​How can we deal with bad thoughts that come up subconsciously?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
How can the thoughts that come subconsciously without our wanting them? The, we can treat the mind like a software, you know.
So, in the software, it’s that if I, if I’m using, if I visit a particular website every day, now if I say, I visit the Guardian website every day, and as soon as I type G in my browser, again it completes Guardian. Why can’t I do that? Because that software has seen my past behavior and based on that it will not do that. Now if I type G and then I type something else afterwards and I repeatedly choose that new site, then what will happen is, as soon as I type G, so like that, now, based on the way we have acted in the past, the recent past or the remote past, certain desires just pop up.
Just like we may be visiting a clean website but suddenly a nasty image comes up. How that comes up? We don’t have to go into the intricate mechanism of how Google views some images on some basis, whatever. I don’t want to see it, close it.
So like that, when some desires come up from where they are coming, that is not very important. We don’t know what all impressions are there from where in our past. The important thing is that we just try to take our thoughts away from that.
And when we keep repeatedly saying yes to something else, there is an implicit no in that. It’s like I keep choosing some other site starting with G and automatically the earlier site that I was choosing G, that will not get out of the competition. So by making sure that consciously we choose Krishna more and more, the subconscious promptings will increase.
And gradually they will grow. If we can find out some source that might have stimulated the subconscious prompt, say we are cleaning our house and suddenly you see some dirt somewhere. You look around, is there some window from which the dirt has come? If we can find it, then we close the window.
But if we can’t find it, the important thing is we pout at it. So like that, if we can find out what might have caused this thought, we can find it. But there is no need to worry too much about what thoughts come in our mind.
You know, it’s more important is whether we act on it or not. Prabhupada in a lecture says that to get wrong thoughts is not a problem. To act on those wrong thoughts is a problem.
And then he gives a very beautiful definition of intelligence. He says intelligence means to kill the thoughts before they become actions. The thought will come, from thought it will go to desire, from desire it will go to intention, from intention it will become action.
So, somehow the thought comes along. Unwanted thought, we don’t pay attention to it, it will go away gradually. And actually, as we expose ourselves more and more to Krishna-Bhakti, then as spiritual impressions which are there in our conscious mind, will gradually percolate to our subconscious mind also.
So, basically there are two ways to deal with whatever garbage is there in the mind. You know, like sometimes some people, they write graffiti on walls. Now, one way to write, one way to deal with the graffiti is to erase the specific graffiti.
You know, to use a rubber or eraser and try to wipe it off. The other is to over-paint it. So, the process of Bhakti is primarily if we find out a particular trace of a, a source of a particular desire, we try to cut off that source.
That’s why we like to try wiping it off. But, if it’s difficult to wipe it off, we don’t know where it came from, then just overwrite it. So, over-paint it.
So, like that in Bhakti, we keep over-painting our consciousness with emotional impressions. And, as we keep doing that, the impressions will go further and further to the background and they will gradually get eliminated. Fine.
Thank you. Yes.