How can we know when we are planning and when the mind is fear-mongering?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
What is the difference between planning for the future and just listening to the mind’s horror stories? How do we know which is what? I am planning, yes.
See, basically I would say, from the point of the three modes The mode of goodness is when we do planning The mode of ignorance is where we do fear mongering for ourselves This will go wrong, that will go wrong So the effect of planning is that we feel calmer The effect of fear mongering is that we become more agitated Because what happens in ignorance, tamoguna the mind is in control Mind is like it’s like imagine you are watching a TV and all the channels have horror movies going on Each channel that is seen you become more horrified So when the mind is in control this problem can go like this, this is a horror movie Or it can go like this, this is also another horror movie What should I do now? So what happens, the mind just shows when the mind is in control, it just shows us terrible scenarios without letting us do anything tangible about it Before I can think how do I do this, the mind immediately shows me something else This may go wrong, that may go wrong that may go wrong So just things can go wrong and we should use our cognitive intelligence to prepare for things going wrong also But we need to be in control, that means the test of planning is that when we are making plans, we feel calmer, not that the problem is solved, but that we are better prepared to deal with it So if now what happens, say if I am thinking this problem, this may go like this go like this, but what about this? No, that’s a different scenario, I will think about it later Let me focus on this So usually it is good to deal with big problems when we are ourselves in a calm frame of mind maybe we have done some prayer, done some scriptural reading, maybe taken some deep breaths, calmed ourselves down then deal with it So then it helps, otherwise it simply worsens the situations So planning is very helpful and it helps us also to recognize that planning helps us to recognize the difference between possibilities and probabilities What is possible? Actually anything is possible, for example the roof might collapse and we may all die right now That’s possible, but we can’t live in the fear what if the roof collapses Everywhere we go there is some roof So we can’t live lifelong in the fear that roof will collapse So now but probability means that if if say the city city officials have come and told, this house is on the verge of collapsing, get out of this house and still I am staying in that house then it’s not a possibility it’s a probability So we also have to differentiate between possibilities and probabilities Yes there are problems in life and we need to deal with them but letting the mind come up with horror movies is the worst way of dealing with them because we are actually disempowering ourselves from the capacity to deal with them because we are becoming overwhelmed by the emotion but by calmly differentiating in the mode of goodness this is unlikely this is something is possible if I lose my job, I can do this I can do that if this doesn’t work out, I can try this I can try this, you know I have this skill also, I have this background also, I can do this You can make plans like that Does it answer the question?