Gita 16.11 Use developed human consciousness to decrease material fears not increase them

Transcript

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Thank you 16.11 Anxiety is natural activity in the material world the four among the four activities that characterize all living beings as described in the Mahabharata anxiety or fear is one of them ahar, vidra, bhai, maithuna, mithya eating, sleeping, meeting are biological functions but we could say bhai fear is more of a psychological function it’s more of a emotion but we could say that it can refer to defending which is a which is a activity which arises out of fear and that is an activity so now the nature of life as Darwin observed that in nature there is a struggle for existence and there is survival of the fittest so it means this circumstance I mean such an ethos of competition and survival of the fittest what often happens is that the unfit are eliminated but and everybody the unfit especially those who are less than fit they are fearful and even those who are fit are also fearful because somebody else might be fitter than them so at one level fear defensive action anxiety all these are innate features of material existence at the same time we human beings just as we can regulate the urges for eating sleeping mating that even when we feel tired even when we feel hungry we can regulate our eating where we can fast if we so desire and also that I mean one side we can we can regulate the urge to eat to below the normal bodily level or we can overindulge in it just as happens when say people overeat become obese that happens because we as human beings now we are not just driven by our bodies yes we are driven by the bodily impulses but beyond those impulses we also have we have intelligence we have a more developed consciousness so using our intelligence we can regulate the bodily impulses to below even their basic level normal level other than basic level and conversely using those and if if our intelligence if gets captivated by by by lower desires then we may indulge disproportionately also so similarly with respect to fear or the defensive activity that emerges out of fear it can be brought below the normal level or it can be taken above the normal level so fear is natural because there is danger there is uncertainty in life but fearfulness is a natural we could be constantly fearful about things living in a state of living in a state of paranoia so if that kind of thing happens that is unhealthy Krishna talks about that as a characteristic of ignorance 18.35 says yaya sopnam bhayam shokam nishadam madame vachana vimunchati durme dha dhriti so when we strive to practice when we are meant to live as human beings then we can using our intelligence we can by abusing our intelligence we might just go along with the mind’s wild flights of dystopia of negative fantasies and thus we may become constantly fearful or we may regulate our mind with our intelligence and not only maintain fear at a normal level we can get the fear down to below the normal level also where some people have an extraordinary high level of courageousness significantly courage is usually not the result of absence of fear it is the result of absorption in something bigger than fear bigger than fear for oneself whatever be the source of the courage the point remains that we have the capacity to transcend to transcend fear in the sense that although the stimuli that may cause fear in our heart may be there but still we may press on so therefore as spiritual seekers especially if we understand that we have a spiritual side that we are fools then the impetus to not give in to material impulses say in this case the impulse of fearfulness that can be that impulse of fearfulness can be countered much more effectively with the spiritual worldview because we understand that I at my core I’m indestructible and I’m a part of the whole who is also indestructible who is only indestructible is omnipotent and he will protect me so with such an understanding we can move steadily towards actualizing our potentials both materially and spiritually so specifically the fear can be heightened just as a materialistic worldview can increase the desire for eating mating because we think this is what life is meant for similarly a materialistic worldview can increase the desire for or the our vulnerability we could say for fearing because materialistic worldview subjects us to living at a particular level of reality and when we when we become habituated to living at that level of reality then there’s really not much we can do to counter because we are at our core caught in worldly things our consciousness is caught at the material level and with the consciousness caught at the material being able to think of anything higher but the material things are always changing and if material things are the source of our pleasure if they are the basis of our self identity then if things go wrong then if they become threatened our source of pleasure our source of security become threatened then that can subject us to enormous anxiety so especially the more materialistic we become then the more desire increases and correspondingly fear also increases for example say if we desire a particular country to a particular team to win a cricket match or a semi sports match then the fear that the emotional involvement becomes more because of the desire and then we can we can actually we may make it bite our nails and we may get immensely tense if that match becomes very close and our favorite team seems to be losing so desire causes emotional involvement and that emotional involvement also the flip side of desire is fear when the more we desire something the more we are subject to fear of not getting that thing the desire is not there and the fear will also not be there so the process of bhakti yoga it decreases our fears because through this process we learn to direct our desires towards Krishna and the more our desires get directed towards Krishna the more we become purified the more we become more we become spiritually oriented and then the fear that comes from material uncertainties become substantially lessened so we human beings are meant to use our developed consciousness our developed human consciousness not to become inordinately attached to material things and thereby aggravate our normal aggravate the normal fears of material existence but we can raise our consciousness to spiritual level become absorbed in Krishna and therefore bring the fear fearing below the normal level of material existence thank you