Skip to main content

Assuming Can Lead to Disaster

Just the other day, I got a call from a friend, early in the morning. She was extremely distraught and wanted to know if the books I bought many years ago has the same cantos or not.

I could only mention a few, to the best of what my memory could muster at that time.

This distraught lady then, went on to berate the organization for short selling her the books. She claimed they did not sent her the entire cantos and she felt they did great injustice to her. 

I told her to check everything properly, lest she may have over looked something. But she was quite adamant, and her fury was quite inconsolable. 

Not wanting to further the conversation, I excused myself by telling her I have other things to do. I honestly did not feel like hearing all this ranting, especially early in the morning.

Mornings for me is a time of calmness, quietness, meditation and peace. I must admit, it did give me a sense of uneasy queasiness . 

Come noon time, I decided to give her a call. She was calmer and found out about the cantos from another friend of hers. Apparently, she mistook what was unboxed and felt apologetic. She did mention that her purchase was in complete order.

You see my friends, sometimes we are quick to assume something to be out of context without really checking. The mind is quick to respond only on the negative. Our inner voice may give us preconceived notions when there is no such thing at all. Worst, we say things, that we cannot take back and this is where we create offenses to people who have no fault at all. In the end, we are digging our own graves. All our spiritual practises will go spiralling downhill as well. 

We can take lessons from the above incident to be very mindful and careful of what we let out from our mouths and accuse others unnecessarily, who  maybe quite innocent in the whole affair.

And also from the lady herself, who is quick to be apologetic after knowing about her own faults. Not many would even do that. 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Life & Times of Sripad Bhakti Prakash Hrishikesh Maharaja in Malaysia

When I heard about the passing away of Sripad Bhakti Prakash Hrishikesh Maharaja, I was a little numb at first. My feelings were not completely settled to his passing. But after looking at his pictures, it finally dawned upon me that His Holiness was no more in this planet. Maharaja reminded me of someone so dynamic in serving Sri Hari, Guru & Vaishnavas. Nothing was impossible for him. Maharaja used to go heads on without thinking of any consequences. He did not believe much in meetings and talking about how to do a seva because he was an action man. He always said to me, “Let’s just do it. Krsna will take care of everything!!!” Maharaja was the first person to assist me in printing the book “Shower of Love.” When Srila Gurudeva ordered me to always write, I was totally lost as what to do. With whatever little knowledge I had, the compilation of lectures took place. But it was Maharaja who showed me the ropes of how to put in the footnotes, headings, sub-headings, titles etc. I re...

Telling Children Stories (Harikatha)

The other day I told my 9 year old student about the story of the "Talking Pot." Sometimes I try to inject in a very "tricky" manner about our Krsna conscious philosophy after a lesson. I usually start by asking my students whether they would love to hear a story or not. They would always say "Y - E - S!!!" in a cheerful manner. These children have no idea who Krsna is. Besides they are not devotees' children either. So story telling is the best way to get the message across. OK coming back to the "Talking Pot." It's a story about how a disciple felt he could do better if he left his Guru's ashram. His service was to fetch water from the Yamuna daily. The disciple thought he would be better off if he found a job and got married. But the pot talked him out of it and he ran back to his Guru. For the full story click here: h ttp://shukasari.blogspot.com/2009/04/talking-water-pot.html After the story I asked my student, Darren, about the ...

What is Success?

 What is success? Many times we view success, even in devotional life, as having multiple temples, many devotees, loads of amazing festivities and the list goes on. Well, nothing is wrong in that. But the success in spiritual life must be in accordance to what Sri Guru wants and not what we want.  If a temple is small and has a very small congregation, does that mean they are not successful? We tender to measure everything with mundane vision and with extremely limited foresight even in our spiritual path.  Whether big or small, as long as Sri Guru and Krsna is pleased, that is all it takes to move forward in the path of devotion. At the end of the day, each and every soul has their own unique journey and realizations to finally go back home, back to Godhead. One can be like Sabari, residing all by herself in the forest but very firmly holding on to her guru-seva in plucking berries which eventually led her to have darshan of Lord Rama or even having many association in a...