How can we cultivate sentiments without becoming sentimental?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
I mentioned that we shouldn’t have we shouldn’t have sentimentality as the fuel for the practice of bhakti because then we will keep making U-turns.
But then, when we have to practice bhakti, we do need sentiments. So, how do we do that? Yes. Sentiments at our stage are also valuable.
They are gifts from Krishna. So, for example, if we come and take darshan of Krishna and we feel very devotional, that is a blessing from Krishna. What becomes a problem is we base our bhakti on those feelings alone.
If those feelings don’t come, then what is the point of practicing bhakti? If we get devotional feelings, that’s wonderful. And whenever we get devotional feelings, we need to cherish them, we need to treasure them. Our mind has this tendency that if we engage in sense gratification, the memory of sense gratification the mind stores very prominently.
And that’s why if we see some sense object and we go into instant samadhi, I am so lost in it. But when it comes to Krishna, even after great effort, we don’t go into any samadhi. We struggle.
That’s simply because the mind is habituated to sense objects. So, we use the word inclination. Inclination is also used in a physical sense that if a road is inclined in a particular way, then water will flow on that way.
So, by our repeated past indulgences, our mind is inclined towards sense gratification. That’s why our thoughts naturally go there. But by the practice of bhakti, consistent practice of bhakti, our mind will eventually become inclined towards Krishna.
That will take time, but that’s what purification is all about. Now, within this stage of purification, whenever we experience devotional emotions, we need to cherish and treasure them. That means maybe we can write it down or we can consciously recollect it.
So, for example, sometimes we are chanting and we just feel completely dry in bhakti. We just don’t feel like chanting. At that time, if we remember past, when actually we had taste in chanting, when we really felt empowered, sometimes we chant and we feel Mahamantra is coming out, we feel resonant power at the time of chanting.
So, we can remember those incidents, treasure those incidents. If we go for yatra and we get some very special experience, we can write them down in some diary or something like that. Just like when we have sweet memories, we click photos of that.
So, like that, sometimes when we have exalted emotions, if we write it down, then that is like a verbal snapshot of our mind. A verbal snapshot of our mind’s elevated emotions whenever we experience them. And then we can draw on those memories to push ourselves onwards in bhakti.
Along with that, there is also the concept of uddhipan, which Bhakti Samyukta uses. Uddhipan means spiritual stimulus. So, all of us, we need to find out what is it that stimulates spiritual emotions within us.
And we can find that out and do that more. Some of us may like kirtans a lot. Then, whenever we feel a little down in bhakti, we try to sing more kirtans, hear more kirtans.
Some of us may like some darshan of the deities very much. We can keep those photos with us constantly. Whenever we feel down, we can look at them.
So, now the uddhipan for each of us may be different. Because all of us are individuals. So, I, whenever I take darshan of the deities, if I can recite some prayers at that time, some verses, I feel connected with the deities.
This is the lord of glory I am talking about and that lord is manifested over here. So, once I spoke this in a class, when we take darshan, we can recite prayers and then that way we can connect with Krishna. And after that one devotee came back after a couple of days and he said, that you know, when I go in front of deities, if I try to recollect a verse, that causes so much tension that all my bhakti goes away.
So, the point is, what is a uddhipan for me may not be a uddhipan for someone else. So, that is, finding out what is our uddhipan is our personal responsibility. Sometimes some devotees sing kirtans with long, twisted, ecstatic tunes that then their kirtan is more a performance than a participation.
They just observe. They get absorbed that way. But if others think I have to sing kirtan like this, they will not get absorbed that way.
So, we all have to find out what it is that is our uddhipan. What are our spiritual stimuli and we need to cherish those and cultivate them, have them ready at hand so we can kindle some spiritual emotion. In that way, we do need emotions also for moving onwards in our bhakti.
But emotions should not be our primary fuel at our stage. Our stage of bhakti is called as vaidhi bhakti. Vaidhi means that we practice bhakti based on the vidhi, the instruction that we are getting from our spiritual master.
So, we practice bhakti based on the instruction that we get from the spiritual master and then we need to use our intelligence to understand and become convinced about it. Then we practice it. But along with that, we do need emotions also even if they are not there constantly.
So, whenever there are emotions, we cherish them and we try to maximize those emotions. But sentimentality would mean that if there are no emotions, there is no practice of bhakti. Whereas sadhana bhakti means emotion or no emotions, I practice bhakti Thank you.