If we feel guilty about our inability to practice bhakti seriously, what can we do?
Podcast:
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
Summary
When changing circumstances make your present practice of bhakti feel inferior to the past, the mind often traps you in guilt and negativity. Here is how to navigate these challenges and move forward in your spiritual journey.
Main Points
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Recognize the Mind’s Tricks: The mind often compounds negative emotions—making you feel bad, and then making you feel guilty about feeling bad, similar to how manipulative people use sweet-talk.
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Practice Detachment from Feelings: Just as the ocean receives rivers without overflowing, do not let temporary emotional temptations or feelings of weakness control your core consciousness.
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Accept Your Present Limitations: A true service attitude means accepting your current physical or situational boundaries—just as you would accept a decline in health or wealth as temporary and external.
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Understand Determination Varies: Determination is influenced by bodily nature and past karma, meaning a lower level of external strictness now does not automatically equate to a lack of spiritual advancement.
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Evaluate Anukula vs. Pratikula: Discern whether your craving for past strictness is favorable (anukula) for your absorption in Krishna or unfavorable (pratikula), as unrealistic cravings can distract you from doing your current duties as service.
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Cultivate Humility: Your current struggles and lower external performance might be generating humility, which can ultimately foster deeper spiritual growth than past strictness could have.
Key Takeaways
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Treat feelings of guilt as a trick of Maya rather than a true reflection of your spiritual standing.
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Focus on wholehearted service within your present circumstances rather than mourning the past.
Full Transcription
If our present practice of bhakti is not as good as our past practice was because of various circumstances which are not so much in our control and whenever we try to practice bhakti seriously now if we if that attempt also to practice seriously reminds us how our past practice was much better and that makes us feel guilty and depressed and negative what can we do about it answer the mind is never short of tricks and all that we can do is is try to identify the tricks so we don’t get tricked just like some people are very smooth talkers sweet talkers that have negative connotations where they can make others do things which are not even good for others so we have to try to understand and protect ourselves from their manipulative speeches we need to treat the mind like another person within us and the mind can compound our problems by compounding our emotions say for example in some situation we lost our temper and got angry now the mind can make us feel angry first and then make us feel angry that we got angry and then it can make us further feel angry that we got angry that we got angry or we can get depressed because of something bad thing that happens in our life and then the mind makes us feel oh you are so weak that you get depressed and we feel depressed about our weakness so at that time we need to the Bhagavad Gita Krishna uses the word Nakamakami Nakamakami means don’t be a desirer of desire this is in the Apuryamanam verse 2.70 that means he is talking about desire as flowing into our consciousness like a river flowing into an ocean and then he says that but when a river flows into an ocean water doesn’t flow out of the ocean like a desire flows in but desire doesn’t flow out that means a temptation comes in but that doesn’t lead to the intention to act on that temptation the same way we can say that don’t be a don’t be a just a feeler of our feelings not that we we deaden ourselves to our emotions but rather we don’t give our emotions control over our consciousness in general like everything else in life we have to adopt the approach of what is favorable we do now what is unfavorable we avoid so just as suppose in the past we had better health and now we have poorer health in the past we had more wealth and now we have lesser wealth naturally whenever we may see some of me a present situation we try to do some present activity and our limitation in health or wealth limits us and we may feel bad about it but we understand that that is that is material and temporary and we one aspect of surrender is accepting the situation that we are in and serving within that situation we often use the word service attitude now one aspect of service attitude that is often not recognized is that to accept our limitations one who is doing service is not the boss that means even bosses have limitations but those who are serving the boss definitely have limitations so to accept our limitations and to accept the responsibility to act wholeheartedly within those limitations now with respect to health or wealth it may be relatively easier to accept if we have had a down slide because those are externals and we also understand that they are temporary and we may feel that that is just the will of destiny but with respect to say decrease in our determination in our practice of bhakti we may feel that we could have avoided that we are weak-willed but determination Prabhupada writes in one letter determination after all bodily functions like some people with Kapha Prakriti for example can fast very easily those with Pitta Prakriti can find fasting even till noon very difficult so does that mean that a person who can fast more is necessarily advanced more not necessarily so determination which especially is associated with detachment from other things things other than Krishna detachment is also an opulence of Krishna that comes to us by our past karma so when we had that opulence we used it now if we don’t have the opulence just as we understand craving for wealth that we don’t have that we might have had in the past but we don’t have that is not favourable for our bhakti similarly craving for the strictness or the seriousness in bhakti practice that we had in the past which we don’t have now we have to evaluate whether it is Anukula or this Upatikula so if it is increasing our absorption in Krishna that is favourable but if it is we should want to hear about Krishna we are eager to hear about Krishna but if we have a job and if our eagerness to hear of Krishna is distracting us from our job causing us underperform in our job that is complicating our life then that desire has to be regulated we cannot indulge in that desire because that will be a distraction from our service to Krishna and our job is also a service to Krishna so the point is that see the mind’s emotion as a trick of Maya and feeling bad and feeling guilty especially if it is unfavourable to our present whole hearted practice of bhakti definitely that is something which has to be avoided so yes in the past we might have practiced bhakti more strictly but if at that time we might have become proud of our strict practice and now at whatever level we are practicing if that is helping us develop humility then who knows maybe that humility will help us grow much more grow spiritually much more than what we might have done without that humility even if our practice externally had been stricter in the past thank you