Why do we sometimes feel more agitated after starting bhakti practice?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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why do we sometimes feel more agitation after coming to Krishna consciousness the answer more and less are relative and contextual terms when a rider is just going along wherever the horse is taking then the rider will not feel much struggle or resistance now of course if the horse is going to go off the road into a ditch when the rider is knocked down and breaks some bones at that time the rider will feel much agitation but till then the rider may not feel rider may not feel any struggle at all and if the horse just goes along its own way for a long distance before it knocks off the rider then the rider may feel uncomfortable so if we consider the rider or the horse to be like the mind and senses and we to be like the rider when we are not resisting the pull of our mind and senses then we feel very little struggle so similarly in materialistic life when the mind and senses impel us to do something, eat this, watch this touch this and buy this then we keep doing that and then we don’t feel much agitation because we are simply going along with whatever the mind and senses are saying. Of course, even for materialistic people there is agitation because no one can fulfill all the desires that the mind and senses come up with not just because we don’t have we may not have enough money to fulfill all those desires but also because our senses don’t have enough capacity to fulfill those desires so that’s why there is frustration even in for materialists also but within some within some unavoidable limits people can keep enjoying and when they are not resisting their mind and senses there is not that much of an inner struggle when we as devotees start practicing bhakti and we try to live according to certain principles then we try to restrain our mind and senses and when we are trying to restrain ourselves at that time we just can’t give up we just can’t we can’t wish away the inner struggle that is there like a rider who is trying to control the horse, the horse is running in a particular direction the rider uses all his strength and tries to pull the reins and pull the horse back and get the horse back under control that is not easy, that requires a lot of labor and when the rider does that is actually not easy, that requires effort so that’s why the rider will feel a struggle when the rider is trying to control the horse, similarly when after starting the practices of bhakti we try to control the mind and senses we feel the struggle so the absence of struggle can be because of the presence of control or it can be because of the absence of the attempt for control, so we shouldn’t equate the two when the horse is perfectly trained and domesticated then there will be no struggle because there is presence of control or if the horse is totally wild and the master is not trying to control at all then also there will be no struggle but these are two very different cases and in these cases each of these cases we need to know what is auspicious, what is inauspicious so to go from the level where there is no struggle because of no attempt to control to the level of there is no struggle because there is full control in between there is struggle so there is danger so most of us are in that in between phase right now and that’s why we do feel struggle, so sometimes it may appear that our mind and senses are troubling us too much and we feel more agitation than earlier but overall if we consider there is you could say irritation and there is irritability the irritation may be more but though the irritation may be more our irritability will be decreasing because by the practice of bhakti our attachments to the worldly things especially superfluous indulgences they decrease and thus our irritability our agitability you could consider that use that word neologism there is agitation, there is agitability so our agitability will be decreasing by our steady practice of bhakti and as we keep practicing then the agitability will decrease more and more and even if there is agitation there will be lesser agitation so along with that also when we are practicing bhakti actually sometimes Krishna arranges that Krishna utilizes our past karma in a way to arrange that we may experience some intense period of purificatory suffering so bhakti offers both pacification and purification just like a doctor offers both the painkiller and healing medicine but if the patient is becoming complacent and is thinking that there is no need for taking the healing medicine because I have become healthy the doctor may stop the painkiller and then the patient starts feeling the pain and then feel the need for the medicine the healing medicine so like that sometimes Krishna may let certain circumstances come in our life when there is agitation the circumstances cause heavy agitation to us and in trying to cope with that agitation we find ourselves overwhelmed we find ourselves unable to deal with the situations so the way to overcome such difficulties is by the steady practice of bhakti when a person becomes healed then at that time the painkiller is also not needed because the body’s susceptibility to pain itself has decreased substantially similarly when we despite the agitation we keep practicing bhakti then that connection with Krishna it purifies us and then both our agitation and our agitability will decrease thank you