Can we use freewriting in bhakti-yoga?
Question can we use free writing in Krishna's service answer yes certainly everything can be used in Krishna's service so by the principle of Yukta Vairagya we can use even free writing in Krishna's service free writing is a kind of writing wherein we don't critically evaluate what we are writing but we just express whatever thoughts emerge within us just as we have brainstorming sessions wherein people are told that just express your ideas don't check yourself don't evaluate whether these ideas are practical or implementable or not this is that we will do later right now just throw out your ideas whatever you get so similarly what like brainstorming free thinking is what we do in private brainstorming is what we do in public and actually even in brain free thinking can bring out more ideas than brainstorming also because in brainstorming although we are told that just express yourself freely it is almost impossible for any for us to completely put aside our reservations and to just express whatever ideas come because we are checked by what people will think about us but in free thinking we can just express our thoughts so now this can of course become a temptation wherein we wallow in self-obsession and self-absorption so free thinking can be more of rather than just writing our thoughts we can make it more focused by writing our thoughts about a particular topic so for example if we decide if Ram Navami is coming and we want to write something about for that occasion then we can just think that okay what is it about Lord Ram that inspires me the most so we can use some writing prompts usually there are these six questions which can act as very good writing prompts who, what, when, where, why and how so these are called the six friends of an intelligent person and we can use these questions to start our writing prompts and we can write on that subject now this may not be whatever we write what writing output we do may not be any coherent whole it may be just disjointed bits of thought but that is fine this is not the time for a finished product this is the time for a raw product so in fact the faster we write at this time the less the more we check our inner editor from screening what we are expressing quite often we will find that initially what comes out may be may be garbage may not be very valuable but that will give way to the good within us so when we find that when we start realizing when our inner inner creative artist recognizes that okay now there is no censor who is going to stop me there is no editor who is going to criticize me then that our inner creative side starts expressing itself more and more and as we we go through the bad gradually some good ideas will start coming so there are many the free writing is quite common among writers and to be writers so for example there is a website called writeordier.org wherein we can set a time and we can write so I am going to write say 500 words in the next 15 minutes and then the website keeps a timer and shows a counter okay you have finished this many words and this many words are remaining and that way we are pushed towards completing that target in a particular time of course this is just one example there may be many other apps like this the point is that writing against a deadline can help us express ourselves can just help us get over the inhibition which we often have of putting words on paper or on computer and once we start getting comfortable about writing gradually we can work towards quality so many people face a shortage of ideas while writing so free writing is one of the ways in which we can overcome that shortage of ideas by just writing based on a particular topic and moving onwards later to evaluate the content of the writing so for example if you write 500 words we may find within that 50 words contain an idea that can be expanded in later into a longer article so this is the way if we start expecting free writing to give us a finished product then we are setting ourselves up for frustration free writing will give us a raw material and even the raw material all of it will not be useful a small part of it will be useful I have experienced that what I write in 15 minutes suppose I write an average back to worded article is 2500 words and my usual speed of writing is that I write around 300 words a 300 words final product I write it takes me around two hours to write 300 words so an average back to worded article which is 2500 words it takes me around 8 to 10 hours so no sorry it takes me around 15 hours so now in this 15 hours for example if I started the free writing if I do free writing for three or four sessions if I write 15 minutes 15 minutes 500 words I can get 2500 words written down the first draft in one hour but after that refining what has been written may take 10 or 15 hours more after that so it is but that without that initial one hour I would not have had something anything on which to use those next 10-12 hours so writing is a demanding and absorbing process and it is also very fulfilling but if we face the block of not getting ideas for writing then free writing is a very good way to overcome those blocks by just writing against a deadline without any editor just focusing on quantity and leaving quality for a later revision and over time if we keep doing this we will find that we come up with good articles and that's the way how we'll find that free writing can be used in Krishna's service of course we have to be careful that we don't indulge in free writing for its own sake and spend valuable time without any constructive output coming out over time we should be able to get a constructive output but in the initial stages we need to remove the weeds so that we can get to the flowers and free writing is a way which ensures that we at least get some yield which is to have largely weeds but also some flowers some seeds some grains in it some ideas which are germs which can be germinated later and that way we can kick-start our writing process through free writing thank you.