Harish V Menon, 15th January 2015
Hare Krishna,
Please accept my humble obeisances.
All glories to Srila Gurudev and Srimati Gurumata.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Request your guidance in managing work life. We work with various types of people with different mentalities. When working with colleagues who are having selfish intentions, back biting attitudes and doing politics, how should a person in KC react. I try to be good to everyone, but sometimes end up retaliating to their behaviors and I later repent
Please advise how to handle such type of situations
your Servant,
Harish V
Brhadnath dasa, 15th January 2015
Hare Krishna,
Please accept my humble obeisances
All Glories to Srila Prabhupada and Srila Gurudeva.
When I joined at a new place among unknown colleagues, I faced one typical problem, our incharge would thrust work related to other seats to me in addition to my own work. My feeble protests were brushed aside. I also approached devotees, most of them advised to refuse, but that was not my forte. One devotee told me to strengthen my sadhana, viz. attentive chanting in the early hours,devote more time to listen to lectures. I followed and also shared the nectar from the lectures with my colleagues. Within one month the whole scenario changed. Now the additional work load got offloaded, and person concerned would come to me for guidance and I started sharing Prabhupada with them, by gifting them Bhagavad Gita As It Is
I suggest, to share the concerns of your colleagues, (whatever it is), don’t go into the shell and share Prabhupada with them. their is too much scope to reform some persons. Moreover, this will help you to empower yourself to practice bhakti consistently, irrespective of circumstantial feelings
Hope I make some sense
your servant,
Brhad nath dasa
Sacinandana Das, 16th January 2015
Hare Krishna Dear Devotees,
Please accept my humble obeisances.
All Glories to Srila Gurudev and Srimati Gurumata.
All Glories to Srila Prabhupada.
The more we give Krishna, the more we get Krishna. By giving Prasadam to our colleagues we are making them Krishna Conscious. We can ask them to chant Hare Krishna and taste the ultimate bliss. We also have to be careful to not let them know that Bhakti is more important to us than anything else.
your servant,
Sacinandana Das
Mahabhagavat Das SDA, 16th January 2015
Dear Sriman Harish,
Hare Krishna!
Please accept my humble obeisances.
All glories to Srila Gurudeva.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Your question is very pertinent. Many of us face this same situation every single day.
It is important not to get too emotionally invested with materialistic persons either lovingly or in distaste, because if we do, we will be dragged into material consciousness one way or the other.
In my personal work life, I try to stick to business only, but strive to be very professional and friendly without getting involved in their activities, for example, if we have some celebration, I don’t go with the colleagues to the bar, though I will stay in the office and clap and pat people on the back for a job well done.
Not everyone is ready for spiritual advice either, in fact, you can jeopardize your broader Krishna conscious service if you endanger your job by preaching inappropriately.
So, look at this… stay away from the envious, try to gently preach to the innocent…
If we are always exemplary, people will naturally come to us when they need spiritual guidance. It is not easy to change from one day to the next, but I can say that the process of devotional service, rising early, chanting our rounds, Mangal Arati, reading Srila Prabhupada’s books, taking only Krishna Prasada as far as possible, following regulative principles, etc., purifies us gradually and almost imperceptibly, but I can see many differences from years ago and today.
If sometimes, we fail, we should pick ourselves and try again without getting discouraged either.
Hopefully this helps!
Sincerely,
Mahabhagavat Das
Bhakta Sunil, 17th January 2015
Hare Krishna Harish Prabhu
Dandavat Pranams!
The earlier answers have provided best possible answers ,but to indulge in this topic i humbly put forth the answer in different words :
Dealing and associating are different. At work place you deal with non-devotees but do not take their association and where favorable , give your association
One point I remember about retaliating or not retaliating from Ultimate Self Realization emails , is that one choose one’s battles wisely ; if one can fight or correct then retaliate or else not to retaliate
If one is tolerant and could successfully ignore , then the back biters would get tired of the dirty politics and would soon stop. It is like test of getting agitated or not.
Regarding persons who are envious , backbiting , playing politics and blasphemous ; i remember a recent email from Ultimate Self Realization Emails as forwarded below , which I hope would help :
Answers by Citing the Vedic Version:
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Question: How to Handle Blasphemers?
________________________________
What should a Krishna consciousness person do if someone blasphemes against Lord Krishna or His devotees? Please guide me on ways to handle this especially when the person is unavoidable, like at home or in the office.
There’s another religion where even the slightest blasphemy would mean ghastly acts of terror by its followers and all this killing is justified. Isn’t it wrong to resort to such violent acts if someone blasphemes God?
Regards,
Kaushik
________________________________
Answer: Defeat Them, Leave the Place, or Tune Them Out
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If someone blasphemes Krishna or His devotee the best thing to do is defeat them philosophically. Convince them they are completely wrong to say such nonsense so that they will feel remorse and apologize. If this is not possible, one should immediately leave that place, because by hearing blasphemy one’s devotion to Krishna will be destroyed. If you are stuck with them like at home or in the office and you cannot convince them that they are wrong, you should block your hears rather than be polluted by hearing blasphemy. For example you can get a headset for hearing Krishna conscious lectures and Hare Krishna kirtan. In this way by tuning into Krishna katha you can tune them out. If you cannot tune them out with a headset, you should tune them out simply by putting your mind somewhere else.
Committing blasphemy is certainly a greatly sinful act. Even though even our scriptures say that blasphemers should be killed, this should NOT be taken literally in this age. This is so because on the plea of Lord Nityananda Lord Caitanya forgave the blasphemers Jagai and Madhai rather than killing them. In this age of Kali because everyone is a blasphemer, if we were to kill the blasphemers, we would have to kill everyone. So the conclusion is that instead of killing the blasphemers, we should kill their blasphemous mentality by the wide scale distribution introduction of Hari nama sankirtan (the congregational chanting of they holy names of God) and the wide scale distribution of transcendental literatures such as the Bhagavad-gita and Srimad Bhagavatam. This will bring about the much desired peace and happiness for the world.
Sankarshan Das Adhikari
http://www.backtohome.com
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Sincerely,
Sunil
Balaji Shanmugam, 19th January 2015
Hare Krishna everybody,
Please accept my humble respects.
All Glories to Srila Prabhupada and Our Gurudeva.
I to faced similar problem and in my case it happened to be bit intense. So I wrote our gurudeva. The instruction given by our Gurudeva is available in the following link.
http://sda-archives.com/tftd/tftd/2004/may/tftd_051204.html#W
Hari bol,
S.Balaji.
Acharya Das, 19th January 2015
Dear Harish Prabhu,
Please accept my humble obeiances.All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
I have also faced myself such situations some suggestions from my side would be identify and be aware of these kind of people while working. Do your duty to the best of your ability and have a good relationship with your superior.Keep focusing on your task don’t react too much to there politics, back bitting etc but keep a watch on their activities. Distribute Prasad if possible but dont preach too much.
yours Sincerely,
Acharya Das.
Harish V Menon, 19th January 2015
Hare Krishna,
Please accept my humble obeisances.
All glories to Srila Gurudev and Srimati Gurumata.
All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
Thank you all for your wonderful guidance.
Haribol!
your Servant,
Harish V
Haladhar Das, 20th January 2015
Hare Krsna Harish ji,
Thank you for the nice question which definitely everyone goes through in his office life and beautiful answers given.
Just wanted to take the opportunity to add a little to already clarified discussion.
One thing is setbacks small or big, steadies or rather enhances one faith in sadhu, guru, shashtra like Lord Krsna already confirming this material world to be dukhalayam asasvatam temporary and full of miseries. And Srila Bhaktisidhanta Saraswati Thakur ji citing “This place is not fit for the gentleman”. So we should take all the negativity or unfavourable circumstances as sweet reminder to concentrate on the goal of human form of life, going back to Godhead.
e dhana, yaubana, putra, parijana
ithe ki ache paratiti re
kamala-dala-jala, jivana talamala
bhajahu hari-pada niti re
“What assurance of real happiness is there in all of one’s wealth, youthfulness, sons, and family members? This life is tottering like a drop of water on a lotus petal; therefore you should always serve and worship the divine feet of Lord Hari.”
Second thing is we have to understand and properly analyze through the eyes of scripture our favourable position vis-a-vis the position of non-devotees or materialists. We should have mercy on them and if feasible try to find out means to save them from their precarious position.
“Everyone is forced to act helplessly according to the qualities he has acquired from the modes of material nature, therefore no one can refrain from doing something, not even for a moment.” (BG 3.5)
So having mercy on the poor souls, trying to find out the means for utilizing a unfavourable circumstance in a favourable way. Like Srila Gurudeva HG Sankarshan Das Adhikari ji says a good sailor by adjusting his sails can sail against the wind also. Or a intelligent businessman makes profit in any circumstances, when the price is low, he buys and when the price is high, he sells.
Reading Srila Prabhupada Lilamrta helps a lot in keeping the devotional spirits high while dealing in such unfavourable or so called horrible situations, as after going through it (although its not mentioning every moment), we can know what a unfavourable situation means actually.
Hope it helps.
thank you.
your servant,
Haladhar Das
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