How to fight against the minds self-sabotaging inner dialogue?

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Transcript

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sometimes we have a negative dialogue which goes on and which sabotages us and we use different techniques to deal with it but still it goes on and sometimes we feel that we may not be strict enough in our practice of bhakti that’s why also the self sabotaging is happening so what can we do about it there is there are two main aspects one is if we become purified, we become transcendental then this negative dialogue will stop but till that time we have to use our intelligence our intelligence Jiva Goswami in his Sandarbha says that for a pure devotee or for a devotee who is advanced what keeps the devotee on the spiritual platform is priti, is affection for Krishna, is love for Krishna but for the sadhaka what keeps the sadhaka on the spiritual platform is buddhi we need intelligence to stay on the spiritual platform and I think all of us have this self sabotaging nature to some extent and I have found journaling very helpful in dealing with it journaling, writing a journal that helps so usually the mind doesn’t have too many scripts in this internal dialogue this problem, this problem mind basically uses the same weapons to attack us and overpower us the impetus for that may come from slightly different situations but essentially the main script, the main arguments the mind uses are more or less standard and at that time when the mind starts advancing those arguments it is quite difficult to counter-argue against it and we just get overwhelmed by it but later when we are in a more calmer situation if we deconstruct those dialogues that means the mind says like this, like this, like this just get the whole thing out in a written format, in a journal quite often that itself decreases the mental pressure, like there is a pressure cooker and then you release the whistle, it comes out, so I do it when I am angry with someone, so I know that if I speak that, I will hurt that person, I will ruin that relationship but if I keep that inside it will choke me so what I do is I write it out I write it out but then I don’t send that mail or I don’t send that to that person I just write it and I keep it there and if I say, if one or two days pass and then I look at it back again then I find that, okay I thought this person is like this, I use it like this but so many other possibilities it is not that this person is malicious so many other reasons come up why that person may have behaved like that and then I can also, even if I send that mail maybe I will put it in a more sensitive words something like that I will do so what happens is initially when those emotions are very strong those emotions don’t let our intelligence work and we can’t counter them so that’s the mind speaking, the emotions are coming from the mind at that time so just journaling at that time writing it down that decreases the pressure of the emotions and then we can use our intelligence to counter them so that is in one sense we are making our intelligence the counsellor of our mind we do need external counsellors to get guidance but ultimately those counsellors are not going to live with us we have to live with our mind so we have to make our intelligence into a counsellor so if the mind has a specific set of say, this is the argument because you are like this, like this, like this so you are going to be like this then if we write that down and then when we are in relatively calmer situation we write down the counter to that using Krishna conscious philosophy using our understanding, our realisation of the philosophy we write down the counter to that and whatever arguments are there, 1, 2, 3, 4 we write down the counters and then when the next time the mind attacks we have those counter arguments ready with us maybe a pocket diary or a phone or wherever it is written down and then when we refer to that that will help us to battle against the mind we the Krishna conscious philosophy has the resources to change the internal dialogue but the problem is when the mind attacks, we just can’t access the resources at that time so what we are doing here is making those resources readily available, preparing those resources and making those resources available so and by experience we can further customise things ok this point didn’t make sense but this point makes sense and I can elaborate those points so that way if we start start preparing to counter the mind’s dialogue with the Krishna conscious philosophy our study of the philosophy will also become more purposeful because otherwise we just feel ok the books contain the same things I have read it all but when we are in one sense in a searching mode in a seeking mode then we will find out things which are hidden in the scripture or latent in the scripture which we had overlooked so that purposeful study will also make us more absorbed in Shastra more able to extract wisdom from Shastra so this is one thing I said journaling is a very powerful way to have the resources for countering the internal dialogue that’s one thing and second thing is we have to find out which are the weapons that work for us so in the Rasa Shastra there is a concept called Uddeepan Uddeepan means spiritual stimuli so when our mind is taking our thoughts towards say this is ignorance, this is passion, this is goodness this is Krishna and transcendence so when the mind is taking our thoughts downwards towards ignorance and making us sabotage ourselves at that time we also need some way to raise our consciousness upwards so what will act as a potent spiritual stimuli for us that is not standard, that may vary from person to person so we have to find out what is the Uddeepan, what is the stimuli that evokes spiritual emotions within because as I said that when the emotions are dragging us down we need to use our intelligence to control the emotions to counter the emotions but we can’t suppress our emotions we can only redirect them or we can sublimate them so if we can activate spiritual emotions more easily then that also brings not only the intellectual power on our side it also brings the emotional power on our side otherwise it’s just a battle of intellectual power taking us towards Krishna, emotional power taking us towards self-defeating behaviour but if we can find out some spiritual Uddeepan something which stimulates the spiritual so for example for me I find reciting verses very helpful reciting verses from scripture so not just any verse or every verse but some verses which I like which I find very inspiring reciting those verses is very inspiring in fact if I go and take darshan if I don’t recite verses I don’t feel any connection with Krishna now that may not be the same for everyone else I have told this to some devotees now in the initial stages of our bhakti what happens is we think that whatever works for me that will work for everyone else so if I find verses memorising very relishable I start advocating it to everyone and it may work for some one devotee told me when I go into the details and I try to recollect verses trying to recollect the verses gives me so much tension that I can’t even remember Krishna at that time so what may be a Uddeepan for me may not be a Uddeepan for someone else but everyone of us will have some Uddeepan so some of us may find that may be the Hare Krishna Mahamantra sung in a particular tune that’s what stimulates us or may be there is a particular darshan of particular deities that evokes the bhakti within us or some devotees may find Vaishnav songs and again when I am talking about memorising verses or songs it doesn’t even have to be a full song or a full verse sometimes just one line in a verse may stimulate some spiritual emotion within us so if we find out what is our Uddeepan what is it that stimulates us spiritually and then we we develop that so say there is a particular kirtan which we like then we keep that kirtan ready with us, we access it regularly we connect ourselves and we spiritualise our consciousness by that then by both that intellectual power coming from customised scriptural pointers and the emotional power coming from our specific Uddeepan our specific Uddeepan that can help us to counter the mind’s unhealthy dialogue