How can a devotee use pride in the service of the Lord?
Srila Prabhupada said how you can do that. You can be proud to be a servant of Krishna. That's how you can use pride in the service of Krishna. Often times when we come to the West, we are not proud to be devotees. We want to hide it. So you can be proud to be a devotee. And you can be proud to let people know you are devotee of Krishna and you can have confidence that you are a devotee, that you worship, Krishna. By being a devotee, you can help others, you can develop good qualities and they will see your good qualities. So don't be shy of not letting people know you're a devotee of Krishna.
In connection to that, is there any reference in the bhagavatam where a devotee uses pride in the service of the Lord?
He was very proud he was fighting with Indra in the Sixth Canto. He was a demon. But he was more Krishna Conscious than Indra. And he was urging Indra to kill him because he was going back to Godhead. He was very proud that he's going back to Godhead. Indra was just going to stay in this material world and rot. So that is one example, he was so proud and he was preaching to Indra, just kill me. I'll go back to godhead. My material life will be finished. He was proud to be a devotee that I mean he was actually a devotee inside, demon outside. And his devotional qualities came out in his prayers and Sixth Canto chapter 11. He was praying to go back to Krishna to be again with Krishna. He was feeling separation from Krishna. Actually, he was born in demon family, but was proud to be a devotee. He was proud that he was going back to Godhead. And he used that pride in making Indra angry and trying to fight with him, making Indra fight with him.
Why do we get angry and how to control that?
What makes you angry is your expectations from others. You expect them to act in a certain way that you think is the right way to act, but when they don't act that way, you get angry. We have expectations of people and if they don't fulfill our expectation, then we get angry. So the way to counteract anger in this is also stated by Bhismadeva in the First Canto of Srimad Bhagavatam is forgiveness. We have to control our anger by forgiving. We need to forgive the people who make us angry and we need to ask them to forgive us. If you get angry, you should stop, start doing some deep breathing. Try to go into another room and be away from the person you're angry with. Then you can try maybe chanting a little bit and when the anger passes, it's like the mode of ignorance coming over you. When it passes and we are more in a better state of mind then you can try to communicate more on the mode of goodness. But forgiveness is the counteraction.
I have one follow-up question. You said we get angry because we have expectations from the people. So is it wrong to have the expectation from the near ones who we know?
I mean there is reasonable expectation and unreasonable expectation. So it is good also to let them know what your expectation is. It's good to communicate with others so they understand what your expectation is and find out if they can fulfill your expectation or not. It's good to communicate; communication is really important. It's not like it's wrong or right but there are boundaries there are certain boundaries that you have to find what how much people can do. What is their capacity to fulfill your expectations. So you need to know their boundaries how far they can go and sometimes we have unreasonable expectations. So we have to find out if our expectations are reasonable or not. Communicate with people before you get angry, express yourself in a in a balanced way. And maybe that will help to counteract the anger.
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