When we feel that we can’t do something, how can we know that our mind is not keeping us in comfort zone?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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so if we are unable to do certain things the mind often keeps us in a comfort zone, and initially we don’t do it because our mind do something because the mind says don’t do it, at least initially we feel guilty after that we stop feeling guilty also there are compelling situations where we cannot do it yeah, so overall, how do we make sure that when we are not able to do something we don’t become complacently situated in a comfort zone yes ultimately it is we who have to take responsibility for our spiritual life so there are certain things which we have to do in a committed way and one way one thought exercise which I often do and which one senior devotee told me is that that suppose before I started I became a brahmachari I was also working in a company he says that if in this similar situation my boss or my job would have required me to do this would I have done it or would I not have done it so if if I would have done that for my boss why should I not do it for Krishna why should my boss get more from me than what Krishna is getting from me so we can now sometimes even when our boss tells us do this we may say no I can’t do this but we won’t nonchalantly say that we understand there is a lot at stake over here, sometimes we may say no because it is just not possible for us but we won’t just give it to the mind now how many times say if we wake up in the morning we feel bored and tired I won’t go to office today no matter how we feel we will go because we understand it is important so just as there are many things so basically our mind says some things our emotions may come from three sources one is they may come from real physical problematic situations see if I got a fracture in my hand and somebody tells me please lift up this book physically I can’t do it so that is an emotion I can’t do it which has come from a real physical situation second is the emotion has come from entirely an imaginary situation that means there is nothing wrong I just don’t feel like doing it there are some people who are hypochondriacs they just pretend to be sick nothing wrong in their body but still they are pretending like that and the third could be a combination of the physical and the emotional say for example they are fasting say it is Ekadashi or Janmashtami they are fasting all day and then suddenly we start feeling hungry we can’t tolerate it now usually when we start feeling hungry normally when we feel hungry we eat but when we are fasting we tolerate it now when we tolerate we all have to decide how much is the limit of my tolerance if I start feeling so much acidity I start becoming sick throwing up or whatever then maybe fasting is not really worth it it is better that instead of getting so sick let me just take some food so we in that case when I am feeling uncomfortable because I am fasting it could be just at a level of emotions ok this is uncomfortable physically my body is not suited for fasting so when it is a combination of the emotional and the physical the mind’s perception and the physical perception then we may have to analyse a little bit more and we may learn from experience.
One time we do this and afterwards this is too much I should not have done this the next time we may not do it so we need intelligence and experience both to analyse where our emotions are coming from when the mind is saying something whether it is coming from physical reality or from just the mental imagination or a combination of physical reality and mental imagination and then when we do that we will be able to respond properly again when I said earlier at one side we have to be kind to ourselves at the same time we also need to be honest with ourselves so honestly I admit that I am here and honestly I acknowledge that this is what I am doing to go there and now I am doing it now I am not doing it so if we have that if we are serious about going towards Krishna then over a minute of time we will ourselves realise this is doing too much or this is doing too little so we don’t want to be in our comfort zone forever but bhakti is not just about being uncomfortable bhakti is about being spiritual so when we are absorbed in Krishna sometimes it may be comfortable sometimes it may be uncomfortable sometimes when we are chanting we physically feel tired, sometimes we feel physically fresh so our purpose is not just simply to come out of our comfort zone and make ourselves uncomfortable but our purpose is not also simply to stay comfortable our purpose is to stay spiritual and if we are going too much into the comfort zone we cannot be spiritual if we go too much into being uncomfortable again we cannot be spiritual so by intelligence and experience we can find out a balanced state for us so thank you very much Shila Prabhupada Ki Jai Gaura Bhaktapindi Ki Jai