Why does God like flattery? (PK answered 16)
Answer Podcast:
Transcript
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Hare Krishna question why does God like flattery? answer God doesn’t like flattery God loves love, he loves the reciprocation of love between him and his devotees and whenever there is love there is a natural expression of affection for the beloved so when a man and a boy and a girl love each other the boy expresses his affection by talking about how beautiful the girl is now if the boy has no love for the girl and then he is expressing those words just to manipulate her, then that is manipulative, that is undesirable that is flattery where one is trying to get something out of that person and that happens say in this world when people go to politicians and they have no real regard for the politician but just to get their work done, they flatter those politicians but the relationship with God when we express our praise, express his praises is not like that so those who have love for God naturally they express their love for God by by speaking his glories and it is not that only the devotees speak the glories of the Lord if you look at the Bhagavatam and other bhakti scriptures, God also speaks the glories of his devotees and such mutual glorification of each other is a expression of the mutual affection that they have for each other, the Lord and his devotees, now suppose somebody does not have devotion for God and that person praises God in an attempt to flatter and manipulate him, now God is not foolish, he is supremely intelligent, he sees our heart and he doesn’t get manipulated he will do what is good for us, just because we have praised him that does not mean that he will do something for us which is not good for us he will do whatever is good for us always but when we praise him, if we are doing it purely for flattering to get things out of him then we cannot manipulate him, we should know that God is much more intelligent than us but still the attempt to glorify him, that purifies us, how? because God is supremely pure God is like the supreme sun he is supremely selfless now in our heart there is a darkness of selfishness, selfishness where we want to grab from others, where we want to dominate and control others and thereby we want to get our agenda done so when we have such a selfish motive, neither can we be truly happy nor can we help others to become happy, so when we praise God, it is like we are opening the window of our heart for the sun to come in and to drive away the darkness of selfishness that is there, so when we praise God, even when we don’t have much affection for him when we praise him, that is not flattery, that is something which we do for our benefit, God does not need the praise and God is not affected by praise but we become purified, the impurities in our heart go away and just as in our rooms darkness goes away, then we can see clearly in that room, similarly internally we can start seeing clearly what is actually good what is bad and the pure core that is there at our in our heart, that is the soul the godly, pure powerful person that we can be that we actually are, that starts manifesting when we glorify God and become purified so God, when we glorify him, that is not to flatter him, that is to purify ourselves, when we don’t have affection but desire that affection and when we have that affection for God, when we have devotion for him then we praise him, not because we want to get him to do something for us but rather because we love him and we express our love through affection, through his glorification Thank you.