Understanding the behavior of Sringi...

Verse 1.18.38 (Mohan Prji):

* Question is why did Sringi do such a thing to MP
- 1) He did not understand the position of MP and He did not know his own position,
- 2) the behavior of MP offended him
* Similar example in another place of Prajapati Daksha
- He wanted his sons to become nice grhasthas, but they became brahmachari's under the instruction of Narada muni
- So because they did not behave according to his ideas, he got angry and cursed Narada muni, thus causing a Vaisnava aparadha
* Coming to our context
- We also don't understand the position of other devotees
- And we expect them to behave in a certain way and if they don't, then we get upset
* So for this, we can nice instructions from NOI
- One should always honor the devotee who is always engaged in chanting of the holy name, or is in Deity worship
- One should always honor a pure devotee
* There are 3 types of devotees
- Kanishta, Madhyama and Uttama adhikari
- Based on their position, a devotee should always behave in the appropriate way
- One has to always mentally honor the kanishta adhikari
- One has to pay obeisances and physically honor too the madhyama adhikari, who is initiated and performing service unto Deities
- And for an Uttama adhikari, we must serve them very nicely
* SP in this purport, again mentions, that a devotee must be intelligent enough to distinguish these 3 types in devotees and a devotee must also never try to imitate a higher devotee's position
* Meditating on this verse, we can try to avoid offending devotees
- by understanding our own position and knowing the position of the other devotees
* Because offending devotees will be offending the holy name and that will make us lose our KC very soon
* From the book - Art of Chanting
- The main cause for offending devotees is asat sangha, the association of materialistic people
- It increases our envious nature
- As a solution, it is told that one has to give up material associations
* Sri CM: first business of a vaisnava is that he gives up materialistic association
* In this verse too, Sringi was in association with inexperienced boys, so we can see how his bad behavior came out.