What is the difference between processing emotions through self-help principles and through bhakti principles?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So what is the difference between Krishna conscious principles, say about processing emotions or addressing issues like that, and self-help techniques? The main difference is the purpose. The purpose is that we are trying to serve others.
In self-help, people are simply trying to bring out their, trying to help themselves. So often, their purpose may still be to become better materialistic. One of the biggest fields in yoga is, there are books called Yoga for Sex.
Yoga is actually for, traditionally, yoga is for connecting with Krishna. So people practice yoga so that they can have smoother bodies or fitter bodies so that they can enjoy sex better. So what is happening, they are doing yoga, but their purpose is completely materialistic.
So when we practice bhakti, what primarily changes is the purpose. Now bhakti itself has a process, and that process has to be followed. But many, not all, many of what is taught in self-help books are simple principles in their own ways.
So be proactive, not reactive. Put first things first. Seek to understand before you are understood.
All those principles which are there, they are simply more a goodness than principles. And in bhakti, we want to offer Krishna. We want to offer our heart to Krishna, offer our life to Krishna, offer our services to Krishna.
Now a part of offering ourselves is also discovering ourselves. A part of offering ourselves is discovering ourselves. Who am I? Not just discovering ourselves, but that I am the soul.
So I say, okay, what are my tangents? Sometimes if there are emotional issues which are covering me up, which are obscuring me from understanding myself better, or they are choking me in my contribution, then understanding those issues is also a part of offering myself. To offer myself, I want to discover myself. And if we analyze and contextualize and then heal ourselves emotionally, then we can better offer ourselves to Krishna.
So we don’t have to see bhakti as a compartmentalized process. It is one, two, three, four, five. These activities are bhakti.
Everything else is maya. No, it’s not like that. One, two, three, four, five activities are bhakti definitely.
But actually everything that I can do, unless it is directly and devotedly, can be connected with Krishna. See, Arjuna, when he won the Kurukshetra war, did he win that Kurukshetra war by the knowledge of the Bhagavad Gita or the knowledge of archery that he had learned from Dronacharya? It’s both. The spiritual and the material are not contradictory.
They are complementary. The knowledge of archery he had, the Bhagavad Gita gave him the purpose for which to know the knowledge of archery. So the spiritual is primarily the director of the material.
The spiritual is not the replacer of the material. I may, when I wake up early morning after a long night’s sleep, I chant 64 rounds, pure attention. Is 64 rounds chanting going to remove the bad breath from my mouth? If I say, I won’t brush my teeth.
Rupa Goswami, in the Bhakti of Samaraswamy, which is an elevated book of devotees, he says devotees should do all the activities carefully and then he mentions brushing teeth. Rupa mentions that in the Bhagavad Gita. Now why? Chanting Hare Krishna is there.
Why do you need to brush your teeth? The material is virtual. That is straight. I have to brush my teeth.
That’s a simple worldly activity. I shouldn’t expect that chanting Hare Krishna will brush my teeth. That’s not what chanting Hare Krishna is meant for.
It’s meant to awaken love in my heart. So, when we are practicing Bhakti, Bhakti primarily is about having a divine purpose for life. Now practically, how we actualize the purpose in our life, that may vary from person to person.
So, when we are going to build a temple for Krishna, a temple is itself a divine, it’s for a divine purpose. But the knowledge of architecture, we may learn from an architect who is not a devotee. That’s practically required for implementing things in this world.
So, similarly, if we need to heal our emotions, we need to deal with our issues, that is something which is not required. As I chanted Hare Krishna, everything was perfect. Yes, some people may not have any emotional issues.
As I chanted Hare Krishna, it was wonderful. But Bhakti is not restricted to chanting Hare Krishna. Chanting Hare Krishna is the center point of developing our relationship with Krishna.
And developing our relationship with Krishna means offering our whole self to Krishna. And so, if there are some emotional issues which are checking us from offering our self to Krishna, if we have the nature of doing introspection, of doing analysis and of dealing with those issues by properly processing them, then that is to be seen as within the purview of Bhakti. Because Bhakti is not so much about the form of activity as it is about the purpose of activity.
If you see that way, Arjuna’s activity of fighting, how much does it seem like a devotional activity? It doesn’t. Few activities will seem as anti-devotional as killing someone. Fighting means killing.
But Bhakti is so inclusive that even an activity that seems externally as anti-devotional as fighting, that is also included in it. So Bhakti is more about the purpose of activity than the form of activity. If a particular form of activity helps me in fulfilling that purpose of going closer towards Krishna or offering myself to Krishna, then we can see that that is inclusive and that is included in the scope of Bhakti.
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