02.62-63: Are we the Cheerleaders of Our Mind?

Daydreaming. It’s so easy. Taking it easy in our thought-lives is one of life’s most deluding distracters. We tend to think that nothing is wrong in wandering with the mind because neither we nor the people around us see anything untoward happening physically. When we are thus lulled into a false sense of complacency, we often let our mind indulge in fantasies that violate our moral and spiritual integrity. As the mind desecrates our inner sanctity, we stand by as passive onlookers – and sometimes even as active cheerleaders.

Sometimes, our conscience reproaches us for our perverse fantasies, but our mind silences it with the subterfuge: “All this is just in the imagination. You would never do this in real life. So why bother?”

Gita wisdom helps us understand why we need to bother. The Bhagavad-gita (2.62–63) indicates that the path from the mental to the physical is a slippery slope on which we can slip and fall at any moment. Our perverse fantasies can impel us even against our better intentions to reckless actions that may convert our lives into nightmares.

To preclude such nightmares, Gita wisdom urges us to stop our mind from indulging in immoral daydreams. However, this doesn’t require us to still the mind – a task that is difficult, even impossible. Instead, Gita wisdom reveals an alternative inner world for the mind’s expeditions. By giving us knowledge of the glory and the beauty of Krishna, it empowers us to engage our mind positively in exploring, experiencing and expanding our joyful devotional relationship with him.

Over time such mental engagement with Krishna entirely transforms our inner dynamics: instead of we being the cheerleaders of our mind, our mind becomes the cheerleader for Krishna and our service to him.