If something makes us go away from Krishna, how can we return towards him?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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we go away a little bit from Krishna how can we go back there and how can we go further ahead towards Krishna while doing our material activities also so you know water, say if this floor is inclined is tilted in a particular way and if I pour water over here the water will naturally go in this direction because the inclination is of the floor in that direction so like that all of us have certain inclinations the inclination means our thoughts our desires, our ambitions they all flow in a particular direction suppose somebody has a lot of interest in music then whenever some music comes up they get very caught in that they can easily connect with that easily they can absorb themselves in that somebody else it may be art, somebody else it may be language there are different fields in which we may find ourselves interested so if we consider the circle of bhakti to be one circle and the circle of our interests to be another circle these two circles they intersect somewhere where that intersection point comes intersection sector comes that means what is it that I like to do and what is it that is in the practice of bhakti where do the two intersect if I can find that and then because we like to do that we will naturally do that we will happily do that and because it is also within the circle of bhakti we can move forward towards Krishna easily so once we become habituated to doing that then we can very steadily and rapidly move towards Krishna so while we are practicing bhakti, while we are doing our studies while we are observing ourselves we can try to find out what it is that we like to do and we try to develop that so in the Bhakti Rasamritsa this is called as Uddhipan Uddhipan means that which acts as a spiritual stimulus so all of us have certain stimulus which attract us, so somebody is say mad for cricket in India when the world cup is going on if you go along in a car for a program you can see young people they are swinging their hands they are imagining oh I am a batsman and somebody is bowling and they are hitting so what is happening people are in their own world so why because they are attached to cricket so when we are attached to something then naturally we think of those things so we have to find out what is the circle of our interest and what is the circle of Krishna Bhakti, where is the intersection and if we can situate ourselves in that intersection we can move forward rapidly, that’s one part second part is that say if we had been at this level earlier now we have come to this level, now we want to rise up again so the important thing is to never become discouraged now suppose two players are fighting a boxing match and say one person it’s a big blow and this player falls back it’s quite a severe blow now this boxer has fallen down what should he do if he wants to be encouraged he should look at the coach the coach says come on fight isn’t it but suppose instead of looking at this coach he looks at the other boxer only do you think I can win what do you think this boxer will say never, I will crush you accept defeat right now so now when somebody is fighting a boxing match if they want encouragement they won’t get it from the opposing boxer they need their own coach for that so like that sometimes inside us we can consider that we are fighting a boxing match in the mind, the mind acts as our enemy and sometimes the mind makes us do stupid things and then we are knocked down why did I do that I just feel I wasted my time, I did that but then if you want encouragement if you want to rise again the mind is very tricky first it makes us do the wrong thing and then it says you are such a big fool you are such a big fool, you will never learn you are hopeless so the mind defeats us and then discourages us so whenever we feel discouraged we shouldn’t just keep hearing our inside voice our inside voice will discourage us more and more we have to have some friends, some elders our parents who will encourage us they are our coaches so all of us in our life will go through phases when we had this practice, we may go lower it happens to everyone, that is just the way of life we cannot always be at a consistent level, there will be ups and downs but when we go down, at that time we shouldn’t become discouraged if we become discouraged then there is no hope for us if the boxer has fallen down, he has been knocked down but not knocked out he is awake, he is conscious still can get up and fight so sometimes we may be knocked down but we are never knocked out so what we have to do is, we have to look at our coach so all of us need to have some friends, some guides who will encourage us when we feel down and then with their encouragement we can rise actually that is what happened to Arjuna at the start of the Gita what happened at the start, you know Arjuna if you see in the first chapter, he has picked up his bow and he is ready to fight at that time when he sees all the soldiers on the opposite side he sees his relatives and he says I can’t fight he put aside his bow feeling dejected he felt dejected but what did he do at that time? he turned towards Krishna and the first chapter of the Bhagavad Gita ends 46th verse ends with Arjuna putting down his bow whereas the last verse of the Bhagavad Gita that is 18.78, it ends with describing that Arjuna has picked up his bow Arjuna has picked up his bow so what does it mean? Arjuna’s bow represents our enthusiasm our encouragement so in life things may happen because of which we become discouraged just like Arjuna became discouraged but then when we hear Krishna’s message when we get the wisdom from Krishna or Krishna’s devotees just as Arjuna lifted up his bow and became ready to fight similarly we too can become we also become inspired, we also become enthusiastic that happens when we hear from the right source otherwise if we keep hearing from the mind first the mind makes us do wrong and then it condemns us for doing wrong so we have to be careful whom we hear from, never become discouraged no matter what happens does it answer your question? any other questions? one last question