Teamwork in Ramayana 2

If we see that some of our leaders are making a mistake and we are juniors, what do we do at that time? A lot depends on specifics, what kind of mistake it is, what is our position related what is our relationship with them, what is, likely to be the consequence of that mistake as compared to the consequence of what we are going to do. We see this in the, for example, in the Mahabharata when Bhima is first poisoned by Duryodhana. So at that time, he survives by a miraculous arrangement. He survives by a miraculous arrangement.

He is thrown into the water but the the whole cross story we won’t go into that but he survives and comes back. Now when he comes back he is furious and he wants to head out at Durovan. And Yudhishthir says no. He says we have just come into this kingdom. We don’t even know who is actually favorable to us, who is unfavorable to us.

And, we don’t want to create a whole dissension in the whole community. And Biyushma, although he is very kind, he is bound by vow to the ruling king. So he says, let us keep quiet and be more cautious. Now Bhima just can’t I just he said he tried to kill me. How can you just stay silent about that?

Now Yudhishthir takes this decision but if he uses it by nature, although he is a shalsar kshatriya, he by nature is a person who tries to resolve things as peacefully as possible. Mhmm. But then things seem to go worse. And eventually what happens is that they try to have them all burnt alive in Varanavath. And this time they have to flee and escape.

There are too many life items, they don’t just emerge back, but then they wait. In the forest, what happens? There, they go to Drupadhi Swyamvara and they get then their alliance is formed with Drupadha. Now now they are not just orphan boys against the ruling king of Khuru. Now they are the sons sons in law of another powerful kingdom.

And those who had gone out, you know, and apparently had died, apparently they come back victorious. And they are welcome and Nitraashtra used their kingdom back in that time. Time. So the point is that was what he did at that time a mistake? We you Bhima could have felt that it was a mistake, but in the long run, you could say that it was success because they were allied with the powerful kingdom.

Others, you could also say it was a mistake. It was a because Durudan only became more aggravated. Maybe Durudan’s evil tendency could have been nipped in the bud at that time. We don’t know. Life doesn’t come with such a clear guarantees of this is right and this is wrong.

We just use our best intelligence and do the best that we can. So if if there is a particular way to act and somebody is acting in a different way, then we have to basically decide whether this is a battle I want to fight. There are many things wrong in the world and, even in Krishna’s movement, there can be many things which are not right. This is so I am the first point I made is that sometimes we cannot even be sure whether something is wrong or not because in life it’s not so clear what is right what is wrong. But let’s assume that somebody is doing something wrong.

But, then even then whether it is our position to correct it. We have to decide that. Sometimes we may decide this is so important for me that I’m going to fight for this. Sometimes I may decide that, you know, this is this is not good, but this is not what I want to be involved in. I cannot get involved in this.

There are there are other more important things which I want to do in my life. Then we may decide that, okay. I just live with this but I focus on, my service. And if in my service, I’m dedicated, then I grow by that. And maybe in future, Krishna will give me the power to set something right.

Prabhupada saw saw so many saw so many things wrong in Gaudiya Math. He spoke out also in one of the vast puja ceremonies of Bhakti Vedaakur. He said that, what are we doing? We’re just running our mathas and feeding our bellies. What are we doing for the mission?

Relatively speaking, in the Gaudevan hierarchy, Prabhupad was a was a grastha and a junior godbrother. So many of his godbrothers didn’t appreciate his speaking like that. Yeah. But they didn’t, he spoke it out and they didn’t listen. And eventually Prabhupada continued doing what he was doing and he came to America.

And then he may he was empowered to do a lot. So he couldn’t set things right in Gaudiya Math at that time, but then he did something right separately. But when in ISKCON only things would sometimes go wrong, Rupad would come down heavily on some devotees. No. This you should not be doing like this.

Sometimes you just let them do what they’re doing and gradually learn a lesson. So, of course, Prabhupada is in the position of authority over here. But I’ll give you an example. Prabhupada in Gaudiya Math. He tried, but when it didn’t work, he just moved on.

So basically if something is clearly wrong, then we have to decide whether this is a battle we want to we want to choose. And if we decide this is what I want to fight then we should we have to do it in a very respectful way. This is a technical subject, but I’ll just give that quickly as an example. In our tradition, the first major commentary in the Bhagavatam which we have is by Shirdar Swami. Chetan Mahapu very respected the commentary of Shirdhar Swami.

But Shirdhar Swami in his commentary has on several places given impersonalistic interpretations. And Chaitanya Mahapu said that Bhagavatham is our primary book. Bhagavatham is, the ripened fruit of the Vedic literature and Bhagavathamathir says that. And Goswami Shirdar Swami’s commentary is the authority commentary. Now, what do you do?

Bhagavad Gita is the authority to your book and the authority commentary is impersonistic. Not everywhere, but some places. Now Shirdar Swami was a very, very exalted devotee, but he sort of, he was officially affiliated with the impersonalistic Sampradaya, Advaitabad, and he brought bhakti into Advaitabad from inside. Like, there’s Advait Sampraday and there’s Bhakti Sampraday. They’re 2 opposite.

But but he was inside nominally or officially affiliated with Advaita Sampraday, So he had to give some Advaitic interpretations. But for the Advaitans also, he showed. Actually, this Bhagavatam is bhakti. So he had a particular purpose when he did it that way. But Yuga Swami had another purpose.

So Juga Swami while explaining the Bhagavatam has to explain many places which is not just different from but opposite to what Shriya Swami is saying so how does he do it Whenever he can. If Shirdar Swami has given a devotional commentary he quotes Shirdar Swami and he treats Shirdar Swami like the authority commentary. He says Bhashya iti. Bhashya means by default it is the basha at that time the basha was a tudar swami. But whenever Shridar swami has given some impersonalistic interpretation so he doesn’t mention Shirdar swami by name.

He says according to an imaginary interpretation. And he said like this. But this is the problem. This is this this and this is how it should be. This is the right understanding.

So what he does is he does not personally name and target Shindar Swami. So that is the way he is respectful. He quotes him when he is right and he avoids the name when he is wrong or when when he is giving a giving a impersonalistic interpretation. Similarly, if we are going to challenge something which the senior is doing we have to be respectful. We shouldn’t be dismissive.

And respectfully we can express a different opinion and see how things go. Sometimes if we do it respectfully it may be that they also understand yeah this is right and they may change. Does that answer your question? Yes. Thank you.

Any other questions? You had a question, Yes. Normally, people, sometimes they ask, like, you know Okay. I got I remember the question. I remember the question.

So, if we go to hell or if we suffer for our bad karma, we don’t remember it, then what is the use of that suffering? Yeah. It’s a Sorry. Say it again. I don’t I don’t know.

Yeah. You can repeat. In hell, people suffer, but then when we take this book, we forget all everything about that. Yeah. See, the purpose of the material world ultimately is spiritual evolution, to help the soul learn to grow toward Krishna, to allow Krishna, and to ultimately attain Krishna.

And everything within the world is meant for that purpose. So even the law of karma is meant for prompting the soul to turn toward Krishna. Although the law of karma, we say it is a law of cause and effect, it is a law of actions and reactions, but the point of the law of karma is not vindictive. Vindictive means you did this, so you suffer this. It’s the point of the law of karma is educative.

And it’s the education is not so much about specifics. See, the specifics have been told in broad principle in scripture. ‘If you do this, this will happen, if you do this, this will happen, broadly. But real life is complicated. It is when we get a particular reaction, some reactions, normally we say action A leads to reaction B.

That’s a that’s a very simplified understanding of karma. Sometimes action a might lead to a series of reactions b, c, d, e, f, g, h, I, j, k. So many things can come because of one action. Conversely, a reaction d might be because of action c or reaction d might be a combined reaction for a b c, all actions. So one action can lead to many reactions.

One reaction can be the result of many actions. In real life, things are complicated. So if somebody gets a lifelong disease, it’s incurable. Now is that for one particular karma that they have done or it’s it’s going to stay lifelong? We don’t know.

It’s complicated. So if we start looking for, you know, why something happened, ‘okay, this suffering came upon me because of this.’ It’s so complex we’ll get lost in the past. It’s because at every moment something is happening. Say, if I’m walking along, I slip and fall. Now should I know why I slip and fall?

Then, you know, if we start thinking about which action led to which reaction, or then at what level do we stop? At what level we do we stop thinking about, okay, this, let me just move on. You know, I’m driving the road and I get a lot of traffic today. Is it because of my past karma? Is it because of my present karma only?

And I chose to go at a time when I’m travelling when it’s crowded. So it’s complex. So if you start getting as the Bhagavatham says Bhagavata says rather. So it’s very difficult for us to know and it doesn’t it will just get caught in technicalities. In, in, specifics where the ultimate purpose is not so much that you have got this suffering because of this karma.

The ultimate purpose is to basically get the soul to evolve in consciousness toward Krishna. And that purpose, the principle of karma, serves in a generic way. So when the soul goes to hell and returns, or the soul goes to hellish suffering and returns, whichever and comes out, there is much that is impressed at a subconscious level. All of us have a sense of conscience. The specifics of their conscience may vary, but all of us understand that there are some things which weill just not do.

It’s not to be done. These things, yeah, I’ll do. These things I should not do, but maybe I’ll do it. If I’m pressured about this, unacceptable. Out of question.

So we have where do we get that from? It’s not just from our culture or our upbringing. It also comes from our previous lives. So you could say that the prince the the purpose of suffering is reorientation. It is not just it is not education of particular cause of the suffering.

That reorientation happens not necessarily through recollection of specific the code of human specific rights and wrongs, but rather assimilation about the like or rather assimilation about assimilating the nature of reality. So suffering so even pleasure what purpose does it serve? It’s it’s very it’s very difficult to be discreet about these things. Even in day to day life, if if somebody falls sick, did they feel fall sick because their immunity is low? Did they fall sick because the weather was bad?

Did they fall sick because they ate something in appropriate? Did they fall sick because they were with somebody who was infected and they got an infection? It could be a, b, c, d, or it could be a, b, and c, and d. We don’t know. So usually, doctors we need to try to analyse the cause to some extent.

But, you know, when we are analysing the cause, the focus is on taking the treatment. We start getting into specifics. How do you know? Why did I get this? Why did I get malaria?

Oh, mosquito. But where did the mosquito bite me? Where did it bite me? You can’t know the specifics. So we shouldn’t it’s it’s difficult to expect the way we we function in the world.

Some things we understand cause effect in specifics. Some things we don’t understand. And that applies to karma, the principle of karma and the suffering because of that also. Okay? Any other questions?

Okay. So let’s move on to the 3rd part. So, till now, I discussed about the Ramayana, and they have come till Angga Ang because of Angad’s incidental speech, they have now come to the banks of they have come to know that Sita is there. And all the monkeys, they charge, rush towards the ocean delighted. Oh, we’re gone.

Now where Sita is? And they are jumping in joy and they come to the coast of ocean and then suddenly they look at the vast ocean and they fall silent. And they start looking at each other. We know where Sita is, but how are we going to get there? How do we get across the ocean?

They realize this is unscalable. So at that time, as they’re all waiting, they think, what do I do now? And they start talking with each other. Angad tries to again boost the spirits. Angad is the leader still, and he has somehow it seemed that the day was lost, but he he saved the day.

His his accidental words saved the day. So he still feels such like he says, I’m sure many of you will be able to jump across the ocean. Oh, monkeys, please speak. How far can you jump? And they all start speaking, and none of them can jump as far.

It’s geographical specifics are not important, but the principle is that they are not able to jump across. Now here is a very significant point that all the monkeys are they are servants of Ram. They all want to serve Ram. They all have a sincere desire. Not only they have a desire, but they have been instructed by Ram ultimately to go on this mission.

But still, not all of them have equal abilities. Just because somebody is devoted or somebody is instructed doesn’t necessarily automatically mean that everybody will be equally empowered. And the monkeys here, the Vanaras have the honesty to admit their limitations. And if you don’t have that, say somebody is not good at handling finances, and they decide we’re gonna do a we’re gonna build a big temple for Krishna. And then they get get finances, but they don’t handle it properly, and they will lose the money.

Just because we are serving Krishna doesn’t mean that we are automatically qualified to do every service for Krishna. So sincerity is, of course, important, and Krishna is bhava grahi. Krishna sees, the sincerity of our intent in terms of how eagerly we want to serve him. But that doesn’t mean that we will be able to do anything and everything. There are certain things which we can do, certain things which we can’t do.

That’s possible we may say Krishna can empower us to do anything. Yes, but Krishna empowers by his plan, not our plan. That means we may say, oh, Prabhupada is one person, and he was so empowered that he preached all over the world.’ Yes. That is true. Prabhupada was extraordinarily empowered, but he was empowered by Krishna’s time plan.

And for you could say now can I just can you say that that means for if Robal was empowered, why was his preaching not successful in India? From 1921 to 1965, practically, 2022, more than 40 years, there was not much happening. So even a pure devotee like Prabhupada, he was empowered by Krishnais plan. So now if we find out that certain service is required, and we don’t have the ability for it, what do we do? It is that it requires humility to admit our inability.

Many times people just, you know, brag about their abilities, especially in today’s competitive world when people have to promote everybody has to promote themselves. So then one of my friends was in IIM and he said that one of the major IIM is a top top management institute in India. He said that we learned a major part of how to make your CV as attractive as possible. So one of these days is if you are walking along the road and you see a tap is on and you switch off the tap, you see you can write that I am an environmental activist conserving water on the planet So sometimes in today’s competitive world, we might feel that I I have to I have to to promote myself. And, yes, we don’t we need to have a proper presenting ability, but if we pretend to have the ability that we don’t have say, I talked earlier about hierarchy.

Hierarchies which are based simply on on privilege or, genealogy or wealth, this can be exploitative. But a hierarchy that is based on competence, that is desirable. There’s somebody who can somebody who wants to get to the top of the hierarchy, but they don’t have the ability that is required at the top of the hierarchy. And all that will happen is they will hurt themselves and they will hurt everybody else in that hierarchy. So if one of the monkeys who had said who couldn’t jump across the ocean, that monkey said, I want to jump across the ocean.

And he would have gone, and he would have probably fallen the ocean and perished. And even if he had not, somehow he had survived and come back, all the other monkeys would have been waiting. They would have lost. They would have, lost time. They would have lost so much, of, maybe lost somebody who lost life at this risk life.

So, you know, if we don’t have the ability to be at the top of the hierarchy, that doesn’t mean that we are useless. We all have our opportunities where we can do some services, but an aspect of bhakti is at one level we have faith that Krishna can empower anyone to do extraordinary things. But to think that I am empowered or think I will be empowered, now that might be presumptuous. So we have to both be open to Krishna’s Krishna’s potential to empower us. We can’t I I will never be able to do this.

No. We might be able to do more. But if we can’t do something right now, acknowledging it is important. When we acknowledge it, then we can work to fix it as it is required. So now when the monkeys spoke like this, at that time, Angad said that I I could conceivably jump across, but that’ll drain me so much that I won’t have the energy to leap back again.

Jambavan said that when I was young, I could have jumped across the whole earth, but now I can’t. So as they were thinking like this, there’s one person who was silent. Who was that? Hanuman. Hanuman.

So Hanuman, he is silent, and then Jumbo and turned towards him. And he says, oh, Hanuman, why are you silent? Hanuman, it was almost like, you know, this is out of question for me. So he was not even speaking his voice. But then Jambavan, he started speaking about the glories of Anuman.

He Anuman had been cursed with forgetfulness, but it was like a not a permanent forgetfulness. It was you see, the point was that he had ability, he had powers, but at that time, he was abusing the powers. He was as a small mischievous child, He was, troubling the sages. Sometimes he would take all the sacred paraphernalia and just carry it away. Sometimes he would, extinguish their yagna.

Sometimes he would just basically do all kinds of mischievous things. And because he had mystic powers, so nobody could catch him also. And then the sages told sages told his parents, but sometimes, you see it so much young some so much childish, impetuous energy that even his parents couldn’t do anything. And in that sense, Hanuk, that energy was so much. See, there is, children always have energy.

But if you give them power that is disproportionate with energy. And if a child is given like a automatic machine gun, hey, that’s dangerous. The child may not intend to harm anyone, but they don’t have the maturity to understand. And therefore, their power at that age with him was not wise. So they took away the power from him.

And they said that when somebody reminds you of this power for a cause bigger than yourself, then you will remember. Then you will come back, and you’ll gain this power back. So Jambavan started glorifying. And as you started glorifying raha glorifying Hanuman, slowly but surely, what happened? Hanuman’s memory started coming.

And as his memory started coming, his his confidence started coming back, and his confidence started manifesting in terms of his increased physical size. Jambavan was speaking to him, and Hanuman and Jambavan were the same height. But as Jambavan started glorifying Hanuman, Hanuman started becoming bigger and bigger and bigger. And Jammu became more and more jubilant. See, Hanuman becomes bigger and bigger.

Like, you’re talking with someone and you look up. Hey. What happened? So he started becoming bigger and bigger and bigger. And then Hanuman spoke in a thunderous voice.

He said, yes. I will jump across the ocean. I will find Sita, and I’ll come back. And Hanuman ran and leaped up to a nearby small hill, and then he poised, and he leaped into the sky. As he leaped into the sky, the by the pressure the hill just moved back, and trees flew out of the hill.

The pressure was so great. And Hanuman leaped into the sky. And as Hanuman marched like a missile through the sky, He flew like that. All the monkeys cheered. The monkeys, as they’re fly as they saw Hanuman flying, says, our best wishes and prayers for your well-being.

And he said, we can’t help you. We can’t be there with you, but we will be praying for you. And Angad said, and all of us will perform tapasya to give the credits of that pay austerity to you. What are the austerity? They said they will stand in yogic posture on one foot with their hands upraised praying like asana.

They said they will stand like this for as long as you back, as long as you’re away. When you come back, till that time you’ll be performing this austerity. So they couldn’t be the lead player, but that doesn’t mean that they said, okay. You do everything. We’ll relax.

They were in their own way offering their good wishes, the the results of their mystic mystic austerities to Hanuman. So Hanuman, he later on so Hanuman the whole story of Hanuman going to Lanka and finding Sita is itself a big adventure. But without going into the specifics of that, we’ll focus on the team spirit. So now when Hanuman comes back, he tells his what he has achieved to paint as alone going into the enemy kingdom. And not only finding Sita, he finds Sita, and then he decides that let me do some more service.

So he decides he wants to give a warning to Ravana and he also decides that let me do some reconnaissance to find out how what the military formations in Lanka are and thus he starts disrupting the garden in which Sita is there. And then he’s able to finally go before Lanka before Lanka, as king Ravana give him a stern warning, and then he sets half of Lanka on fire. And he comes back. Now when he comes back, at that time, he’s just roaring in joy, in exaltation. He’s flying back, and the Manaras are waiting for him.

They hear him before they see him. And they’re all jubilant. But just by the sound, they you know, if somebody is speaking itself in a very cheerful tone. So wherever they’ve gone, it was even successful. So they become happiest by hearing that.

And then Anubhrant descends, and they all surrounding him and tells his whole story. And he says, when they hear finally how what all he has done, they’re stunned. They’re delighted. But when they hear that Sita has only had 2 months remaining, Ravan has given her, 1 year’s period. He says, if you don’t give yourself to me, then I will I’m going to take you.

He says, I’m going to have you. If you don’t give yourself to me, then I will have my rakshis cook you, and you’ll be my breakfast. So he is a he’s a demon. He’s a rakshis. He’s a cannibal.

When they hear Teshita is in great danger, the Vanara say, oh, no. We need to go back immediately. And they all rush back. Now when they rush back, at that time, they’re also delighted that when they return to Sugriva many incidents in between or a few incidents in between but they return to Sugriva it is Sugriva who is told Angad tells we have found Sita we got information and Angad is so delighted. So we so it’s Angad who gives the first information because he’s the team leader.

But then when they say, let’s go to Ram. And then Ram tells, Ram asked, what happened? And then Hanuman tells the whole story. And, when Hanuman tells the whole story, Ram is astonished and distressed to hear about Sita being afflicted, and then again delighted to hear about Anuman’s chastising and burning Lanka. And finally, when, Anuram, when Anuram completed the whole story, Ram says that, oh, Hanuman, now you have done such an extraordinary service for me.

What can I offer you in return? He says, I have nothing. I am in the forest, have nothing. Therefore, he says, I will offer you myself. And he invites you.

Embrace. And Hanuman many of you may see this picture of Ram embracing Hanuman. So there, when Hanuman receives that embrace. If Hanuman is embraced, but through that, all the Manas are also blessed. Hanuman does the outstanding service, but ultimately, they’re all successful.

And when Ram embraces Anuman, it is for Anuman, that is the perfection of his life, to be and to be blessed by the Lord in that way. Ashri Vaishna commentator on the Ramayana says that actually that Ram is the same as Narayan, and on Narayan, his body, Lakshmi, resides. So when Hanuman embraces sorry, Hanuman is embraced by Narayan, and then that Narayan, who is the supreme wealth in the universe, who is adorned by the source of all the wealth in the universe, by the goddess of fortune, That lord, he embraces him. That means that actually Hanuman becomes supreme enriched by the tongue. Hanuman gets the supreme wealth because the ultimate attraction in the world is the all attractive supreme.

And that we want to get attracted to the supreme, but if somebody does a service, by which the supreme becomes attracted, there is no greater attainment than that. And that is the culmination. So this is the mission on which this team had gone is a stupendous success. For all of this, not only Sita found, not only is Ravan born, not only is Ravan given a demonstration of Ramis power, but also those who have gone on this mission, especially Hanuman, who has been spectacularly successful, heis personally and profoundly blessed by Ram. So this is the success of this team.

You could say it’s a team of monkeys, but it’s a team of those who are devoted to Ram. And they are not ordinary monkeys. They are great devotees, although they are manana bodies, but they work together, achieve this success in the service of Ram. So to summarize, I spoke on this team of teamwork in the Ramay, started by talking about how every team requires a hierarchy. No.

We live in an age of egalitarianism where we like equality. But to do anything in life, some people are better to do doing it than others. So, if a higher functioning hierarchy is formed then those who are good at it are best to best positioned at the top of that hierarchy. So, when any hierarchy is there, a team involves equality because every member is there in the team and every member is to be valued. But at the same time, for the team to take a particular task, there has to be a hierarchy.

So, how that hierarchy is used to serve the purpose that is what we discussed. So, I talked about there are there may be how Hanuman emerges a natural leader. So, there is appointed leader and there is an emergent leader. So the appointed leader is Angad because he is the royal prince. But although he is young, he tries his best to lead the team.

And he discussed about how the hierarchy is formed based on any purpose other than competence. And then it often becomes exploitative. It can become tyrannical. But if competence is not recognized and hierarchy is disjected because of that, then we will have chaos. We can even have disaster.

We can’t have equality between the pilot and the passengers. The plane will crash then. The pilot is is the lead over there. So I talked about how the left and the right need to be in dialogue. The left wants to flatten hierarchies because hierarchy, they say, becomes exploitative.

The right wants to maintain hierarchy because hierarchy leads to productivity. It gets things done. So now sometimes the hierarchy is exploitative and the left is right and things to be adjusted. And sometimes the right is right, and, hierarchy has to be maintained if we have to get things done. So, it s only when there s a discussion that things can move forward.

And then I talked about the first challenge was that when they were starving, they came into the they went into the cave where, Anumahan emerged as a natural leader by his speaking ability. So he ensured that the Anaras didn’t pounce on the fruits when they saw it. He waited and pleased so Emperor Bha with his words and then they were able to eat without any harm. And then because of the mystic arrangement of the cave, they couldn’t come out. Then Hanuman persuaded Prayampraba for the sincerity of his purpose and then she not only took them out but brought them out further south, closer to their goal.

So there both temptation and tribulation can be obstacles on the spiritual path, on any path we are pursuing. Then we need to persevere through both. And Hanuman leads them both through that leads them through both of these. Then eventually searching and they can t find and they become discouraged. The month is over.

So Angad especially is his first assignment and he s he has failed so he becomes demoralised. He starts casting aspersions on Sugriva. And he has residual resentment because his father has been killed because of Sugriva. So, at that time Hanuman doesn’t openly threaten or criticise Sugri. How dare you?

Sorry. He criticise Angadha. He say. He doesn’t say how dare you speak like this about Sugri. But he tries to gently persuade Angadha.

There’s a problem, and Angaida is so disheartened that he says that I’m going to fast to death. And, Anuman is remembering the Lord, trying to, resolve the issue at that time. Help comes in an unexpected way in the form of a bigger problem. So, if we men if sometimes we are not going to do a service, but if we maintain our service attitude, Krishna will give us a way ahead. So, circumstantially, Sampati comes over there, and Andhada speaks, oh, our fate is going to be like jitter and that’s how the Sampati reveals his identity, relationship with and Sampati reveals where Sita is across Lanka.

So rather than losing hope when things are not working out, If you just keep doing what we can, Krishna can open doors if you just maintain the service attitude. And then we talk about how the vanaras couldn’t actually jump across. Although they were instructed by the lord, although they were devoted, although they were eager to serve, but still sincerity is not always a substitute for ability. They acul humility means to acknowledge one’s inability. They acknowledge it, and then they couldn’t move ahead, and then they allowed.

Then that’s how the focus shifted to Hanuman, and Hanuman was reminded by Jambavan. And that’s how Hanuman came into his own, assumed a large form, and jumped across Lanka. And then eventually, when Hanuman came back and revealed the whole story to Ram, Ram blessed him by his personal embrace. And he who is the supreme shelterer, the supreme treasure of the universe, gave himself to Hanuman. And, thus, their mission was supremely successful.

So, thank you very much. Hare Krishna. So any questions? Sometimes in Krishna consciousness we might find ourselves in a position of leadership in a field that we don’t feel ourselves confident or we don’t feel ourselves, good at? So what do you so if we are made leaders in a field where we are not com good at, what do we do?

Yeah. It’s good to admit our inability but sometimes, it’s like we don’t have an option between a good choice and a bad choice. The only option is between a bad choice and the worst choice. So what do you do at that time? So if many times we have a severe shortage of devotees And in the situation, we might be the only person available, you know, Prabhupad.

When the, when the Juhu land controversy was going on at that time he the devotees were going to being threatened by the person who was surrendering the land, Mr. N and the devotees were getting, intimidated by him. So they were thinking that he said that they’re thinking of just cancelling the whole contract. And Prabhupada Prabhupada was not a person who talked much on phone. So Prabhupada sent Vishakha Matanjai at that time.

He said, you go. And Prabhupada wrote a strongly worded worded letter, and he said that you go and personally deliver this. So he did that, but by that time it was too late. And the the devotees already cancelled the deal. Prabhupada was furious.

He says, who gave who told you to cancel the deal? Why did you do that? At that time, the devotees some of the devotees who were involved in their whole they come so disheartened. So they said, Prabhupad, we resign. Prabhupad said, why are you resign?

He said, I don’t want you to resign. He says, you made a mistake, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to do your service. So Prabhupada, was angry with them for the mistake that they had committed, but that does not mean that he didn’t have trust in, trust in them or he didnit want them to be leaders. So now at that time if you see it was very difficult for them. They were probably in their twenties and they were in a foreign land.

And Indians always think that anybody from the west has a lot of money. In fact, Indians think that if Indians have gone to the west, they also want a lot of money. Now it may be true, it may not be true. The devotee is they were they were being taken for a ride and they were you could say that they were not the most competent people for that, but there was no one else. They had to take up the leadership and they did that.

And, we see the Krishna consciousness movement as quite vibrant in India also now. So if we have to take up a service which we are not good at, then we can express our inability, express our, our feeling of inadequacy for that service. But if we are told to do that, then we move we do our best and move on. And sometimes we may need more regular guidance than somehow somebody who is expert. Sometimes if you have to take our services which you are not good at, we might not take it in a big way.

We can start in a small way so that even if something’s go wrong, it’s not not a big negative result. It’s, there are different contexts. If it’s a service where nobody is there and the service has to be done, then we move forward and do it. But usually those are services which are often things which we do learn. The services which we have are not life and death situations.

It’s not like if we are going to war, if we don’t know a weapon, we will be killed. It’s not literally like that. So, if we can’t do something, we learn from it and we either do it ourselves or maybe Krishna will help somebody else after some time. We see how we move on. Thank you.

Any other questions? Yes, miss? Yes, ma’am. How would you approach if someone is trying to sort of push Yeah. That’s true.

If somebody is trying to push themselves up in the position. So it happens sometimes that some devotes some people in general they are a bit too self promotional. So it’s always good to give people benefit of doubt. That means rather than thinking that this self promotion is because of ego, we could say that they just have a service attitude and they they want to do more service and if they have more position, they can do more service. So we don’t wanna be naive but we don’t have to be hypercritical also.

So if that is not if their self promotion is not really hurting anyone or harming anyone, then we will just give them a benefit of doubt. Maybe they just want to serve more. And if they’re given more more facility, they can do more service. That’s what their longing is. That’s it if, what they’re doing is not hurting anyone.

Just that they keep speaking that. And and everybody also, learns this is how this person is, and he’ll live with that. But sometimes in trying to promote oneself, people start pulling others down. Oh, he doesn’t know how to do it. I can do it better.

She doesn’t know how to do it. I’ll do it much better. And then they start pointing out all this wrong. This is wrong. That is wrong.

That is wrong. Then we have to be a little careful about it. We don’t want to start gossip and backbiting and criticism. You know, gossip, when does it happen? It happens when we hear something we like about someone we don’t like.

When we hear something we like about someone we don’t like. Oh, really? I wanna tell everyone about this now. It becomes like that. So we don’t want to have that kind of backbiting starting in our moment.

So if they are pulling if they are pushing themselves up, that’s just we can give them the benefit of doubt. But in pushing themselves up, they start pulling someone else down, then they may have to take a stand over there. Right? They are doing, don’t criticize others. And sometimes some people just have to learn by experience They push themselves up, they try to do some service which they they are not qualified for the thought, they are not qualified for, but they think they are qualified for, and then they they crash, and then they learn.

So, sometimes it might just be that somebody doesn’t know a ticket. So we don’t have to be self promotional like it is in the outside world. Then if we just tell them as devotees, you know, we don’t promote ourselves like that. Today morning Chaitanya Chaitanya Mahaprabhu actually places himself as a student of his followers. So in devotional service there are times when we can talk about our qualification but there are times we can also talk about our lack of qualification.

But it is mostly that qualifies us. So, sometimes if we help people to understand the devotional etiquette that also helps them to choose better. Okay? Thank you. So thank you very much.

Thankyou