A Story about Finding Faults in Others

Sunrise at Hare Krishna Temple Eungella, New South Wales

Don't Find Faults in Others - is not a blanket statement that applies to everyone and every situation in our lives. What we need to understand is the fine line, the context and the reason for finding faults. If you are a parent, teacher, a Manager or someone Senior in a company and need to advise, inform, correct someone for their benefit, then that is OK. Though, it is important that the fault finding should not demotivate, depress, make someone vulnerable or discouraged. It should be given in a constructive, palatable way in a spirit of concern, welfare and compassion for others. Because, remember the Law of Karma - For everything we do through our mind, words and bodily actions are all considered as Karma.

In Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 15 Lord Krishna explains that, aversion to fault finding is one of the qualities of a man endowed with divine nature.

In this regards, Srila Prabhupada comments in Bhagavad Gita As It Is - 16: The Divine and Demoniac Natures - "Apaisunam; means that one should not find fault with others or correct them unnecessarily. Of course, to call a thief a thief is not fault-finding, but to call an honest person a thief is very much offensive for one who is making advancement in spiritual life."

It is interesting to think and understand why do people criticize? Some common motivations for criticism are (1) gaining a sense of superiority, (2) getting back at someone who has hurt us, (3) asserting our position or belief as the best or only way, and (4) avoiding scrutiny of our own shortcomings. Identifying our motives takes honesty and courage. Specially, it is said that in spiritual life, fault finding is a anartha or unwanted habit that makes the practitioner, unhappy and unable to get the spiritual happiness and contentment in spite of following all the rules and regulations rigidly.

(Please read this story - it can save you from lot of troubles!)

Once there was a king who distributed food to the brahmana's.

One day, as he was giving out food to the priests, an eagle flew above holding a dead snake in his claws. Out of the mouth of the dead snake fell a drop of poison into the food that the king was distributing.

No one knew or saw that this had happened, so the king continued distributing the food.

The Brahmin who accidentally got the poisoned food from king died, and the king was feeling very sad about it.

One of the servants of Yamaraja (God of death) who has the service to distribute karma to the living beings has a problem. When this incident with the king and the poisoned food happened, however, he did not know who to give the karma to.

After all, it was not the eagle's fault that it carried the dead snake in its claws (since this was its food), nor was it the dead's snake fault, nor was it the king's fault because he did not know that the poison fell into the food.

However, one day, few other brahmanas entered the kingdom to meet the king.

A lady was sitting next to the road and they asked her: "Do you know where the king's palace is and how we can get there?"

She said: "Yes," and pointed at the right direction. "But, be very careful," she said, "The king is known to kill brahmanas!"

The moment she said that and criticized the king un-rightfully, that moment the servant of Yamaraja has decided. He gave her the karma of killing the brahmana!
P.S: It is said that the reason performs an action is get some result and specifically, an action that generates certain amount of Happiness for that person. In this case, the King did not get any happiness and rather he was sorrow and remorseful, the snake is dead anyway, the eagle is not bothered about what is happening, the brahmanas are dead and their relatives are grieving. The only one who got happiness is the old Women by her loose tongue and harsh, unjust words aimed towards the innocent King. And that's why, she got the bad karma of killing the Brahmanas. 

Moral of the story:

If you criticize anyone and you are right about their deeds, you get half of their bad karma.

But, if you criticize someone and you are not right about their deeds, then you get 100% of their karma.

This story can inspire us to be careful about what we think or say about people surrounding us.