaks up and goes away people feel devastated so one of the top 10 fears of people in the 21st century is it’s a new fear which was not there in the previous century it’s a fear of rejection that I form a relationship with someone and I get rejected in that relationship so now what has happened they are defining themselves in terms of this relationship if I can attract a partner then that means I am attractive enough I am worthy enough and if a partner rejects me then I am unworthy so if our defining relationship or if our defining identity is based on a relationship with somebody in this world we will always be prone to be insecure so if our fundamental identity is that I am a servant of Krishna and Krishna is my lord eternal then we will have some security whenever we face any problem in a relationship somebody rebuffs us, rejects us hurts us we feel unloved and that is distressing but our mind as I said it tells stories so if one relationship we have problem, second relationship we have problem, some other place we have problem and the mind starts telling us you are not only unloved you are unloveable and when that happens then that is not just distressing that can be devastating that’s why when people sometimes break up through relationships people commit suicide because they feel what is my life worth now so if our defining identity is that I am a servant of Krishna and all my relationships are services to Krishna these are my roles which I am meant to play so I will try to do the best, I am a mother, I am a father I am a husband, I am a wife I will try to do this service as responsibly as I can but my primary sense of identity is I am a servant of Krishna as a servant of Krishna I am someone’s mother, I am someone’s father and all these relationships then we can do these without being inordinately disturbed by ups and downs in those relationships so Punti Bhanani says that Ganga always flows towards the ocean, let my consciousness flow towards you O Lord so all the different relationships that are there they are like channels through which our consciousness is meant to flow towards Krishna when we act responsibly in our relationships then through that service attitude we are moving closer to Krishna but sometimes the channel may get blocked so if that channel gets blocked then what do we see that ok what channel is moving forward and we keep moving towards Krishna and eventually this channel may also unblock so sometimes if we ask why is this person doing like this why is this happening to me the why question is frequently the express way to frustration because we just can’t figure out why is this person doing like this why is this person doing like that there is a joke that one man went to God and he prayed to God and God came in front of him and he asked God give me one of two benedictions he said I want to understand this is a mundane joke you either help me understand the nature of woman or I want a express way across the Atlantic Ocean so God said how many lanes do you want on the express way so it’s not a matter of man or woman the point is understanding people is very difficult especially if we think we are expert in figuring out people men may find it difficult to figure out women women may find it difficult to figure out men and especially when we think we are good at figuring out people and then we can’t figure out someone that becomes unbearable for us so sometimes people just behave in irrational ways so if you keep asking why is this person doing this the why question just doesn’t have any answer so we just have to change our question to how Krishna how can I serve you now how can I move forward in this situation so if we have that then we can prevent our mind from catastrophising the situations so whatever karma may get us to Krishna will get us through our life there will be problems and problems ultimately come because of our own past karma but Krishna is there with us and he will help us get through those problems so if we focus on only that particular relationship we let ourselves be defined in that relationship then any problem in that relationship will be catastrophic my life is over what can I do but if we see that this relationship is one channel through which I am serving Krishna and there are many different channels we contextualise it because of some problems in my because of some past karma, because of certain situations this problem has come this will come, this will be there for some time and Krishna will help me go through it and sometimes the problems that we face in our horizontal relationships in our relationship with each other they are what help us to go closer to Krishna when we get problems in relationships especially if the problems come from devotees devotees should be understanding devotees should be kind so many nice qualities of devotees we hear in scripture where are all those qualities we feel like that but rather than blaming the devotees we can have a more philosophical attitude basically in this world there are these three circles in which the soul is situated the body, mind, the society and the nature so Adhyatmik, Adhibhautik and Adhidaivik so for all of us certain amount of our karmic reactions come through this circle so we have Adhyatmik Klesh Adhibhautik Klesh and Adhidaivik Klesh so if we are living mostly by some past karma some reaction has to come we have to get some Adhyatmik Klesh we have to get some Adhibhautik Klesh some Adhidaivik Klesh now if we live in the association of devotees primarily then the Adhibhautik Klesh has to come from devotees only because we are living primarily with devotees so it is not so much that this devotee is a problem, that devotee is a problem it is just that our karma has to come through someone or the other so rather than blaming that devotee or blaming devotee association you see some karma is getting exhausted again that doesn’t mean that I have to be passive I talked about how to tolerate, mitigate or emigrate what we have to do but if we see this from this philosophical perspective that Krishna will help us get through this situation this is some karmic reaction coming so last point if you see with the eyes of faith we see the present and plan the future Krishna sees the future and plans the present so sometimes we may feel this problem why is it coming but if the child has some pain in the stomach the child goes to the doctor please free me from the pain and the doctor says you have to do surgery to remove your appendix what? surgery means more pain but the doctor is seeing that actually there is bigger problem in future so for that we have to do this right now doctor can see the future prognosis and do the preventive measure right now so similarly if we understand that whatever problems we are facing Krishna knows the future he is preparing us so he is preparing our present based on his understanding of future and sometimes we may understand some things soon sometimes it may take some longer time last year when I had come to America I was in Fort Lauderdale I was giving this class speaking the same point after that one devotee from Ukraine she came and told me that she had the experience of exactly this thing she was in New Vrindavan and she was working on a ship so she had gone there for a retreat suddenly she got a phone call from her boss that our ship is moving, you have to come immediately New Vrindavan is a little remote place not so easy to have transportation she started enquiring is there anybody going who can give her a ride to the airport she came to know there was one one devotee one Prabhu who was going the next morning at 10 o’clock so she met him and said can you drop me to the airport he said yes I will come here by 10 o’clock so she was there 9.45 and became 10, 10.50 10.30 because New Vrindavan is a little remote her phone was not getting the range she was trying to call his phone was not connecting became 10.45 11, 11.50, 11.30 and finally her phone got through and then that devotee said oh I am sorry I forgot I also have to catch my flight I have come too far, I can’t come back now she was furious how can you forget like this you are told you will come and somehow she just she was very angry she came back and went to her room that evening when she came to the temple another Mataji told her you know that devotee who had gone to the airport yes she was still very angry she said his car met with a terrible accident it was a drunk driver who came and hit the car and the drunk driver actually hit on the passenger side this devotee was injured but not very seriously but they showed the pictures of the car and passenger side was completely destroyed so she had been sitting in that car she would have been like a tide so in this case you know why that devotee forgot what happened it was all at that time it was a bad thing that happened but why it happened she understood after 6 hours sometimes why somebody does something what was its purpose it was not that boy deliberately forgot to protect her from that accident but Krishna arranged it so what was the purpose why someone acted in some way sometimes you may understand it after 6 hours sometimes you may understand after 6 years sometimes it may take 60 years but if we have this understanding that ultimately Krishna is our lord and Krishna is our well wisher then even if people are doing bad things to us we focus on Krishna how can I serve you how can I move towards you then we will be able to find our way purposefully through that relationship so spiritualising our relationships ultimately means that we ensure that our spiritual growth goes on irrespective of whatever happens in that relationship so if we can go along with that relationship if that other person somehow is hurting us troubling us we do what we can and we move on so if our vision is fixed on Krishna and we have that attitude of service to Krishna then whether to tolerate mitigate, emigrate that guidance will come from within Krishna will guide us how to move forward so I will summarise I spoke about how we can spiritualise our input in the relationship so in that connection I first talked about how in the in our relationships when we talk about love we may be doing something out of loving intent towards others but the other person’s mind is having its own language and they may not see it as love we offer say somebody some help but that person may say we offer some notes for a lecture you think I can’t prepare they may see it in a different way so love has to be expressed in a way that is also felt as love and so we need to understand the other person to see how they are seeing our actions to be and if we find faults in the other person then that person may just get alienated from us, so we are working as a team but if there is constant fault finding then that person starts suspecting whether we are on the same team or not and then we can’t work function together and even if we have to give some corrections then it is best to separate the behaviour from the person first tell the facts and then tell the feelings we take the facts and the feelings, combine them together and make a value judgement and then that person feels insulted or condemned that’s what happened in the way Wally dealt with Sugriva it was an objectionable behaviour but Wally made it into a character judgement and that’s how they became alienated so if we have a difficult situation, a difficult relationship broadly we have three options tolerate, mitigate or immigrate if that problem is not very big if it’s manageable, just like somebody is pushing us in a train car let’s move somewhere else then we can tolerate, tolerate means to keep small things small so that we can focus on the big things but if that person is not allowing us to do the big thing and the person is pushing us out of the train then we have to mitigate, take action to correct the situation some problems we just tolerate them, some problems we have to change them some problems we may decide it’s not worth trying to change this let me just leave the situation, let me emigrate so we discussed Pandavas and Prabhupada example of tolerate mitigate and emigrate and then lastly I talked about our defining identity is that I am a servant of Krishna and all my relationships are services to Krishna then if there are ups and downs in relationships we won’t get inordinately disturbed but we will focus on Krishna and find out how to ensure our consciousness moves forwards even if one particular channel is blocked so the problems in our relationships may come because of our past karma because some Adhibhauti Klesh has to come upon us by our past karma but whatever karma may get us to, Krishna will get us through and Krishna sees the future and plans the present and what his purpose is we may not know now but in due course his benevolent purpose will be revealed for us. Thank you very much Hare Krishna Thank you for having this wonderful seminar Thank you so much As we all know he is one of the most admired speaker sought after speaker all over the world he gives lectures in all the prominent universities in every place I remember recently in Tampa we have been waiting for his visit for two years we just made it this year so we are so fortunate and we also considered his North American tour started from Malacca so probably I have considered this as our birth right so he should come every year and please enlighten us and your question answers are for many you are like our transcendental psychiatrist you solve all our problems and thank you so much Guruji we are so grateful to you we will move on with couple of questions and if you still have more questions probably we will be going to this room and we will be there for few more minutes when we are setting up this room thank you all so much Jai Ram So by our bhakti practise is it our karma wiped out? sorry by the time of initiation our karma is wiped out in general a devotee is not in the purview of karma the same way as a non devotee is so Krishna takes charge of the devotee and that means not necessary that Krishna takes away all the karma sometimes Krishna may use that karma for the growth of the devotee so just like say a person has committed some crime as in some wrong the person is taken to the police and the police is beating that person and that person is at home and the child has done something wrong and the mother is chastising the person the father is correcting the person in both situations the person is being corrected but one is under the purview of the rule of law, other is at home under the purview of love so similarly a devotee is in Krishna’s circle and when a devotee is going through some difficulties there are different ways in which we all can see so if it’s for ourselves we will say actually I am not yet surrendered to Krishna so it’s my karma coming to me that will keep us humble so we want to have a disposition that is favourable to Krishna so it’s my own karma coming and if I absorb myself in Krishna bhakti then that absorption will protect me from the impact of the karma but if we see some other devotee going through this then we shouldn’t think I thought you are a great devotee but now I understand you know you have a lot of sinful karma remaining so we shouldn’t think like that what is going on between this devotee and Krishna I don’t know but I see this as an opportunity to serve the devotee so basically Krishna can use our karma to create situations in our life so that we become orchestrated to come towards him so sometimes Krishna may use the karma which we have it’s not a karmic reaction but it is Krishna’s arrangement utilising our karma to help us come closer to him so devotees do get distress and if the devotees can be helped to maintain a devotional disposition through the distress they come further closer to Krishna yes last question we were talking about tolerate or mitigate or emigrate in the history of our movement a lot of times devotees have felt improperly dealt with by persons that are in positions of leadership and so the even though there should be mitigation there is not so much facility for that but yet there is a real need to do that in the standpoint of the devotee doesn’t want to really leave the service doesn’t want to leave the situation so I remember one time I attended a youth event across the street from my house and you were there and you had everybody say first what they liked the most about this guy and then what they found the most challenging and your point was that you really like to study study Shastra if I remember correctly and the thing you said was the most challenging was the judgments that were placed without a real attempt to understand what was going on and I actually said the same thing because I found that to be the case and I think it’s a fairly widespread phenomenon sometimes we have a real strong sense that we’ve been judged maybe unfairly but there isn’t so much we can do about it because it’s coming down from a higher authority I don’t exactly know where I’m going with this but I guess there’s some solution I know that there are specific situations and Krishna’s testing is all in different ways but sometimes in the devotee community if somebody is wrong there is a need for mitigating but there is no proper system or structure for the mitigation yes, let’s say that our movement is not very old it’s just 40-50 years and in many ways we are trying to figure out still how to have a spiritual movement in the material world with a structure of hierarchy that is largely material so how it all is going to fit together it’s quite challenging so in the material world if there is an accusation of wrong doing then there is a process there is a system of justice system of arbitration or whatever now I’ll just give one example now for example with respect to philosophy so if somebody may say you are deviating from siddhant now what is the basis for deciding that you are deviating from siddhant so we need to have some well defined statement of what exactly is siddhant and then ok this is contradicting therefore it is siddhant therefore it is deviation but this is not contradicting any of these points so it is not deviation so right now what has happened is any devotee who feels you are speaking this and this is contradicting to siddhant and then they get criticised they get condemned so we need to have a proper statement of what exactly is our siddhant without that anybody can criticise anyone else and label them that way so this is just one example where the lack of structure can cause labelling and condemning and I would say this is just a part of the growth pains if we see in general the history of religious movements the the formative years are often quite chaotic there is explosive growth but there are also explosions of other kinds so it’s not just if you look at the beginning of Christianity if you look at even the beginning of Gaudiya Vaishnavism itself after Jaitanya Mahaprabhu departed it’s just a feature of history so we basically there is the transcendental and there is the practical so at a practical level we need to have systems for resolving things but when they are not there we have to see from the transcendental perspective that there is some plan of Krishna here and let me see what practically I can do how I can move forwards in my service to Krishna so Prabhupada often adopted this approach if two devotees had some conflicts this devotee is doing like that this devotee is doing like that Prabhupada would usually not get too many integrities who is right who is wrong Prabhupada would not approach the issue in a very legalistic way you spoke this you did this if the two had conflicts you go and serve here you go and serve here so give them both their domains and let them continue their service now that’s not necessarily the way only way things have to be done all the time but basically we have to find our kshetra our sphere for serving Krishna and if somehow somebody is somebody’s way of acting is creating some trouble for us then if we can’t mitigate and if we can’t tolerate then we might as well immigrate and sometimes that is the way quite often that is the way in which many of the initiatives for expanding Krishna conscious outreach have happened so we see that there may be an adversity but within that also there is an opportunity so we do need systems for mitigating but I would say we are evolving towards that so till that happens we have to find out what works best for us to move towards Krishna and the world is a very big place and sometimes we just get caught this person did like this this person did like that this person did like that and it’s true that people may have done wrong but the world is a very big place and we can find our sphere where we can serve Krishna and we can attract people towards Krishna and we can continue on our bhakti Thank you very much