The mind wastes our energy in fighting wars that aren’t winnable… Gita 06.06

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna suppose an army is fighting a war and that army has limited resources if it starts fighting wars that are not winnable say for example if a mountain range blocks the army’s path if the army decides that we will break down this mountain so that we can attack those on the opposite side that might well be impossible if they have limited resources or if they start fighting a war in which victory is not definable say there are some insurgents in a particular area but what do you want to do do you want to eliminate all the insurgents do we want to remove all those who are supporting the insurgents do we want to annihilate the whole group of people from whom the insurgents are rising what if victory is not even definable then fighting the war it becomes a waste because how do we rate success in a war also now this kind of wars may be fought in the outer world for political gains because of the military industrial complex but in our inner world also something similar happens our emotions especially get caught in wars over issues so the mind often gives rise to very strong emotions which don’t help us at all so for example consider when the mind might get us fighting wars that are not winnable there are many things in life which are just not changeable and if we keep resenting that which is unchangeable then we simply hurt ourselves we ruin ourselves so resentment of reality often hurts more than reality and if we keep fighting wars that are not winnable then we destroy, we waste our energy and we don’t have the energy left to fight wars that are actually winnable so some things just can’t be changed the past can’t be changed for example and sometimes we have some relationship issues with some people and they might gossip about us and we gossip about them and especially if we are in a very close relationship then what is the point of such gossiping what are we going to achieve by that gossiping no one just don’t know so actually speaking the mind you can’t even define victory, what do we want to do if we consider a person like a spouse who is in a very close relationship and we we argue against them we completely defeat them and we expose their wrong doings to others and we humiliate them you may think we have won the war but is that really victory if we have to live with that person and they are miserable their misery will come upon us sooner or later and it will make us miserable so we need to very carefully recognize that actually we all have to fight responsibly, fight intelligently and the most worthwhile war to fight is the war to serve our lord to use whatever situation and whatever resources we have internally and externally to try to connect with the lord, to serve the lord and thereby that is a war which can be won and winning which is meaningful so that’s why the Bhagavad Gita tells us that the mind can be both our enemy and our friend depending on what kind of war we are fighting it will determine whether our mind is working as our friend or as our enemy Thank you. Hare Krishna