(Kadamba Kanana Swami, 26 April 2015, Radhadesh, Belgium, Vyasa Puja Morning Lecture, Caitanya Caritamrta Madhya Lila 24.124)
Question: What is the best thing to do to cure our scars and in particular how to cure bad relationships with devotees?
By having good relationships with devotees! Focus on the positive, do not focus on scars. Sometimes we read about the anarthas and so on, but we should not spend our whole spiritual life just meditating on overcoming anarthas. Certainly, anarthas are an element in our philosophy and one should understand the nature of these anarthas, reading about it for example in Madhurya Kadambini where Visvanath Cakravarti Thakur gives really nice explanation about the anarthas. The point is that we do take note of anarthas and on how to overcome them, but the essence is – let us just focus on the positive! Avoid the negative activities as much as you can and meanwhile where it is still difficult, then we try to just get absorbed in devotional service and that will purify us.
One of my favorite stories that my mother used to tell me is about two princesses and one, when she would open her mouth, roses would come out and when the other one would open hers – frogs! Now, in our case, since we are vaisnavas we are trying for roses but every once in a while there is an inadvertent frog that just jumps out of your mouth and then what do you do!? Then you think, ‘I should not have said that!’ But you cannot swallow the frog – it is against the regulative principles! So once it is out there, it bounces around in all its ugliness and people may even put it on the internet or quote it in a vyasa-puja offering as some sort of funny pastime! Yes, it happens and we try to avoid these things, but it may still happen even when we try to avoid it. Then what do you do? Keep on trying to avoid and just get engaged in positive, glorifying Krsna, serving Krsna and doing all these things connected with devotional service. Then all the anarthas will just automatically be purified in the process of bhakti yoga – all the scars gone!
