by Jyoti Pahuja on Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 4:55pm
Early in his spiritual life HH Bhaktitirtha Maharaj learned an important lesson. When he first joined the Hare Krishna movement he noticed that the devotees, although preaching a philosophy of absolute equality between all living entities based on every individual as an eternal spirit soul, were discriminating against him on the basis of racial prejudice.
He was surprised and disturbed to find such a low level of consciousness amongst with in a spiritual society. When he had the opportunity he approached Srila Prabhupada and told him that some of his disciples were racists.
Srila Prabhupada gave him a powerful reply, “If you are bothered by it then you are no better than they are.”
This is a powerful meditation. If we are ever disturbed by anyone in any situation we should simply see that as Krishna trying to show an area of our consciousness that we need to improve upon.
And ultimately if one is fully Krishna conscious he can never be disturbed by anyone in any situation.
“Some of the greatest problems are problems that we have to deal with inside ourselves. They involve raising our own consciousness. If I allow you to excessively bother me mentally, it means that my own consciousness is low; otherwise, your actions or words could not disturb my mind. Whatever your position may be, if you bother me, it is because I stand on insecure ground. We must avoid a mood of always seeing others as the full problem. We must avoid letting people’s nonsense turn us into nonsense. If we fall prey to weakness, it is because we do not have sufficient strength.”
HH Bhakti Tirtha Swami
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