Why is devotee association sometimes more stressful and misunderstanding-prone than nondevotee association?
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the other question was sometimes in devotee association there is so much stress and agitation but in non devotee association if you work in company although you work for so many years, there is not so much stress yes, that is because there is a whole different set of expectations and a different code of conduct that we apply a simple example there is a paper published in London School of Economics somewhere when the office becomes home what was that about? that there are many people who prefer to spend more time in office even when they don’t have work why? because if they go home they can’t get along with their spouse they have children at home they don’t know how to manage them on the other hand in the office everything is structured ok there is a structure system for this and nowadays with sexual morals and also going down people have relationship affairs at office also so they feel that actually office is providing everything to them so if I go to home there is so much agitation here I stay in office everything is nice but the problem here is that the same people if they get angry even if you are angry with a colleague will not shout at the colleague will behave in a very civilized but at home if you get angry they immediately blast out what has happened is our own set of expectations are different we whenever there is close relationship there is a different set of expectations our own conduct becomes different our expectations of others become different and that is why wherever there is greater wherever there is greater expectation and there is also the possibility of greater frustration if you look in office now how many times do we really have heart to heart discussion with people that which is the closest to our heart how often do we discuss that it is basically professional discussion and it is like if something doesn’t touch the heart it will not hurt the heart also so in office it is like when we are working we don’t have that much relationship issues because we are not that emotionally invested in those things but if those are emotionally invested in trying to go up and grow then they will know there is so much politics in office also so much backbiting and so much tribulation that happens so usually for us as devotees we are far more emotionally invested in devotee association and because we are emotionally invested there so we can get emotional fulfillment but we can also get emotional frustration it is just a result of not being emotionally invested in devotees in non devotee association stakes are not so high in terms of what we value and because also things are much more organized and structured so the chances of conflict also become lesser whereas in devotee association we are much more emotionally invested and often things are not all that structured and organized so whenever there is conflict there is chaos and that leads to a lot of hard work it’s not that now having said this it is possible also that sometimes some non devotees may be actually be more sattvic, not sattvic in the full sense of following religious principles but sattvic in terms of conduct, they may be more courteous, they may be more competent, more responsible, more sensitive in their speech it’s possible and sometimes some devotees they may have come from rajasic, tamasic background, they are practicing bhakti now but still their rajoguna, tamoguna is there so they may speak in ways which hurt us they may do something which irritate us so it’s not that we have to wear rose colored glasses and say that all devotee association is good and all non devotee association is bad or that all non devotee association is bad and all devotee association is good if you understand the principle my spiritual advancement is my responsibility then I will select the environment that will help me to grow my spiritual life so in devotion, devotee association also if we become emotionally invested and too much in some situation where the things, where there is a whole different definition of success then things will not work so so generally speaking it is best to best to basically okay I will put it this way when we are working in a devotee community there are three broad ways in which we can work one is we just whatever system is there, we join the system and the full facility and the power of the system we get that, we rise up by that the other is we want to do something on our own as per our inspiration, our vision then we are literally on our own we have to take the vision, we have to put in the effort, we have to do everything it’s not easy but if one is driven one may do that but the best situation at least in initial years of our spiritual life is to be somewhere in between that means we are doing some substantial part of our spiritual life under senior guidance at the same time the seniors are also understanding and they give us some room for doing things our way how to find that balance that will depend on every individual situation but the problem comes when we are in the either in the third and we have the expectation of the first that means if I have if I want to do according to my own vision, generally I mentioned that the other day also and we don’t get freedom and facility both together you want freedom you will not have facility because those who have facility they will have their own vision and that’s how they want to implement things and if you want facility then you won’t have freedom that’s how it works everywhere so it’s best to be situated somewhere in between that we have some freedom to do something according to our inspiration but at the same time we are also connected with senior devotees and are working with them and we have some facilities to make sure that we don’t feel like pushing a mountain all along so how to work out that balance we can see but basically we are much more emotionally invested in devotee association and that’s why the potential for feeling disappointed or having relationship problems that’s much more but although the possibility is there the possibility for emotional fulfillment is also far far greater and that is how it is everywhere where there is risk of loss there is also the chance of gain so we need to it is not just because I am in devotee association that everything is wonderful it is what am I doing in devotee association that is important it’s like say I will conclude with this it’s a commercial example but it’s like say people go to stock exchange they have money now stock exchange is a place where people go to earn money or to increase their money but it is not that just by going to stock exchange their balance, their investment is going to improve they may lose their investment also they have to intelligently manage their investment so that it will grow so like that we have our emotions we come in the devotee association where we want to enrich our emotions, we want to purify elevate and make our emotions devotional so we bring the investment of our emotions in devotee association but then it is for us to invest it properly if we don’t invest it properly the whole stock can go down but if we invest it properly there is tremendous facility for us to raise the stock so where we have not invested much money there is not much possibility for loss also that’s why sometimes non devotee association seems to be much more much more conflict free as compared to devotee association but that is because conflict occurs only when there is some emotional investment if there is no emotional investment then what is the reason for conflict you know if somebody somewhere if somebody in the neighborhood A person goes and encroaches into the house of B we are not emotionally invested over there if somebody comes and encroaches in my house how dare you do this so we are emotionally invested emotional investment has to manage wisely so that there is emotional fulfillment that comes from that answer your question thank you so