Can practicing bhakti too seriously cause mental health problems?

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Question can practicing bhakti too seriously lead to mental health problems answer no practicing bhakti heals us of the basic cause of all our problems that is the misdirection of our affection from Krishna to the world to everything else in this world however what comprises serious bhakti practice may need to be seriously re-examined sometimes we may consider that somebody who chants a lot of rounds chants 64 rounds or somebody who is always in the temple singing bhajans doing kirtans doing a lot of service that person is actually practicing serious bhakti now they may or may not be practicing serious bhakti we have to see not just the actions that they are doing but also the conception the intention with which they are doing those actions so i can talk think of two distinct situations where mental health problems may result because of the or rather somebody may seem to be practicing serious bhakti and they may have mental health problems first is when a person already has serious mental health issues or emotional issues and they see bhakti as an escape way from those issues so nowadays in today's world with families being ruptured many people have severe emotional issues they may have traumatic backgrounds up traumatic upbringings they may be unloved and feel have self-esteem issues and then coming from such a background if they hear some classes about how krishna is the only object of love and everywhere this world is they may they may just intensely start practicing bhakti as a means of bandaging their wounded hearts and this practice of bhakti may initially also give them some relief that relief means that it may happen that they may be able to forget that trauma that they had gone through and they may feel some emotional connection with krishna and it may seem that they're blossoming in their devotion and whatever past they had gone through that has actually been a spur for coming to krishna and that seems you may see all of it positively and that is good that they have come to krishna but at the same time some wounds run deep and they need proper healing so just as when there is pain because of a disease because of a wound we may take a painkiller to address the pain on a short-term basis and then we may also need to take the curative medicine to actually heal the wound or to treat the disease so similarly bhakti practice can act as a painkiller at times and it can also act as a curative medicine at times so we may be very troubled by the way something or someone has spoken something to us and we just come to the temple and hear some kirtan close our eyes and clap and sing loudly dance energetically and by that we forget that pain and we say oh bhakti is so good that it gave me relief from my pain it's good that we got relief but we shouldn't mistake that as if the issue has been resolved that that is a painkiller which we needed so that we could we would not be overwhelmed by negativity but after the painkiller we may have to take the medicine now at one level we may say chanting Hare Krishna the medicine also yes it is the ultimate medicine just like if I fall down and I get a fracture then I may chant Hare Krishna and by that intense calling out to Krishna I may get some relief from that pain and that intense calling out to Krishna will also help me to grow towards Krishna because I'm absorbed in Krishna so it is helping me move towards the ultimate cure also at the same time the physical fracture is not going to be healed just by the chanting of the holy names that may in some special cases Krishna can do that but a devotee doesn't expect Krishna to bend the laws of nature in the Vedic tradition also we had Ayurveda which involved people getting treated by practical medical means so similarly we may need to go and go to a doctor who fixes the fracture either by putting a sling or actually doing some surgery or whatever is required so that means at the immediate level as a painkiller sometimes bhakti can help us to tolerate the pain to raise our consciousness above the pain at ultimate level bhakti will take us beyond all pain by taking us to Krishna but at intermediate level sometimes we may need to deal with issues at a practical level which is I tolerate the pain but then I have to go to a doctor and treat the pain by taking the appropriate medication sometimes our psychological issues we may need to deal with them properly by by maybe going to a healer either a psychotherapist a psychologist or at least a counselor if especially a devotional counselor is expert or trained in helping us process our past issues then we need to talk it address those issues and then grow through them outgrow them basically so if we don't do that then those issues are going to resurface so applying all this to somebody who has been say having serious psychological issues and from their past and they come and they use bhakti as a painkiller and it works they seem to get some relief but after sometime again the wounds start surfacing and at that time it may appear as if to them it may appear as if oh this bhakti so many people let me down in the past so many treatments I tried it.