What makes relationships unsteady – and how to make them steady
[Bhagavatam class at ISKCON, Perth, Australia]
Video:
Transcript
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Thank you. Any other questions or comments? I spoke today about how we can deepen our relationships.
And started by talking about this past time where Daksha neglects Sati, and she feels extremely hurt by that. So, the defining difference between the pre-modern world view and the modern world view is, the modern world view rejected the existence or at least the relevance of any other world. And that’s why this world is the only world that we have.
Whatever pleasure we get in this world, that’s the only pleasure that we want, that we can get. And then this attitude is brought to be around relationships. And we see relationships, not as an obligation to be discharged, but as a choice to be made for pleasure.
And if there is no pleasure, then why continue? So, when this attitude comes in, then sometimes there may be effusive public display of affection, as happened with Kamsa when he was affectionate towards Devaki. But if some other material consideration comes in, if one’s life feels threatened, then Kamsa was ready to do sin cube, kill a sister, kill a wedding day. So, the whole paradigm may change because there is no depth to that relationship.
And when we have materialistic conception, as Prabhupada says in the Purport that, a slight provocation can cause a losing of the intimacy in that relationship. The same thing happens with Daksha, that when Sati feels neglected by her, when she is his favorite daughter, it hurts her unbearably. So, we feel hurt not just by the action that someone does, but by the emotional closeness or the remoteness of their relationship with us.
And somebody physically close to us may yell, somebody thousands of miles away might just speak one disapproving word. The second might hurt us much more. So, when we see that for us to grow up emotionally, committed relationships are a vital opportunity.
Growing up emotionally means growing up to become bigger than our minds. We are not driven by our minds alone. So, that commitment to someone other than ourselves forces us to put our mind’s feelings aside and do the right thing at that time.
Just like a mother may care for a child even when the child cries at night. And the same ethos of commitment we bring to our relationship with Krishna. Otherwise, our bhakti remains a pious form of entertainment, which we sometimes enjoy and sometimes don’t enjoy.
So, we treat even our bhakti like a snack. If it tastes good, I’ll have it. Otherwise, forget it.
And we treat our relationships also like a snack. But our relationship with Krishna and our committed relationships in life, they are like the main course of food. We have to take them not based on their taste alone, but on the nutrition that they are going to give us.
So, with this understanding, when we strive to serve Krishna irrespective of whether bhakti feels good or not, then our consciousness goes beyond the mind’s up and downs to a level of connection at the level of the soul with Krishna. And that connection at the level of the heart or the soul, that help brings us stability by which we can also become stable in all our other relationships. Thank you very much.
Great. Any questions or comments?