What should we do when we are unsure about what to do?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Answer your question? So, if I understand the question right, you are saying that sometimes we are put in a situation where we are expected to do something, but how do we know what are we supposed to do? Is that the question? Yes, there may be ignorance on individual’s part that they don’t know what they are going to do or there may be some obstacles preventing them. Okay. So, if we are in a particular situation where either we don’t know what to do or we are unable to do the right thing because of some obstacles, so at that time what should we do? Actually, Sri Prabhupada was asked, what is the best prayer that we can offer to Krishna? And he said we should pray to him, please engage, please give me the strength to serve you.
Please give me the strength to serve you. So, it may well work out in our life that in certain situations we may not even know what to do. So, at one level, faith in Krishna means to take one step towards Krishna even when the full path towards him is not clear.
So, I may not know, okay, from here how will I go towards Krishna, but I can take one step. Okay, let me come to the temple, pray to Krishna, let me chant his holy names, let me study his scriptures. Take one step and one more step will become clear, one more step will become clear, one more step will become clear and like that you can keep moving on towards Krishna.
Sri Prabhupada writes in one part of the quote that a devotee may be perplexed, but a devotee is not discouraged. Perplexed means I don’t know what to do. Discouraged means I don’t feel like doing anything.
So, we may not know in certain situations how we can serve Krishna, but we should not lose hope, we should not lose the spirit of serving Krishna. Just take whatever steps are possible and gradually Krishna will give you the dhami buddhi yogam tam, ye namah upayanti te. Krishna gives the intelligence about how to come to him and when we feel there are obstacles in doing something in Krishna’s service, at that time also we can focus on doing what is in our power.
Just take one step forward, take one step forward. Sometimes our, when there is some problem, our mind makes the problem far bigger than it needs to be. So, for example, you know somebody takes, you take one step forward in your life, do this and suppose a person comes and imagine somebody said, why don’t you take a stroll along in the statue scene, you can just learn to walk, you will improve, do some exercise, become healthy and that’s what they are asked to do.
But suppose the person has been sick and is not recovering and or has been sick for a long time, they are very fearful. Just giving an example over here and they are told you just start walking a little bit, do some exercise. Suppose that person comes to the edge of a cliff on a mountain and they look down, I can’t jump, I can’t jump, I can’t jump.
Well, who is asking you to jump? So, what happens is we think that even taking one step forward towards Krishna means that our whole life as we know it is going to change and there is going to be a big upheaval in our life and therefore, I will not take him one step forward. So, no one is actually asking us to jump off a cliff. What we are asked to do is take one step forward towards Krishna.
Sometimes, by the time we come, we will see actually the obstacle is not as big as it seems to be. So, it is said that don’t tell Krishna how big your problems are. Tell your problems how big Krishna is.
So, focus on trying to just do what you can in service of Krishna and Krishna will show us the way forward in due course. So, life may determine our problems, but we determine their size. So, when we think of a more and more and the problem becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.
So, rather than thinking about the problem too much, we focus on Krishna and think, okay, how can I serve Krishna in this situation? And if you just focus on that service, we will find a way will emerge. Maybe I can do this, maybe I can do this, maybe I can do this and gradually a way will emerge. So, you shouldn’t become problem conscious, stay Krishna conscious.
Thank you very much.