How much anxiety shoud we take up for our devotional activities?

The many services to do make us stressed and I feel that I have simply replaced anxieties for material activities with anxieties for devotional activities.

Transcript

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Hare Krishna. Question. How much anxiety should we take up for rendering our devotional service? Sometimes, when we have so many things to do in our devotional life also, say, studying Bhagavatam, completing hour rounds, attending programs, and maybe doing some outreach ourselves, so life always becomes a race, and sometimes I feel that I simply replaced one anxiety with another anxiety, and I feel stressed and burdened by that.
And I sometimes long for relief, or at least if I don’t long, I feel the stress caused by having too many services to do. But at the same time, we hear that by being anxious for rendering devotional service, we make spiritual advancement. But is it that in the practice of devotional service, we are meant to be stressed by having so many things to do? Answer.
No, the central point of devotional service is to remember Krishna. So, there are two different extremes. One is apathy, and the other is extreme anxiety.
So if we are apathetic about our devotional activities, then we are not remembering Krishna, and we are not really valuing the remembrance of Krishna. So if our spiritual study, if our other devotional activities, as you mentioned, we just neglect them most of the time, then we will not be able to get through, we will not be able to make much spiritual advancement, because we will be lost in our mind’s created spun world, doing this and that. So having some level of anxiety is a sign of seriousness.
At the same time, sometimes our anxiety becomes too much for the specific forms of activities, and we forget the purpose in between, in the process. That means, yes, say, we would like to study the scriptures daily, we would like to, say, complete our japa in the morning, we would like to do these various devotional activities with regularity, with intensity, with a priority, but the world and life intervenes, other things may come up. So when other things come up unavoidably, at that time, we may not be able to do the specific forms of devotional service, but we can still, at least to some extent, remember Krishna.
So if some unavoidable situation comes up, then we can still understand, ultimately everything is sanctioned by Krishna. Krishna is Upadrishtana Mantra. So Krishna, whatever way you want me to serve you, I will serve you in that way.
And we accept that situation and we deal with it. And then whenever the situation becomes clear, whenever we get the opportunity, we return back to the practice of devotional service. So our anxiety should be, even in devotional service, if at all there is any anxiety, the anxiety should be for remembering Krishna.
And we are anxious for chanting, we are anxious for hearing, because these activities help us to remember Krishna. And we can, at least to some extent, in terms of broad acceptance, of the controllership of Krishna and the benevolence of Krishna, understand that even when some obstacles come, because of which we are not able to do these activities as per our plan, and because of which we feel stressed, we can understand that still Krishna is in control, and by trying to remember Him, even in this situation, we will be staying close to Him, we will be staying in His consciousness, and we will be slowly moving towards Him. So, even in our devotional life, we have to make sure that we are Krishna conscious.
So, anukulyasya sankalpa pratikulyasya varjunam. So whatever is favorable for our devotional life, we accept that, whatever is unfavorable, we reject that. So, anxiety, if it is favorable, we accept that.
That means our anxiety should increase our remembrance of Krishna, not decrease our remembrance. So, if we just become so worked up, oh, I have to do that, I have to do that, I have to do that, and we just feel burdened by that, stressed by that, then maybe we have to cut down some of the things which we are doing. Sometimes our capacity to do devotional service may not be matching with our aspirations to do devotional service.
Then we have to be realistic. Taking up anxieties is like taking up weight. Different people have different capacities for taking up, lifting weights.
And we know the story of the squirrel and Hanuman. Whatever service they were doing, both were valued by Lord Ram. So, similarly, with respect to the practice of devotional service, we can be in the comfort zone, in the stretch zone or the panic zone.
Comfort zone means we are not taking up any anxiety at all. Panic zone means the burden is so much that we are not able to do things at all. Just the burden itself paralyzes us.
So, stretch zone means we are concerned, we are excited, and we are stimulated by the challenge facing us. So, by the practical experience of doing devotional service, and doing it in an introspective way, we will be able to find out, OK, this puts me in, this is comfort zone, I can do more. If I start, if I do this much, this puts me in panic zone.
And then we can come to the stretch zone and practice devotional service there. So, anxiety should also be taken up to the extent it intensifies our remembrance of Krishna. It contributes to our Krishna consciousness, not that it itself becomes a mental preoccupation and distracts from our remembrance of Krishna.
Thank you. Hare Krishna.