How are the impressions removed by practicing bhakti?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So how do the impressions go away when you practice Bhakti? Negative impression of the anathas. There are two-three different things over here. At the first level, it is just like graffiti is written on the wall.
Then there are some ways you could actually bring an eraser and try to erase all the graffiti. Sometimes you might just decide that it’s over painted. Sometimes you might decide that now we will have to wash it all away whatever basically you can either overwrite it or you can wash it remove it there are two broad ways so now with respect to our mind there is no eraser practically speaking now initially it’s overwriting just bring in so much positive impressions that it it just feels so fresh so new so attractive we get attracted to it but over a period of time it’s you could say that within the soul also there is a potential for bhakti now Prabhupada uses the word dormant now it is it is basically like the dormancy is more like potentiality in the sense that there is certain ground that is fertile so now the fertile ground itself will not give any yield unless some serious potential now every metaphor has some limitation so dormancy indicates that everything is there all that you need is to just wake up whereas fertility indicates potentiality is there but something else also has to come in so now if you consider Prabhupada did use the word dormancy but then Prabhupada also something else has to come from outside so basically in this case we could say there is both there is the potentiality from outside and there is also the activating principle which is injected it is not just one time ok just wake up and then everything is back no the potentiality has to gradually develop so you could say the potentiality the fertility is there so in this case it is like you have a graffiti on the wall you put some paint it is like you put the BJ inside but what happens if we develop the metaphor it is like from within the wall also something comes up which cleanses it is not just over painting so like the fertility that there is the potentiality within so whether so I have to put something from outside but it is not just putting something from the outside that putting something from outside activates something from the inside so it is almost like a two pronged attack so the impressions are removed by cleansing by you could say by over impressing from outside but it is also there is overpowering from inside because something from inside comes out there is a switch from inside also which activates something from outside yes otherwise it is just otherwise there is no difference between say some sattva guni impressions sattva guni outer perceptions and bhakti outer perceptions so what is the difference between say somebody who just develops a good reading habit not necessarily bhakti habit and by developing a good reading habit they say give up some bad maybe they are just over addicted to watching TV and they develop a reading habit and they give up the TV habit but then what is the difference the difference is that whether it is TV or whether it is reading both are external there is nothing intrinsic in either watching TV or reading books but with respect to Krishna it is coming from outside but it is also activating something from inside so it works out both ways