29-Successful Relationships with Jaya Sila dasa and Vimala devi dasi

Hare Krishna.  Welcome back to Successful Vaisnavas. This is Krsnendu dasa. Today we’ll be interviewing Jaya Sila Prabhu and Vimala Mataji about their Relationship Rescue Remedy program. I’ve personally worked with them on this program from the very beginning.

If you were also interested in starting a business based upon helping others. Whether that’s devotees, or people in general, with the expertise that you’ve got, or some knowledge that you’d like to share. Get in touch with me at https://successfulvaisnavas.com/business  Where you can find out more about this kind of business and how I might be able to help you to set it up.  So with that said, let’s jump right into the interview with Jaya Sila and Vimala, and let’s see how we can improve our relationships using the Relationship Rescue Remedy Five Drop Formula. 

Krsnendu: Hare Krishna, it’s Krsnendu Dasa here again for Successful Vaisnavas and today I’ve got a special interview because I’m gonna be speaking with some of the first devotees that I ever met when I came to the temple in Auckland.  It’s Jaya Sila Prabhu and Vimala Mataji. And the reason that I’m going to be speaking with them today is because they have produced a book and an online course, which helps devotees with relationships, which I think at this time of the Corona virus may be very helpful because everyone’s locked at home. Now, just before we continue on, I’ll just mention that they actually have the ebook version of their book available for devotees and you can get it from relationshiprescueremedy.com. So I just wanted to mention that at the beginning so that if you miss it later on, you can always find it very quickly at the beginning of this episode. So welcome Jaya Sila and Vimala. It’s nice to talk with you again.

Jaya Sila: Hare Krishna, Krsnendu.

Vimala: Hare Krishna

Krsnendu: So, yes, we’ve known each other for many decades, and  we’ve actually been working together on this Relationship Rescue Remedy project for about 10 years, I would say. Maybe even a little longer than that, which is quite amazing. Well, in different forms. Maybe not exactly Relationship Rescue Remedy, but we’ve definitely been doing different preaching programs and things.

So it’s really exciting for me after all this time to finally get you on the podcast and talk about what your journey has been like. So first of all, let’s just talk about how you came to this point of writing this book about relationships for devotees. Maybe you can even go right back a little bit to how you joined because you’re both Prabhupada disciples.

You were married or almost married when you first joined, and then you could just lead us up to the point where you actually wrote the book.

Jaya Sila: Wow, that sounds…

Vimala: That could be a lot.

Jaya Sila: A long podcast, this one’s going to be.

Krsnendu: Yeah it’s only like 50 years worth of history, right?

Jaya Sila: Yeah. It’s interesting when you mentioned that going back slightly, you said that we were working together for 10, maybe more years, and it did bring up the shift when we… I was just talking to my wife out just a little bit earlier.

We were discussing how we were doing seminars at the time. We were in Australia and we were traveling through the major centers in Australia. And the seminar we were presenting was nurturing Krishna’s children. So that was fine and we’re really still into nurturing Krishna’s children.

It’s so important. But what came up was, we’re talking about looking after children. But that presupposes that you’ve got a couple that worked together that are married and they’d  been living together for the children. So people, some people, devotees were asking us, “Do you do relationship seminars?”

And we thought about that. We talked about it. And it became very clear actually, that we should be really spending a lot more time trying to help devotees to be together.

Vimala:  ‘Cause if you have the healthy relationship, then it’s going to extend over to your successful parenting with your children. There’s no doubt about that.

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Krsnendu: It’s true. And the reason that I mentioned about going back to the beginning, it’s just the point that you have been married for more than 40 years. So you’ve certainly got a lot of experience in that realm.

Jaya Sila: Don’t say it too loud Krsnendu. It makes us feel real old.

Krsnendu: If I work it out, you’ve probably been married about as long as I’ve been alive, but anyway, I won’t mention that again.

Vimala: Wow.  That’s scary. I was working it out the other day and I suppose 47 years we’ve been together and, yeah…

Jaya Sila: Married for 45?

Vimala: 45 years.

Jaya Sila: We knew each other before we got married, which isn’t a bad idea.

Krsnendu: That’s funny. It reminds me, I just have to say this. I was watching this comedian on YouTube, her name is Lily Singh, and she sort of presents the Indian culture and the American culture and how they kind of contrast. So she comes home with a boyfriend, an American boyfriend and the boyfriend asks,  “So how did you meet?” And then the parents go, “We got married”.

Vimala: That was it.

Krsnendu: And the guy’s like, huh? But anyway, sorry to deviate you. So you knew each other before you got married. So tell us about what happened after that.

Vimala: So we came together to Krishna consciousness. It was a bit of a rocky road, actually, wasn’t it? Because my husband was very interested in Krishna consciousness and I was just humoring him, hoping that he would forget about it.

Jaya Sila: It was a phase…

Vimala: A phase he was going through. Yeah. That was the beginning of our Krishna consciousness. But we kind of stuck through it and it started to, let’s say, it started to rub off on me and I started to understand the philosophy and then we were kind of on the same page together.

Krsnendu: Nice. So what was it like in your early days as grihasthas in Krishna consciousness? Cause I think the culture was a little different in the early days.

Jaya Sila: The first word that comes up, fanatical.

Vimala: It was a bit fanatical in those days.

Jaya Sila: We could get into… Again, some of that comes up for me. I remember I’ve explained this a few times, I remember sitting in the temple room in Melbourne temple. Not that that’s different from any other temple. It was just an average normal temple, and I was sitting with a white doti on and I was thinking, “Do these guys that are in here with white dotis, don’t they understand or hear what’s being said in all the classes?” And that was very, very strong at that time that any relationship, we’re talking about relationships other than your relationship with Krishna, was Maya.

And if you couldn’t get that, you were a pretty special kind of stupid.

Vimala: There was a very strong brahmacari culture in the temple. There was only a few, very few grihasthas, wasn’t there. when we think about it.

Jaya Sila: Wait for this one. There was a plan being plotted to send my wife away because they thought, “Oh, he’d be a good book distributor, or he could be a brahmacari for you too”. And there was a plan to send her off to another center across the other side of Australia.

Vimala: Didn’t happen somehow or other.

Jaya Sila: She put her foot down and said, nope.

Vimala: No, I started to cry, I think when they suggested it.

Krsnendu: Ah. The woman’s secret weapon, eh.

Vimala: And the temple president softened a bit and said, okay, that’s all right.

Jaya Sila: And actually it’s interesting because intervention is often very important in life. And what actually happened, I remember this very clearly. One of the “senior devotees” who had been in the movement for a year and a half, I think, time, he pulled me aside and he said… He was a big guy actually.

He was quite tall, big. He said, look, son, pretty much like that. Do you realize you brought this girl along with you and that you really need to look after her. And it was honestly, it was just like a balloon being popped. Somebody stuck a pin in a balloon and everything just collapsed. All the illusionary idea of the only way I could be Krishna conscious is to hang out with the guys in saffron and my wife was just Maya, an illusion and it was just a big lump of baggage.

, All that stuff. And from that day there was a turning point where we’d got, we went around the corner and they started to become a bit of a human being again. Gradually. It took a while. It took a while. But it was hope from that point forth. So the point, reason I’m mentioning that is the importance of getting some help from some other people that maybe have had some, a little bit more of experience, a little more mature in their outlook, it can help.

Krsnendu: Yeah, definitely. So then how did things progress from there? I mean, so that’s how it all started. And then it sounds like you had quite a turning point at that stage, and then, recently you’ve written this book. So how did you get to that point?

Jaya Sila: I can, yeah. It’s ok?

Vimala: Yeah, you go.

Jaya Sila: We were writing another book. This is how this book, the Relationship Rescue Remedy came into being.

We were writing a book and we called it tentatively The Grihastha Journey. I think it was a time just when Radhanath Maharaja was producing his book and the title was, what is it? The Journey Home. So the idea of a journey is there, and it was quite current. So thought, The Grihastha Journey. So we’d started, and actually we were about over a half to three quarters, finished that book.

And then that realization that we discussed earlier came to us that we were writing this book of grihasthas, how this could be like this and could be like that. But we identified a need… We’ll tell you in a moment how that actually…

Vimala: The story.

Jaya Sila: The story of how we identified the need.

Vimala: Because we were both teachers. I’m a teacher still and my husband was a teacher and we decided that if we were going to write this book, we had to get up really early. I mean, as devotees we get up early, but this was earlier than early. So we were  writing the book together. Early morning, winter, I think it was.

And then we started to have differences, especially in how we approach the writing task. And so then we had to resolve our conflict. And I remember thinking at one stage when we resolved the conflict. We’ve wasted all this time, all our writing time, and then we kind of looked at each other we thought, “Wow. Is it a waste?”

Because we’ve been married for 40 years and we… you know, every marriage has their way of dealing with conflicts, and we’ve been able to do that successfully. Hold on a minute. How do we do this?

Jaya Sila: And it was really, we shoud say it wasn’t planned at all. You don’t plan to get up at 3:30, 3:00 in the morning and do this with the idea of coming up with a formula.

But we’d gone through what was… It was a normal upset. You know, we were at it that time in the morning. We weren’t happy with each other at all. We’d be in about 15 to 20 minutes I think it took us to come through and then we were okay. And then we both said how do we do that when we’re really upset at each other, we basically come through it and then at one after another, these five things that it did come up.

We thought at first it was just one or two, and then we said, oh, well actually we did this too. So it became, we gradually distilled it down into, there was five clear steps that we seem to do when we go through from one side to the other. So that was the birth, that was the beginning.

Vimala: That was the birth, and we did realize, I know I had this realization that how couples resolve their conflicts is a huge indicator to the success of their relationship. And that sounds very simple, but it is. It’s just so true. We’ve seen it time and time again.

Jaya Sila: I’m jumping really ahead here, but we use it till this day. It’s laughable in one sense. But in the lockdown situation, my wife and I we’ve had two reasonably good upsets during the period. We’ve been here for what, three and a half weeks. Three and a half weeks.

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Krsnendu: In the pressure cooker.

Vimala: In the presure cooker. In the bottle.

Jaya Sila: Yeah. And you can hear that in two ways. You can hear that and,”Oh yeah, this is hopeless. Look, these people have been together 40-odd years and they’re still having arguments. Yeah. This grihastha is too tough, you get overwhelmed with the whole thing”. The other way to hear it is, “Hey. You’re using something that helps us to go through the inevitable upsets that are always going to be there if there’s two people working together”. Welcome to the world.  Srila Prabhupada said that wherever there are two people, there will always be a difference of opinion.

So don’t think that we can have a utopian idea. That’s often there. Oh, I want it to be just sweet and if I can get through this conflict it should all now be absolutely conflict-clear from here on.

Vimala: The difference with having conflict that you can resolve and get back to what we call that loving place. It’s a huge difference because if you’re having conflict through your marriage and you don’t get back to that loving place, you don’t know how to resolve it.

And that’s where I think if we had a secret, that would be it. That we’ve always been able to get back to that loving place and it’s all cleared out. There’s no what we call that treacherous stuff under the rug that really works havoc in a marriage and gradually kind of ruins the marriage.

Jaya Sila: Yeah. Okay. Good point. Yeah. We make sure each time we go through any upset that it’s actually, yeah, that it’s clear that you sure actually… and you can feel it. We talk about the energy a lot in our program and we tune into that. You can feel when things are clear, when they’re actually… yeah. That resonate with you Krsnendu.

Krnsendu: Yeah. It’s all about the energy and the vibe, you know?

Jaya Sila: See if you can pick this one up too like, okay, we’ve got a conflict, and then we sort of, we get 50%, 70% better by going through it and we don’t… And then the fear factor comes in. Oh, I don’t want to push this too much, don’t go for a hundred percent clear. If you settled 60, 70 it’s not bad, and then we think oh it’s all a hundred percent, but actually it;s not. And the other 40 comes back and kicks you whenever.

Krsnendu: It appears back up, right. It’s a bit like the government here, they’re trying to stamp out Corona virus, right? It’s like they’re afraid that if they don’t fully deal with it, then it will just come back up. So it’s something similar.

Vimala: Good comparison. Yeah. And the other point is that if you do that, and we’ve been able to do that on a consistent basis, then the conflict doesn’t separate you. It can bring you closer together. That’s amazing. But looking back, it took us a while to get to this place. It’s not like that’s the way we always were in our earlier marriage.

I think because we had different styles of dealing with conflict. And you kind of, you usually get it from your parents or your family, how you deal with conflict. And so in my family, which was kind of very explosive, my mother repressed everything. So I kind of took a leaf out of her book and that was my initial way of dealing with any conflict. I just kind of want to smooth it over. I didn’t want to go there.  And that wasn’t healthy. Whereas my husband had a different approach. 

Jaya Sila: Vimala wants me to speak now, but, yeah. Well, okay, I’m on the spot.

Vimala: You’re on the spot. Come on.

Jaya Sila: So, yeah. I am the kind of person that wants to get it sorted and unless I can get clear that everything’s back to ground zero again, I’m not satisfied. So I didn’t have the tools. I wasn’t so well-equipped to handle that so well. So it was tough for my wife. Because if you’ve got someone like me who’s saying, “Look, we’ve got to get this sorted out”, and I don’t really, I wasn’t equipped with the real tools. And all she would do is…

Vimala: It would be very intense. We’d get it sorted but it was very intense. And that has, that does have a cost on your relationship. So it did take us a while to work out how to do it.

Jaya Sila: So, yeah, so it does introduce the idea of the Five Drop Formula. That’s why we’re so enthusiastic to…

Krsnendu: Yeah, yeah. So tell us about it then. Let’s break it down. What are the basic steps of this formula?

Jaya Sila:  Yeah, that’s our enthusiasm is to get that across so that people don’t have to reinvent the wheel. So that every couple doesn’t have to box it out for a year or two or 10 or however long it takes to come to learn what works and what doesn’t work.

Krsnendu: Right, yeah. I get it.

Jaya Sila: Here’s the book. Hey, read it, and you might be able to see, “Yeah. Gosh, I do a few of those things”. And you can learn a lot in a short period of time.

Vimala: We’ll go through the Five Drops, how it works.

Krsnendu: You’ve been keeping us in suspense all this time. You know, tell us about this magic formula.

Vimala: This is the magic formula, and it really is magic formula.

So Drop number one is Drop the Flame. Because I don’t know if you have noticed, but whenever you’re in a kind of a angry condition, think of sastric examples, Dhruva Maharaja, when he was angry that his brother had been killed, that anger burns like fire. And we’ve had the experience ourselves is that you can never resolve a conflict when you’re in an angry state. You usually just make it worse.

So that’s why Drop number one, Drop the Flame is so important. Because you have to be in a calm condition to resolve a conflict.

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Jaya Sila: It sounds simple in theory. When you’re actually angry is, it would have to be the most difficult thing to do.

Krsnendu: Yeah. And I think, you’re talking earlier about the different way that you deal with things. So in this particular area it would have been tricky, cause like Jaya Sila, you wanted to deal with it straight away, but for Vimala, it didn’t seem to work for you in the same way. How did you resolve that from that point of view?

Jaya Sila: I suppose actually, personally, it’s taken a long time as Vimala said, it didn’t happen overnight. But as I’ve gotten a little older, I realized that people do require different amounts of time to drop the flame and to be able to get over an upset. So instead of  maybe being so, what would you say, pushy,  we’ve got to sort this out right now.  I think this is one of the key things to get on this is that there’s two ways to go. If someone says they need some time, that’s fine. You need some time. You need some space to do.

But if it’s an avoidance technique, which my wife… we could get into an argument about this actually. My wife is quite expert at that avoidance thing. She already said that was her script is suppress it, subdue it, cover it over. So if the idea is, I need to not talk about this, just not get my face and don’t annoy me with it and I need to get, and it’s just to suppress it, then there’s not a lot of benefit from that.

But if it’s space for you, you need the time just to be able to stay calm, and not be in an agitated, intense situation…

Vimala: Yeah. attack-defend, we always called it. When you’re in the angry state, it’s always I’m attacking and someone’s defending or vice versa.

Jaya Sila: Yeah. It’s not fun for anyone, is it.

Vimala: No.

Krsnendu: That’s a really important distinction that you made there, that you need to allow people the space and the time that’s required to drop the flame, but you don’t brush it under the carpet as you say. You still have to come back to it when you’re ready.

Vimala: Yes, exactly.

Jaya Sila: Yeah. So I would say gradually over the years we’ve got very clear on that need and everyone’s need is different. But in a time of calm as a couple, you can work that out and you get clear on what the other person’s needs are. Okay. The person needs an hour or two, or it might be a day to just be able to get their head out of the conflict and let it calm down and have a different perspective and come in and…

Krsnendu: Yeah.  Good.

Jaya Sila: So, yeah, and my wife, I don’t know if you did mention it, maybe you did. Karma’s strength is a big thing in all of this, and when you lose it, you really do.

Vimala: You lose it. Yeah. I always say that when you lose it, you lose it because Karma strength is a mantra I got from classroom management and I use it, and it’s the same in relationships.

If you keep your calm, you keep your power. When you lose it, you lose it. You lose it because what happens is the other person, instead of you think you’re being rational and you’re really trying to get your point across. When you’re in that angry state, the person focuses on your emotion, on your anger, and they react to it, and your whole point that you’re trying to get across is lost. That’s why we say it’s so important.

That’s Drop One. And there’s different ways of accessing your calm.

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Jaya Sila: But for all of that, you’ll have to get the book.

Krsnendu: We could be here for a few weeks if we go right into every detail.

Jaya Sila: And remember,  it’s an ebook right now  so get ahold of it.

Krsnendu: Yup. relationshiprescueremedy.com is the place to get the book.  Just to remind everybody.

Jaya Sila: Yeah.

Krsnendu: We’re on to Drop Two now.

Jaya Sila: Yeah. So Drop Two is another one that my wife… as we were writing the book, she would go back to it all the time. She would say, as we’re getting onto the fourth and fifth drops, she would occasionally, she’d go off, “That key is there that second Drop”.

Vimala: It’s what we call the magic key because it’s called Reflection and in the Drop, in the graphics, there’s a mirror because we found… and I really analyze this closely that we had never resolved an issue until one of us was able to kind of get into the other person’s shoes and see how it was for them. And that’s why it’s so important. But of course you can’t do that in an angry state. That’s why Drop One is there, so when you’re in a calm state and you’ve allowed yourself to calm down, then you can start to see how it is for the other person. And there’s magic in that.

Jaya Sila: It’s interesting as Vimala’s speaking on this point, how I was thinking how blind we are to the very basic idea of relationships. Relationships means that there’s two people. Two, not one. So in Drop One, when you’re angry, when you’re upset, it’s all about me. I feel this, I feel that. He said, or she said, and it’s all about… if you deconstruct it at all, you see, it’s all about ourselves. I feel listen…

Vimala: False ego.

Jaya Sila: Yeah.

Vimala: It’s all about your ego.

Jaya Sila: But when you calm down, if you can get into this second Drop, so you calm it down enough to the point where your mind is able to think, “Hey, I know how I feel. I’m all upset. Okay, we’ve heard that Mr. Mind, we’ve heard all about that. Park it to the side for a minute. How is it for the person that I proclaim to love and care for, whether it’s your wife or whether it’s your children, whether it’s a friend, how are they experiencing this upset?

Well, I don’t care how they feel. If you don’t care how you feel, it means you’re still angry. You’re still upset, go back when you’re calm, come back. And then reluctantly, normally you’ll start to see it. You’ll start to say, Oh, well, actually, he or she, he must be feeling real bad because I shouldn’t have said or I shouldn’t have done.

And you start to go into that space and the whole dynamic shifts as soon as you enter into that space. So when we talk  about it in our book, it should be a race to get into reflection. It’s a very interesting little thing. Okay, I get into reflection in this upset and it all becomes wonderful.

The next upset comes up next week or year or whenever it comes up next, in the back of your mind you say, “I got into reflection last time. It’s gotta be her turn this time”. It doesn’t have to be like that. It’s actually we explain it elaborately in that section of the book that it should be a race because we should race.

It doesn’t matter if you get into reflection first 10 or a hundred times in a row, it doesn’t matter cause you’re taking responsibility, which is Drop Three, to Drop the Flame and start to connect to the reality of having a relationship with someone. And when you move into that space, it opens up the door for the other person practically…

Vimala: Immediately, yeah. That they can start emphathizing with how you speak.

Jaya Sila: Yes, they start to see, they experience the shift in the dynamic. This person was angry with me and they were blaming me and doing all sorts, but no, there’s a shift. They feel that shift and it opens the door up for them to be able to reflect a little bit.

Vimala: That’s Drop number Two. Then we have the third Drop, Drop number Three, which is Accepting Responsibility.

Jaya Sila: Now, we had a couple recently that we were coaching and they translated accepting responsibility meant accepting blame, which you could easily see that thought. But it doesn’t mean that. Accepting responsibility to do whatever it takes to get through an upset.

The other side is not accepting blame for that. So it’s a very, very important distinction.

Vimala: Yes. At the same time there is, you were there, as Mahatma says in every comment, you were there. So there is always usually that, that you contributed to the conflict. So there’s two sides to Accepting Responsibility.

Jaya Sila: And one of the grihastha seminars we used to present, we’d have that little discussion with the participants. We say, whose responsibility is it for relationships to work. And, the vedic’s idea would be that the man since he’s supposed to want to pause himself as the leader in a family then he should take responsibility for making sure that it works. And then the other option would be that it’s a woman’s responsibility.

Cause let’s be honest, guys, the ladies are all about relationships. They’re very good in that environment. So we’d play around with that and we’d ask people, what do you think? And we’d say, do you want to vote 75 one way or the other, or do you want to make it at 50/50? And everyone would say, yeah, well, obviously it’s 50/50 really.

And then we would use our little trick on the whole subject and say, no, it’s the man’s responsibility.

Vimala: 100%. They’d be curious.

Jaya Sila: Okay. Is that what you’re saying? And, then we would say that to some, the man’s responsibility, 100% and then we’d say also it’s a woman’s responsibility, 100%. And they’d say, well, that’s the same.

Vimala: 50/50. That’s the same. But it’s not.

Jaya Sila: No, it’s different. Usually the 50/50 idea breaks down pretty quickly. Because think, ah, well, I’ve done my 50. In fact, I’ve done about 80 and we get into the blame game again. We start blaming.

Krsnendu: And I think we always over estimate our contribution, right?

Jaya Sila: Yeah. I know I do. Taking a hundred percent responsibility is very, very powerful again. And in our book, we include letter, which explains that the power of accepting responsibility for absolutely everything in our life, everything in the past, everything present and future is the hallmark of every successful person.

It’s about a two-page letter. It’s very, very good, it has a big, deep respect.

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Vimala: And then you escape that victim mentality, that I’m the victim, when you take that responsibility. So that was Drop Three, a summary of Drp Three. Now Drop Four, if you’ve gone through those three drops, you’ve calmed down, you’ve been able to get into reflection, and then you’ve taken responsibilities to see it through to the other end of the conflict.

Then you’re in a better place. You’re automatically in a better place. And that’s Drop Four where you’ve got back to your higher self, your better self.

Jaya Sila: Yeah. I’m gonna if I can, I’m going to ask Vimala to pause on that cause there’s something that taking responsibility, that third Drop you didn’t quite nail it actually to be honest.

It’s not nailed yet because it won’t make complete sense. It’s like we’ll keep taking the spot. So taking responsibility and the add on to that is to do whatever it takes to come to the other side of conflict. So sometimes it might be very simple that you just have to have a conversation, discuss a few points, and it’s a little bit of reflection and it’s all sorted.

It’s good. Sometimes it will challenge you to go very deeply to access what has to be done here. To have to be strong, to have to be gentle. To have to really communicate something that I’ve been afraid to communicate for so long. You know, it’s doing whatever it takes. So again, you can connect to Krishna.

Krishna will guide you. You take shelter, guide me here Krishna. I feel this is a really pivotal thing. This is a real upset. I have to let me access what is it I have to do? Do I have to call a friend, to get some counseling to help me to understand how to move forward. Do I have to form somebody that I’m scared to form.

It’s a real challenge. Do I have to apologize to my children? Whatever. It could take myriad shapes.

Krsnendu: And it sounds like it’s not just about talking, but also through your actions. You know, you might realize that actually a problem has been caused because of something that I’ve been doing.

You know, maybe take a simple thing like I’ve been leaving the house untidy or not doing the dishes or something. So there’s also taking responsibility, to change our actions to also help the situation.

Jaya Sila: Fabulous. Krsnendu, you should work with me on this program. Actions speak louder than words, don’t they?

Vimala: Yeah.

Krsnendu: Yeah, definitely.

Jaya Sila: So many things. I remember my daughter is saying that often she would say, yeah, my wife actually, she was, my daughter would say, I love you. My daughter’s a very expressive, beautiful, wonderful person. And she would express her love in so many ways. And my my wife’s language, she would say, well, show me by the actions. Clean up your room.

And obviously that they had an issue around that one. Funny.

Vimala: Are we clear on that?

Jaya Sila: Yeah, yeah. I just, thank you. So Drop Four?

Vimala: Drop Four is getting back. So if you’ve gone through all that, you’ve taken responsibility, dropped the flame, reflected. And now you’re in a better place to resolve your conflict.

You can’t do it before you get to this place. And that’s why we call it Drop Number Four, Drop the Pain. You’ve dropped the pain. So now you can work through, and this is when we say that you can actually come up with a resolution or a way of resolving your problem so it doesn’t become a problem again. Because we’ve noticed, and we call them these patterns, these conflict patterns. Generally, they’re not new things.

They’re a pattern around something that you have in conflict. So if you recognize those patterns, you say, okay, we seem to use this language sometime. Is that a pattern? Maybe, you know, if we have a loop, is that a pattern that we have in our relationship? So then you can use, you can come up with what we call third alternative.

Jaya Sila: To give you a tangible example. We talked earlier probably during this lockdown, my wife and I had a couple of conflicts. Okay, here’s one of them. We were doing videos. Yes. Do we have to do videos? And by nature, my nature is I’ll do 10 videos in a row if I could stand up long enough or talk long enough, I do.

I just keep going and going and going. My wife is, she’s able to do 10 different things. So she’ll do one video, she’ll do one cooking, then she’ll go and do something for the school and she’ll…

Vimala: But I need a break. I can’t do what he does.

Jaya Sila: And it’s not that that makes me better than my wife, it’s just that we’re different. We have a different capacity. So we were having… A difficulty we got into, we did one video and we were going on to do the next one, which we both talked about we were gonna do, but then the energy was shifted and it wasn’t working, and we ended up having a bit of a conflict. So once we went through the whole process that we’ve just explained to you, we got to the place where we were able to be together and sit and analyze as my wife was saying the pattern, what is the pattern? We have a bit of a pattern here. And then we started to put together an alternative to the pattern that we were working. So what we did was we decided, okay, let’s make this very clear.

It’s clear for both of us. We’ll do one video. And that is absolutely fine if we feel we want to go on to do another one…

Vimala: We both agree, meaning we both agree.

Jaya Sila: Yes. And we will not go ahead if either of us for any reason wants to not go ahead. And occasionally it’s me too. I actually remember just since then, I said, Hey, I’ve had enough. You were doing something.

So it’s just, you don’t want to cause yourself the pain. So the patterns, if the dysfunction, you can have good patterns, but if the dysfunctional patterns. We got in that calm state. Once we settled up, we look at it and say, well, how does this work for you? It doesn’t work well and you come up with what we call a third alternative. We call it third alternative.

Vimala: So it doesn’t mean a compromise, it means something that works well for both of you. That’s very important. And we know we test our third alternative. Does that work for you? And yeah, that works well for me. I can live with that. That’s good. And I, yeah, it works well for me. And then we know we’ve got a good third alternative. Because sometimes a compromise means, okay, I’ll let him have his way, but really I’m holding on to some resentment here or vice versa.

Jaya Sila: And you know how good that feels? Just think about this. This is not just theory. You’re in a conflict, you’re angry at each other, you’re upset, you’re disappointed, you’re frustrated, whatever it is. And you’ve managed to drop that flame enough. You’ve been able to get into the other person’s shoes and see how it may have been for them.

Genuinely, not falsely, but really getting there. You’ve taken responsibility to do whatever it’s taken and you got to this place where you’re actually together the same couple and you’re no longer blaming each other.

Vimala: You’re on the same page.

Jaya Sila:  On the same page. You’re sitting together looking at what didn’t work for us?

Vimala: Yeah. We’re curious and how can we solve this.

Jaya Sila: And how wonderful. And once you get practiced at this, you usually can do it pretty quickly and sometimes it won’t be, sometimes it might be longer. It might take you a day to deal with the whole thing. Sometimes it’ll take you 10, 15, 20 minutes and you can actually come through the other side.

Krsnendu: So it’s actually like a learned skill, isn’t it? It’s like a muscle that you can sort of train to be quicker at developing the habits of this Five Drop Formula.

Jaya Sila: Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Vimala: Exactly, yes. You sound like you read the book.

Jaya Sila: Thank you for that. I’m just having a bit of a joke, but that’s absolutely right. Yeah. Some divine people are born with all great qualities and us lesser beings, many of us have to practice.

Vimala: Muddle our way through.

Krsnendu: Yeah. Yeah.

Jaya Sila: So I suppose it brings you to Drop Five. Drop Five we call it, not a drop, but Pour on the Energy.

This one, Drop Five is nurturing each other. And there’s many different  sides of that. One is the reactive. You saw that drop, which is working your way through a conflict. And at the end of it, as I was explaining a moment ago, really seeing the greatness in the other person being able to work together come through an upset.

And we say, well, look, you know, say for example, you may say the way you were able to calm down, it’s just amazing to me cause you were really upset when you just took the time you needed and you just sat quietly or you went for a walk and it really helped. So you’re looking to see the greatness in the other person as you have manifested greatness in going through this upset.

So, there’s many things I could say about that, but I want to leave it at that.

Vimala: The other way of using it is a proactive in your relationship, not during conflict, but nurturing each other. When you are seeing the effort that your husband or wife is putting in, in all areas of life. If we nurture it, we get a strong foundation in our relationship.

Jaya Sila: And the tendency, the tendency is oh, I’d like to… and we’re talking about nurturing small things. The tendency is to say, well, when he gets his act together, really, then I’ll tell him that he’s doing well. I want to see a big change before I’m going to say anything like that. Otherwise he’ll get lazy

Vimala: He will get puffed up. I don’t wanna puff him up.

When you are seeing the effort that your husband or wife is putting in, in all areas of life. If we nurture it, we get a strong foundation in our relationship. Share on X

Jaya Sila: And guess what? You’re not going to get very far with that attitude. So we talk about lowering the rope. I’ll give you an example. I think his name was Shamu. One of those Orca big whales that performs at SeaWorld in different places around the world, I guess was one in Orlando. So the question or the subject is, how did they train that big huge fish to be able to jump out of the water 10,15 foot high?

How did they do that? So most people will be able to understand that they didn’t get him jumping 15 feet straight off. So they think it must have started on the surface of the water and like that. The answer to cut the long story short, the training  begins they lower the rope. They lower it down, down, down into the water down, down, down to the very bottom of the pool.

That’s where the training begins. And they get success by giving some reward to the whale to swim across the rope. They don’t beat them. And it swims back it gets another award, it gets another award. And then after it gets used to that, the raise the rope, raise it gradually, gradually, and eventually comes out of the water and up higher.

Well, in a similar way, in our nurturing, it’s not falsity. It’s absolutely authenticity. Seeing some small, greatness and being able to reflect that back to the person. When you did that or when you said that when you took that action.

Vimala: And we called it the honeybee principle. Because Prabhupada talked about the fly and the honeybee.

So the fly is always looking for what’s wrong, what’s bad. Whereas the honeybee takes what’s good and it’s always looking for the nectar. So that’s why we named it the honeybee principle.

Jaya Sila: And our relationships were scripted a lot in conflict to look for the source, to look for the bad things.

Vimala: If only he would, only she would, then everything would be alright.

Jaya Sila: Really important. It’s a very, very valuable tool to use and to begin to, as you were saying, to develop those habits of being a honeybee and reflecting it back. And you’ll get more of that. That’s the idea. You’ll get more.

Vimala: It’s the energy principle again, what you energize, you’ll get more of.

Krsnendu: Yeah, it’s interesting. There’s that famous marriage analyst, John Gottman, and that was one of the things that he conclude is that you can judge the relationship by the balance of the energy. If the energy is predominantly positive then that’s a really strong indicator. But if it’s predominantly, you know, always pointing out the faults, that’s a big red flag.

Vimala: Definitely.

Jaya Sila: And so, you know, one of the responsible, we talk taking responsibility so we can talk all positively, but then someone in a relationship will say, well,  it’s not like that. It’s full of negativity. He’s negative or she’s negative. And so again, may be that you have to sit down and have conversation around that point.

Hey let’s sit and talk about this. Are we, we may have our faults, but, are we focusing on them too much? That might be. It just came to my mind just like that, and we can see, it might not come naturally to us, but we can see the benefit of being a honeybee.

Krsnendu: Yeah, definitely.

Jaya Sila: That’s quite obvious.

Krsnendu: Yeah, it’s good because the fist part of it, the fist sort of 4 Drops were sort of resolving the conflict process. But this last part is like the, I was gonna say like inoculation. I dunno if it, must be in my brain. It’s like a way of protecting yourself so that when the conflicts come up, you’re in a stronger position as a couple to deal with it as well.

Jaya Sila: There’s a pandemic of dysfunctional relationships. We have to use this Five Drop Formula, Rescue Remedy, place it. Yeah.

Krsnendu: Boosts the immunity, right.

Jaya Sila: So we can joke about it but it’s such a serious thing at the same time.

Krsnendu: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And especially at this time,it is a pressure cooker in the sense that people are having to spend time right next to each other.

You know, previously you have the time apart where you go to work and then you can come back. There’s a bit of space. But when you’re with someone all the time, it just sort of highlights different things that are going, it’s just makes it more challenging in a lot of ways.

So having these tools and learning these skills really help.

Vimala: Yes. And then you will never fear conflict. Conflict won’t be a fearful thing because I think a lot of couples they fear conflict because they don’t know how to deal with it. That’s ver important.

Krsnendu: Yeah. So that’s great.. You’ve explained this Five Drop Formula in a lot of detail, which is great.

Of course, there’s so many more details and the actual application of it as a whole other thing. But at this point, you discovered this formula and then, you felt, wow, we need to get this out to the world. So, yeah. I’ve been working with you in that area, so I know what you’ve been doing.

You’ve been doing a lot of work, producing a lot of videos.  Maybe now’s a good time where you can mention where the devotees can see those videos.

Vimala: Well, we regularly make videos and you can connect to them through devoteecare.com. That will take you to the videos on the Facebook pages that we do. So they’re just little short videos, but they’re all about how to apply the drops, which is in everyday life.

Krsnendu: Yeah. And then we’ve got the… you’ve developed an online course. We’ve been working on that together and you’ve also produced the book. And that’s been a lot of fun working together on that one. Reaching out, trying to let devotees know about this. And so I’m really happy that you came on the podcast today because that’s a wonderful way that people can go into a bit more depth. We have a little bit more time on these types of things compared to the short videos so people can get a sense of the whole package and how it goes together.

Yeah, I was thinking of talking about the process of how you created the book. Maybe you could just mention a few thoughts of yours. You know, like when you created that formula,  what were you thinking kind of like, what was the process like for you of coming to the point of actually having the book that you could give to people and the course and things like that?

Vimala: We wanted to make it easy and simple. I’m all about myself, easy and simple. If something’s too detailed or complicated and hard, so it’s easy to apply and simple. So we wanted to achieve that in the book, and I think we did that.

Jaya Sila: Yeah, it’s a very simple read. You can actually read the book through, I would say one day.

Vimala: We’ve had that feedback that people said, Oh, it was an easy book to read. And it’s also a reference book where you can go back and what was that drop again and how do we do that?

Jaya Sila: Funny, I remember back a number of years, so you helped on that, but significantly Krsnendu worked. We had two ways to go with this.

One was the, there was, can you remember this? It was P-R-A-R-E. I remember. Pause, Reflect – PR. Accept responsibility, Reset, and  Energize. So it was P-R-A-R-E. So that was a play on the word of say, a prayer, P-R-A-R-E. 

Krsnendu: With a Scottish spelling, I suppose, was it?

Jaya Sila: Kind of. And then it took us a while to  get used to that was, we started to play with this Drops. Because we thought a rescue remedy, that stuff you put on your tongue and we talked about that. And then you come in with Drop the Flame. And then, hey, I hope breaking protocol see you. But then do you remember for a while the last one was Drop the Love Bomb.

I don’t think that’s good. It’s too cheesy, it’s too weird. And then it was you I’m sure that came up with the Pour on the Energy.

Vimala:  Yeah.

Krsnendu: No, I’m pretty sure the Pour on the Energy was from you. That was a breakthrough actually.

Jaya Sila: Somehow we shifted from being stuck with five drops. We came up with the third alternative.

Krsnendu: And it made so much sense, didn’t it? Because it’s, you know, you’ve got those first four of a certain nature and in that fifth one has a completely different energy to it. So it’s amazing. I mean, ultimately at the end of the day, Krishna has given some inspiration after some perspiration.

Jaya Sila: And, what is very encouraging too is also, I just thought I’d mention a couple of devotees, senior devotees,  Mother Urmila and Mahatma Prabhu. They’ve been a source of great inspiration. They’ve really encouraged us by saying, what you’ve produced is very relevant, it’s Shastra-based. And they’re recommending it to many of the people they’re working with.

Vimala: Because there is a need for it.

Jaya Sila: Yeah. It’s also worth mentioning, jumping to other points that the tenancy is that it’s an easy read. It’s a simple formula, but you have to do the work. Now, this is interesting. We were checking out our videos, the responses in two different videos and the titles are sometimes important and you get a certain response.

So we noted that, as we look through, there was a certain response for a number of videos. And this one had, it was a lesser, notably lesser response of views with the title You Have To Do The Work To Get Success. No one wants to do the work. We want a miracle spray. Oh, Five Drops, is that the Five Drop miracle spray?

I just dropped the flame a little bit and I get it. Better, we brush a bit under the rug and we just want a little bit of success and then we just drop it all. And then when the next conflict comes along, our adult brain says, Oh, I tried that kind of Relationship Rescue Remed stuff and it’s sort of weird, but then it doesn’t really work cause I’m back in conflict.

Hello. We didn’t say there would be no conflict. Use this, learn to use it, practice it. It will take you through the conflicts but you’re going to have to work at it. You can’t expect to be a champion motorcross rider or whatever.

Vimala: Just doing the basics.

Jaya Sila: You got to practice it.

Krsnendu: Well, I think that if anybody’s made it this far  into this podcast that they’re a serious person and they’re, likely to be the kind of person that will be willing to do the work.

Jaya Sila: Yes Good point.

Krsnendu: That’s great. I mean, you’ve given a bit of the back story about how this formula came about through your own experience. You haven’t mentioned directly, but you’ve also been working with a lot of devotees over that time, counseling them and running courses for devotees.

In fact, you were the Grihastha minister for some period of time, if I remember right.

Jaya Sila: Yeah. Back in the late nineties, or, yeah, that was the case. Yes.

Krsnendu: Yeah. And then of course, you’ve explained to us all about your formula and how it works. So at this point, I guess it’snatural just to remind everybody that if you want to learn this process, and I highly recommend it, you just go to relationshiprescueremedy.com and then you’ll be able to pick up the book from there.

And as we mentioned  you can get it instantly as an ebook. If you prefer audiobooks, seeing as you’re listening to our podcast, that may be your preference, then there’s an optional upgrade. If you wanted to get the audio book version as well.

And, that’d be a great way to keep in touch. And, you know, we’ve also got plans to do some webinars and other training as well as the videos that, you are doing videos like a few a week at this stage it seems like. So it’s great to just keep providing that ongoing support. Because as you say, the formulas there, it’s very simple, but we need to keep the momentum and keep practicing the skills.

Jaya Sila: Yeah.

Krsnendu: So is there anything that you’d like to add at this point? Maybe a question I didn’t ask or any final words that you’d like to say before we sign off?

Jaya Sila: Well, we could say Hare Krishna, which is nice.

Vimala: I think we covered it pretty well Krsnendu. I think we did well to cover all the points.

Krsnendu: Yeah. Great. So I just, again, recommend everybody to go to relationshiprescueremedy.com, get the Relationship Rescue Remedy book and put it into practice. That’ll really make a big difference in your relationship, not just with your husband and wife, but with your children and all types of relationships that you have. So thanks again. 

Jaya Sila: One last thing I will say is, Hey, whether you get the ebook or whatever, go on the Facebook page and share please. We’ll look forward to any questions you have. You can do that on the Facebook page. We’d love to answer your questions.

Krsnendu: So yeah, we’ll sign off here. Thank you very much. It’s great to go down memory lane. And also thank you so much for providing such a comprehensive explanation of the formula and I’m sure at this particular time, especially, that devotees will really appreciate it.

So Hare Krishna. Thank you very much.

Jaya Sila: Thank you very much. Hare Krishna

Krsnendu:  Thanks for listening to find out more go to successfulvaisnavas.com.

Sri Prahlad:  Whatever little service that anyone can do for Krishna is to be appreciated and celebrated.

Jagattarini Mataji:  Just give this life to Krishna.

Akrura Prabhu:  We know that they have much more potential than they’re presently using.

Urmila Mataji:  I’m into a place of relishing the activity and letting go of the results completely

Srila Prabhupada:  You just associate with pure devotees, then you shall be able to crossover the ocean of nescience.