​Should we avoid worrying or should we take anxieties for Krishna’s service?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Vishal Prabhupada said that we advance to the extent we take anxiety for Krishna’s mission but then sometimes our anxiety seems to come from our moods and that causes fear and insecurity and worry.
So, is that something we should avoid or something we should take up? Actually, certainly, as long as we are in Rajoguna and we have some Rajoguna and Tamoguna now what is going to happen is we are going to be anxious. And if we don’t take up anxiety for Krishna then our mind and senses will create some goals for us and we will take up anxiety for them. So, anxiety is basically a function of the mode of passion, primarily.
So, if I don’t take up anxiety for Krishna my mind and senses will set up some goal for me. You have to earn this, you have to get this, you have to achieve this and I will become anxious for those things. So, in that sense, unless we actually come to the mode of goodness we cannot avoid anxiety.
So, that’s the first point. So, it’s better that rather than just thinking I want to avoid anxiety and then we don’t take up spiritual anxiety we end up taking up sensual anxiety. It’s better to always take up some anxiety for Krishna’s service.
Take up some responsibility. Secondly also that everything has to be in proportion. That means if I have to build my muscles if I can lift up 10 kg, I can try to lift up 11, 12, 13, 14.
But if I try to lift up 25 kg, I’ll simply fracture my hands. So, like that for all of us we don’t need to take up anxiety in Krishna’s service. But we have to take up anxiety according to our capacity.
So, if I take up anxieties which are way beyond my capacity then that will become pratikul to bhakti. So, I would say capacity here also means to some extent our nature. Our nature.
Somebody has a brahminical nature they can take up intellectual anxieties nicely but if they are told to take up managerial anxieties that causes too much conflict within them. So, we certainly have to take up anxieties for Krishna’s service but then they have to be according to our capacity. And when you take them according to our capacity then that is what, it’s like if I don’t lift up weights I’m not going to grow.
Similarly, unless we take up anxieties we won’t grow in spiritual life. But just as it’s not that any weight that I pick up will help me in essence to grow. I have to carefully choose the weights which will help me to grow.
So, in the initial years of our spiritual life when we come we are usually told, given some instructions do this, do this, do this, given some instructions do this, do this, do this and we simply follow the instructions and that’s how it should be. Initially we learn obedience and surrender but over the years as we observe ourselves we come to understand what our inspiration is what our nature is and in what way we would like to serve. And then we take up anxiety in that field.
So, certainly we have to take up anxiety for Krishna’s service but then the anxiety has to be uncool. That means the anxiety should… During, there are going to be times when any project, any service you do there are going to be too much trouble. We feel, why did I take this up also? Sometimes we feel like that.
But overall in the long run we feel fulfilled. I was able to do something for Krishna’s service and we feel purified, we feel elevated. But if there is again an anxiety which is for a service which is highly incompatible with us then it’s mostly stress and tension and frustration and then we, although even that will purify us but that will not so much elevate us because we will not feel fulfilled.
We will not feel as if we have made an adequate contribution. Sometimes if we take up anxiety in a service which we are not very good at then not only are we not able to do much of a service but also others also sometimes get into, get alienated because of the service not being up to a proper way of doing and things like that. So anxiety definitely has to be taken up but it has to be taken up in a way that is uncool to bhakti.
So the way I put it is, you know what everybody has to face problems in life but the expertise of Varanashram is that it allots to people the kind of problems that they like to face. So brahmanas are allotted intellectual problems. Kshatriyas are allotted managerial problems.
And now we don’t exactly have Varanashram so quite often it is up to us using our God-given intelligence using the guidance of Vaishnavas you know, what service do we take up? What anxiety do we take up from Krishna’s service? Does that address you? It seems that sometimes… Yeah, please. No, you were saying something. Please.
I was just going to say that a lot of times for senior devotees it seems that Krishna reveals the way, what He wants. And so He may reveal a path, a service that He takes, you know, in terms of the anxiety. And then if it’s clear that that’s what He wants… Yeah, if Krishna reveals, then definitely we take it up.
And there is anxiety, but then there is… there is also… you know, if you feel inspired to do something the empowerment also comes the ability also comes and we move onwards. But yes, anything we have to do we have to take up anxiety. As I said, satatam kirtayanto mam yatantasya dhruva-vratah 9.14, the Gita is actually talking about very advanced devotees those who have convinced that that’s 9.13, 9.14. So those who are actually convinced that Krishna is the absolute truth they know that there’s nothing other than Krishna their mind doesn’t go to anywhere else even they, when they have to serve in this world they need dhruva-vratah.
So, satatam kirtayanto mam yatantasya dhruva-vratah They also need determination. They don’t… We need determination to battle against our mind and senses. They need determination because to do anything in this world requires determination.
Even for great devotees they may not have the internal struggle with their mind and senses. But determination is required for doing something in this world. So in that sense the anxiety is just something which we can’t avoid.
And the anxiety, if it makes us remember Krishna more it helps us to make a tangible contribution to Krishna’s service then definitely that anxiety takes us towards Krishna. Mataji, you wanted to say something? Yeah.