​How can we make our intelligence like a mother for discipling the childish mind?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, if our intelligence, how can we make it like a mother, who can, with both affection and firmness, control a childlike mind? Do we all have a certain level of capacity for self-control? Even in material life, even in sense gratification, you need self-control. What does that mean? Suppose there is a cricket match, which is late night or early morning. People either stay all night awake or they wake up early in the morning.
Let’s say there is a cricket match in Australia, it starts at 3 o’clock, 4 o’clock in India. People wake up and watch. So, they wake up and watch or they stay awake.
If you see that even to do anything, even to enjoy materially, people need some level of focus. We may not call it self-control in a spiritual sense, but that level of focus is required. And if a cricket match is going on and the final overs are coming up and suddenly somebody comes in between or some distraction comes, they want to focus.
So, the capacity to focus is there within all of us. So, it just needs to be directed towards Krishna. Or take the example, say that somebody says, I am extremely lazy.
No, I just sleep, I just oversleep, I just don’t feel like doing anything. Well, I don’t have any determination. Well, even if you say, I don’t have any determination, still even that person has the determination to be lazy.
Isn’t it? Because laziness, actually speaking, doesn’t feel good. It feels, somehow I may evade some work by being lazy, but afterwards I feel bad, why did I not do that work? And then others taunt me and I feel bad about that. And afterwards, anyway, later I have to do that work, that burden also comes on me.
But in spite of all that, still I hold on to that laziness. So, that is determination. Of course, that is determination of a perverse kind and the more appropriate word for that is obstinacy, stubbornness.
But whether we call it positively as determination or negatively as obstinacy, there is that firm intention to hold on to something. So, we all have determination in us. Dhritarashtra, you know, he was, we say, attached to the kingdom, Dhritarashtra is strongly holding on to the kingdom.
That attachment is bad. Because it was towards something undesirable. But that undesirable direction of the attachment indicates the presence of an underlying capacity for determination, for focus.
So, our very lack of determination demonstrates our capacity for determination. Because when we are saying, I am not determined about something, that means I am determined about something else. So, if you just understand this point, that we all have the capacity for determination, then that itself takes out this thing that, oh, I cannot be determined.
That negativity that is there, that goes away. Then we have to find out, okay, what is the capacity that I have right now. So, if I decide, oh, I eat too much.
I do too much sensitive eating. So, I will not take sweets. If I decide like that, now, if I try to think, I will never take sweets throughout my life.
You know, I, this is a very good determination. Lifelong, I will not take sweets. But then that lifelong doesn’t even stay one day longer.
He is realistically, okay, in this meal, I will take only one sweet. I will not take two sweets. I will not take three sweets.
I am just giving sweets as one example. It’s not that sweet-taking is a very bad thing. As I said, it’s bona fide enjoyment within Krishna Consciousness.
The only problem is that if we enjoy prasadam too much, we cannot enjoy Krishna in any other forms. So, we enjoy a lot of prasadam in our class. We are sleeping.
In japa, we are sleeping. That is, so, there has to be, that regulation is there, so that we can perceive and relish Krishna in all his manifestations, in different manifestations. But the point is, this prasadam is simply an example to illustrate that we have to find out what is our present capacity for determination.
And we all have some capacity. And we take that capacity and build on that. So, I may find that, okay, there are so many activities, bhakti, I don’t like, I can’t do kirtans too much, I can’t do japa too much.
But, you know, if I hear some nice classes, I like that. Or if I study some book, I like that. So, whatever we have attraction towards, whatever we have capacity to do, we make a commitment in that.
So, for example, if I say that, everything that I am doing bhakti, I will do with complete wholehearted focus. It’s a very difficult system. On some days of inspiration, you might be able to do it.
So, that way, the intelligence cannot absolutely control and focus the mind constantly. That there are some things in which we can control and focus. So, if we just do that, through that the mind becomes purified naturally.
And as it becomes purified, it becomes attracted towards Krishna and then it is able to focus on Krishna in other manifestations also. And secondly, within, as I said about the capacity of focus also, there is a range. It is not that we have to have an absolutely high standard of Krishna consciousness all the time.
So, for example, every day, I may not be able to focus on Krishna, but still I can chant the Holi. The verbal activity of chanting is good enough. So, there is a certain level of control that is there.
And we can try to increase absorption as we move on. So, absorb ourselves in some things, where we really put our heart and try to connect, and other things, at least have the regulation. So, it’s like the mother is giving the medicine, if the child is moving the head, if the mother just makes sure that the child’s head moves, but is not able to keep the child completely focused, but don’t let the child stay away like that.
When the child goes away, bring it back. At least some drops will go inside. So, in some cases, we may be able to focus absolutely and take in the full dosage.
In some other cases, not the full dosage, but at least let partial dosage go on. And in that way, as we become purified, we will find that the capacity for absorption in Krishna increases, and as our devotional satisfaction increases, then the mind becomes more and more healed. Till we come to a level, which we see very far away right now, the mind itself becomes our friend.
The mind starts developing a taste for Krishna. So, at that time, Bhakti becomes joyful. Till that time, Bhakti will be a struggle.
So, often the problem comes when we have unrealistic expectations that Bhakti will be joyful. Krishna says, एशान्त्व अन्तगतं पातं जनानां पुन्यकर्मा तेद्वन्द्वमोहनिर्मुक्ता वजन्तेमां दुडवृता So, in 7.28, it says, दुडवृता, the determined Bhakti will come when? When एशान्त्व अन्तगतं पातं, when the sins go away, जनानां पुन्यकर्मा, when a person practices पुन्य for a considerable amount of time and use a path, then the दुडवृता, the determined Bhakti will come. So, till that time, with whatever determination we have, we practice Bhakti.
If we have unrealistic expectation that everything will be, I’ll become pure and I’ll become focused and I’ll become absorbed in every activity that I do in Bhakti, that itself is unrealistic. Have an unrealistic understanding that there will be struggles, but just because there are struggles, doesn’t mean I have to give up. I have some capacity, let me act with that capacity, and then I’ll be enlightened.
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