Can self-help techniques be used in Krishna’s service?

So, there are some self-help teachers who talk about some principles which can help cultivate a positive attitude or deal with the mind. So, can they be used in Krishna's service? Ultimately, our principle is Yukta Vairagya. That without attachment, if we can use something for Krishna's service, that's fine.

So, there are the challenges that when we use something in Krishna's service, how much, what is our conception of that and what is our conception of service to Krishna. So, for example, if I am taking, if I am sick and I take a physical medicine, then we very clearly understand that the physical medicine is not for the soul. The body is a tool and I have to take care of this tool.

And that's why I am going to the doctor and taking this medicine. But for us, from an operational perspective, it is very different, difficult to differentiate between the mind and the soul. So, anything that makes us feel good.

Do you understand that? Many people come to spirituality to feel good only. So, if something helps us to feel good, we will start thinking that is spiritual. So, what happens is when we take help of any self-help teachers or we use some techniques like mindfulness or whatever for trying to calm the mind, then we may start thinking of that itself as spiritual.

So, there is pacification of the mind and there is purification of the mind. So, when the mind is agitated, we bring it to goodness. It becomes pacified.

But when we connect the mind with Krishna, it becomes purified. So, the connection with Krishna through chanting the holy name, through hearing Krishna Katha, that is what will ultimately take us to Krishna. That is what will give us the supreme satisfaction in life.

Because our heart ultimately longs for love. So, nothing apart from bhakti can bring about complete purification. Now, as far as pacification is concerned, we can, if required, use some other practices.

For example, one way to pacification is simply deep breathing. Sometimes we may be trying to chant and our mind is wandering here and there. Just pause, take a few deep breaths and then try to chant.

We may find that we are able to chant better. Because the breathing is connected with the mind. The breathing is not purifying.

Deep breathing is not purifying. But it can be pacified. So, if we don't mistake pacification to be purification or if we don't mistake that the goal of spiritual growth is pacification, sometimes we may say that if some devotee has spoken very hurtingly to us and then our mind is going wild at that time, then ultimately we know for all problems, the solution is taking shelter of Krishna.

But we may not be able to take shelter of Krishna at that time. So, if we just talk with some other devotee and that devotee speaks some sweet understanding words to us, understands our emotions, helps us to come to terms with the situation and that calms us down. Now, that devotee may not even offer any spiritual solution.

He is just there as a human being to help us cope with the situation. That pacifies the mind. So, pacification is also important.

The one extreme is to just focus only on purification and say pacification does not require that. So, you know, just chant Hare Krishna, everything will be alright. But my mind is so wild that I can't even focus on chanting.

What do I do at that? I just keep chanting. But the mind is so wild that I can't chant. So, we can't say that pacification and purification are interchangeable.

We need pacification so that we can peacefully and joyfully pursue the path of purification. So, to say that there is no need for pacification is wrong. But the other extreme is to say that pacification allows in love.

I did this mindfulness exercise and so on. Chanting doesn't make me feel so obese. So, I don't need to chant.

I just do this. So, then what happens? We are mistaking pacification to be purification. So, one example to understand this is like painkiller and curative medicine.

When a patient is in pain, is sick and in pain, then the doctor's primary purpose is to cure the patient. But if the pain is too great, then the doctor may also give some pain medicine. So, the pain medicine is not curative.

And both the doctor and the patient have to clearly understand which medicine is for what purpose. So, today we live in a very agitated world, in a very agitating world. One of the characteristics of Kali Yuga is Upadrutaha.

The mind is extremely agitated. So, now how to deal with the agitation of the mind? In an ultimate sense, it is by the practice of bhakti, which will bring purification. And through purification, the forces that agitate the mind will themselves go away.

But that is a gradual process. And in the intermediate process, what do we do? So, we have to find out how our mind gets pacified the best. There is one senior disciple of Shri Prabhupada, a spiritual master, he told me that he journals every day.

And then I asked, are there any precedents in our tradition of journaling? So, he said that the principle of dealing with the mind is there in Dhatri tradition. How we do it, that is up to us. So, journaling helps somebody to process.

And then, after we practice bhakti for some time, we come to the mode of, Prabhupada writes in the introduction, that once we come to the mode of goodness, how to advance further will be revealed from within. So, what does this mean? That means that initially, we follow the standard process of bhakti. It is focusing on the practices of bhakti.

And as we come to the mode of goodness, we understand over a period of time, that that which helps me to focus my mind on Krishna, that is favorable. And that which agitates my mind away from Krishna, that is unfavorable. So, if some practice like journaling, if a devotee can maybe do it for a few days, one week, 10 days, 15 days, one month and observe, if that helps my mind to become more peaceful, and then I can chant better, I can do seva better, then that is perfectly fine.

And as a devotee, what are we going to journal about? We are going to journal about our bhakti life itself. So, if we can understand that this is a painkiller, and I need to take it circumstantially, then that is okay. So, two things, we should not start thinking that that will take the place of bhakti, that will take the place of remembrance of Krishna.

And we should not advertise that to everyone, because each person's mind is different. And journaling may be very good for me. But for somebody else, journaling may just be a waste of time, because journaling also requires some amount of processing.

If I am simply indulging in myself by journaling, you know, I felt like that, and I felt like that, and this person did like this, and this person did like that. See, when we look at the past, we can look at the past in goodness, we can look at the past in ignorance. When we look at the past in goodness, we learn from the past.

When we look at the past in ignorance, we simply lament about the past, and we stay locked in grief and lamentation and misery. So, we need to use any of these principles, any of the practices, you know, we need a certain amount of goodness. So, rather than, so, we have to evaluate whether it works for us.

And we do not have to assume that just because it works for me, it will work for others. So, we have to see what helps us to pacify our mind. And if something helps us in pacifying our mind, we can do that as an addition to a process of bhakti, not as a substitution for a process of bhakti.

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