Devotional practices calm our mind but only briefly – what to do?
So if our mind is disturbed we may hear kirtan or do something devotional by which the mind will become calm but again when we are exposed to a similar situation again it will get disturbed that is to be expected in this world first is that if we are in an ocean we can't expect that there will be no waves in the ocean a boat will always be moved up and down by the waves and the expertise of the person driving the boat, the boat driver is that they know how to manage sometimes the place is very stormy we move out of there but if we expect that there will be a place in the ocean where there are no waves we are not going to find a place like that so relatively speaking there are sometimes some situations where the provocation of the disturbance is a lot and at that time moving away from that situation at least temporarily is good it's like moving away from a stormy area in the ocean but expecting that things will be completely peaceful that is an unrealistic expectation so generally if you see the provoking situations they can be of two types one is some of them are predictable and some of them are unpredictable like some people we know they are of a particular nature some people they just know which buttons to press on us they just know how to irritate us so when we find out that there are people when we know such predictable irritations or predictable disturbances then the way we deal with them is by anticipation and preparation maybe I will avoid the situation maybe I will not get provoked over here so in that way we can deal with those situations second is if we have situations where they are unpredictable then at that time so at least the predictable situations we can plan if I do this, this is likely to happen and how can I minimize this how can I avoid the aggravation and over a period of time we also develop some amount of acclimatization let me say initially if you come from India to America, America may be very cold but over a period of time the body gets acclimatized to it so like that with some situations we get acclimatized we learn ok this is going to be irritating but I will not get irritated because that is the way it is but in general at least moving away at that time decreases our aggravating the situation afterwards we can calmly deal with and minimize this problem and where it is likely to happen we manage it properly by anticipating and preparing ok thank you.