Receiving Chastisement

[jayaisvara]

As an asura, I am asking you devotees, how one can receive chastisement and become humble without getting angry?

[Guest guest]

No one is an asura really. Its only our own imagination. We try to put people in groups and say something is bad and something is good but really, there is no good or bad. There is only knowledge and ignorance and there is only God and illusion.

 

If you get angry if some one criticizes you, then thats just natural, the same way it is natural for everyone to express other emotions. Happiness, sadness, hate, anger, these are all natural, they are like seasons, they come and go. you should not try to suppress them or be preoccupied with them. So don't worry about anger, just pray to God and be the most honest person you could be , to yourself and to God.

[Guest guest]

The chastisement received from Guru or God is like the most sharpest sword and the greatest medicine. It cuts the ego and you can feel the pain, but if in ignorance like myself, then foolish, idiotic rebellion spoils the whole thing, the whole medicine. Sri Krsna says in the Gita that krodha, anger, is the demoniac quality. I simply cannot understand why I must harbor these qualities. If I truly want to understand God, then I must prepare myself for the time of chastisement so that like a stupid fool who is the lowest of manking and deserves no respect from anyone, who is myself, will humbly accept the medicine and become cured from this disease. How can I not worry sir, when I can't accept my own idiotic sense?

[jayaisvara]

I don't understand why this keeps logging off, I am sorry, but that was myself. Just to make sure, I will reply again:

 

The chastisement received from Guru or God is like the most sharpest sword and the greatest medicine. It cuts the ego and you can feel the pain, but if in ignorance like myself, then foolish, idiotic rebellion spoils the whole thing, the whole medicine. Sri Krsna says in the Gita that krodha, anger, is the demoniac quality. I simply cannot understand why I must harbor these qualities. If I truly want to understand God, then I must prepare myself for the time of chastisement so that like a stupid fool who is the lowest of manking and deserves no respect from anyone, who is myself, will humbly accept the medicine and become cured from this disease. How can I not worry sir, when I can't accept my own idiotic foolishness?

[Vanguard]

Chastisement is the sweetest nectar the pure devotee can bestow upon you:

 

"Advaita Acharya being deprived of Gauranga's blessings devised a plan to obtain His favour. He retired to his house at Santipur where he began to expound Mayavada Jnana to his disciples. When Gauranga came to know of this, He hastened there and in a fit of rage began to give him blows saying, "What makes you, Acharya to establish the superiority of Jnana over Bhakti cult? Is it the reason for which you have invoked Me from My Supreme Seat Vaikuntha?" Advaita's desire was thus fulfilled, as he received the loving chastisement from the Lord Himself. By this Gauranga teaches us, that He has appeared to establish Bhagabat-Dharma of the religion of Divine Love all over the world."

[krsna]

Uncompromising Enemy Of Untruth

 

 

 

From the Great Favor, a Harmonist article, by Shrila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada:

 

"A chanter of the Kirtan of Hari is necessarily the uncompromising enemy of wordliness and hypocrisy. As chanter of the Kirtan of Hari, it is the constant function to dispell all misconceptions by the preaching of the truth in the most unambiguous form without any respect of person, place or time. That form is to be adopted which is least likely to be misunderstood. It is his bounden duty to oppose clearly and frankly any person who tries to deceive and harm himself and other people by misrepresenting the Truth due to malice or bonafide misunderstanding.

 

This will be possible if the chanter of Kirtan is always prepared to submit to be trodden by thoughtless people if any discomfort to himself will enable him to do good to his persecutors by chanting the Truth in the most unambiguous manner. If he is unwilling or afraid of considerations of self-respect or personal discomfort to chant the Kirtan under all circumstances he is unfit to be a preacher of the Absolute Truth. Humility implies perfect submission to the Truth and no sympathy for untruth. A person who entertains any partiality for untruth is unfit to chant the kirtan of Hari. Any clinging to untruth is opposed to the principle of humility born of absolute submission to the truth.

 

Those who serve the Truth at all time, by means of all their faculties, and have no hankering for the trivialities of this world, are always necessarily free from malice born of competing worldliness and are, therefore, fit to admonish those who are actively engaged in harming themselves and others by the method of opposing or misrepresenting the Truth in order to attain rewards of such policy in the shape of a perpetuation of the state of misery and ignorance. The method which is employed by the servant of the good preceptor for preventing such misrepresentation of the truth is a part and parcel of the truth itself.

 

It may not always be pleasing to the diseased susceptibilities of deluded minds and may even be denounced by them as a malicious act with which they are only too familiar, but the words of truth from the lips of a loyal and humble servant of Hari possess such beneficent power that all effort to suppress or obstruct them only serves to vindicate to impartial minds the necessity of complete submission to the Absolute Truth as the only cure of the disease of wordliness. Humility that is employed in the unambiguous service of the Truth is necessarily and qualitatively different from its perverted prototype which is practised by the cunning people of this world for gaining their worldly ends. The professors of pseudo-humility have reason to be afraid of the preachings of the servants of Hari -- one of whose duties is to expose the enormous possibility of mischief that is possessed by the forms of so-called spiritual conduct -- when they are taken to task for serving the untruth.

 

Shrila Saccidananda Bhaktivinoda Thakura quotes:

 

Patrikara Uddesya, Sajjana Tosani:

 

"In the name of bhakti in many places people are engaged in illicit or anti-bhakti activities in the name of practicing bhakti. If one does not expose those issues (cases) very clearly, then pure-bhakti will never be victorious or be established."

 

Bheka-dharana, Sajjana Tosani.

 

"One should compulsorily engage in endeavouring to trying to uplift the Vaisnava-dharma from the mud of contamination and trying to free it from all kinds of dauratmya (wrong ideas and practices)."

 

Vaisnava-ninda, Sajjana Tosani 5/5:

 

samuddesya sahita je paradosera alocana, taha sastre nindita haya nai.

 

samuddesya-tina prakara; ye vyaktira papa laiya alocana kara jaya, tahate yadi tahara kalyana uddista haya, tabe sei alocana subha.

 

jagatera mangala-sadhanera janya yadi papira papa alocana kara jaya, tabe taha subha karyera madhye ganita.

 

"The deliberation (alocana) on the faults of others with the right motive (samuddesya) is not considered as criticism as per the scriptures. The right motive is any of these three kinds: If the deliberation is done on someone's sinful or faulty activities with the motive of benefitting the person concerned then that kind of deliberation is auspicious. If deliberation on other's faults is done to benefit or protect the interests of human society in general, then that kind of deliberation is counted amongst auspicious activities done for the benefit of everyone."

 

sisya gurudevake vaisnava nirdesa karite prarthana karile gurudeva sisyera u jagatera mangala-kamanara asadacaridigake avaisnava baliya sadhu-vaisnavera nirdesa kariya thakena. sadhu vaisnavera . asraya karibara abhipraye asat dharmadhvaji lokake parityaga karate sadhu-ninda va vaisnavaparadha haya na.

 

"When the disciple prayerfully inquires from the spiritual master about the identity of true Vaisnavas, the guru may point out persons who are dressed as Vaisnavas but are not following the Vaisnava principles (sadacara), and name them as 'avaisnavas'. This action on the part of the guru is for the benefit of the disciple (because if the disciple unknowingly associates with these pretenders then his spiritual life is ruined) and for the benefit of the whole world (when the pretenders are identified, the sanctity of the pure Vaisnava-dharma is protected in the world). The bonafide guru does not do so because of envy or malice towards any individual but he acts for the benefit of everyone. Thus it is not 'sadhu-ninda' (criticism of devotees) or 'vaisnava-aparadha' (offense to the devotees) to instruct others to reject the association of those pretenders (dharmadhvajis) who have taken shelter of the exalted position of Vaisnavas but are engaged in performing activities against the Vedic scriptures."

 

[Guest guest]

Hi, its me again.

 

One thing I know about life is that you cannot go on thinking that you are a fool, thats just not right. Your guru could be right in some sense but it does not give him the right to punish you. If you think Guru is God then, well then I guess you can say God is punishing you but thats just insane (no offense). God cannot punish you because he loves you so much and Guru , if he is a representation of God, he will only advise you. Punishment is out of line. If your guru is criticizing you then, well try to see the positive side to it and take what you think you will need. It is wrong to think that you are "lowest of mankind", thats not vaishnavism. Jayaisvara, Vaishnavism does not tell you to have a low self esteem, it only tries to tell you to get rid of ego and attachment. God has given you a beautiful mind, use it for good practically and show God what a true Vaishnava can do. Like Martin Luther king or like Bahai ullah, strive to gain the God consciousness with a practical approach. If you go on continuing your life in a mode of self annihilation, it will not get you far.

 

Sincerely,

Vaishnavite.

[jayaisvara]

I couldn't understand what Srila B.S. Saraswati Thakur was trying to say. He speaks very technical so all I understood was that we must be able to speak truth regardless of time, place or circumstance. That I am still trying to do. It is not possible to simply try to kill my ego with my own ego. That is not possible. It also seems unworthy to lament. Yet, I spoke those words out of shear frustration at myself for having this ego deeply rooted. When praying to God, I am thinking as if He is an object that can be attained. I've been used to material life for so long, that I am used to thinking 'If I want it, I want it now'. So, with God, this can't be. My mind disturbs me so many times, that its so hard to focus on others instead of myself. As you can see from what I've already wrote so much "me", "my" and "I". I am trying to solve my problem and not caring a little of others. This is ego is it not? If I knew only how to ask God properly for help, instead of expecting Him to help me, like I am the subject and He is the object. Just like Sridhar Maharaja says, "God is the subject and we are the objects". Will introspection of myself help?

 

Thank you guys for helping me. You don't have to but out of your goodness you are helping, thank you again.

[Guest guest]

Its not wrong to think in terms of yourself. Its okay to think of yourself. Everyone does that. It is not ego, its natural. If you don't want to think about yourself then get yourself out of that misery of self annihilation. Having a strong self esteem will stop you from thinking about yourself and when you never think about yourself, then you will always think about God and other's. If you want to do good my friend, you will have to treat yourself well. Its not a crime to treat yourself well. If some one is telling you that it is a crime then take my advice and tell them to 'get lost'. Have some optimism. Nothing is wrong with you. You cannot just try to annihilate your 'self', that is not possible no matter what you do. God won't help you until you help yourself. Get out of that miserable condition. Depression won't take you far.

 

Regards,

Vaishnavite

[Guest guest]

"Its not wrong to think in terms of yourself. Its okay to think of yourself. Everyone does that. It is not ego, its natural. If you don't want to think about yourself then get yourself out of that misery of self annihilation. Having a strong self esteem will stop you from thinking about yourself and when you never think about yourself, then you will always think about God and other's. If you want to do good my friend, you will have to treat yourself well. Its not a crime to treat yourself well. If some one is telling you that it is a crime then take my advice and tell them to 'get lost'. Have some optimism. Nothing is wrong with you. You cannot just try to annihilate your 'self', that is not possible no matter what you do. God won't help you until you help yourself. Get out of that miserable condition. Depression won't take you far.

 

Regards,

Vaishnavite "

 

With same basis on scriptures Prabhu? or all the conclusions are your?

 

[krsna]

So far my chastising you at Mayapur for your questions it is simply out of love that I chastise any of my students. It is a father's duty to raise his son to be a strong, useful citizen, and sometimes he must reprimand him for some mistake in order to teach him. But this harshness is only for his son's benefit. Similarly, you are all my spiritual children, and my only concern is to see that you all become strong in your devotion to Lord Krishna, so sometimes scolding may be there, but you should always remember that it is done with love and it is only for your benefit. You are an intelligent boy, and I want to train you very nicely so that you will be able to preach this great Krishna Conscious philosophy with conviction, and help to deliver all the spiritually-starving souls in this age. Therefore, you should take this chastisement as an opportunity to advance in Krishna Consciousness and not in any other way.

 

 

 

Srila Prabhupada letter

 

Sydney, April 12, 1972

[jayaisvara]

Unfortunately, I couldn't read this letter beforehand. And now it makes a little sense, thanks for posting it krsna. You know when all the acarya's, they say one must have faith in order to advance a significant amount, how can one first of all gain faith from no faith? Don't you need a submissive spirit? But when pride overwhelms me, how will that submissive spirit come?