What to when the mind despite our devotional practices gets caught in something?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
sometimes despite our best effort the mind seems to get caught in certain things and just goads us to do that thing and it may not necessarily be immoral or sinful but it’s just distracting and overall it prevents us from doing our studies or doing our constructive work seriously? so what can we do in such a situation? you were saying we should take shelter of this bhakti in general it’s in a war the defining principle is use whichever weapon works so broadly if we want to deal with some person we use the strategy what is called as sam, dam, bhed and danda janakirti so I have given an elaborate class once on how to apply these four to the mind sam, dam, bhed and danda but primarily it is there is ultimately we want to transcend the influence of the mind but that is going to take a long time so till then we have to negotiate with it so negotiating means sometime there has to be give and take because even a we just can’t crush the mind we can’t eliminate the mind because the mind is going to be there you said that under acts how much ever he stands it is within only so it’s now that we know that we have to live with the mind it is not the most pleasant situation but we have to make sure that the situation doesn’t escalate out of control so there is sam, dam, bhed and danda so sam basically means negotiations dam means we try to do something some allurement, danda is punishment or discipline and bhed is division of the ranks so largely our sadhana bhakti is danda we force the mind to stay fixed on Krishna no matter where it wants to go and that is important but then we can’t do that 24 hours a day we have certain time when we do that and gradually that will change the mind in the remaining time we may have to use whichever words sam, dam and bhed so if we observe the mind we may find that there are certain kinds of thoughts or certain kinds of actions which it likes so now we can classify them into into various levels so for example these examples may be not at all relevant to you but you can take the principle from these examples say somebody is working on a computer and now certainly there is a possibility that I should read the news or maybe I should check my emails it’s not necessary to do that at that time it can be done later but that is not a very harmful it’s the same thing that let’s go on some nasty sites and browse that is undesirable so even when the mind proposes some temptations or alternatives rather than saying temptations but alternatives to whatever we are doing they also vary on a level on a continuum and the Bhagavad Gita gives an example in the 11th Canto that when a person is when a rider or a charioteer is riding a horse normally the horse has to be kept in a firm control so that the horse will move in the right direction but sometimes the the charioteer or the horse rider may give the horse a little leeway by which ok you want to go a little bit this way you go this way but then you come back now that restricted leeway has to be given with caution because the horse will just gaze momentum and go too far off in the wrong direction also but not giving it any leeway might also create a lot of frustration within us so it will vary depending on situation to situation sometimes just ruthlessly crushing the mind may work and we might be able to just no means no and focus on whatever we are doing, our studies, our work and we are able to do it but other times no means no may not work that time it may well happen that we may say no means no but still the mind keeps coming back even it becomes more so at that time we may have to arrive at some sort of compromise compromise means that there is something which we need to do and there is something which we like to do so we can bundle the two together tell the mind ok you want to do this you can do it but after you do this so simple example nowadays there is a lot of concern among people about obesity and it is also a concern because obesity can lead to a lot of other problems so one of the ways even Prabhupada said this in a broad principle and devotees asked him that not exactly about obesity devotees asked Prabhupada that sometimes we feel so prasad is so delicious we feel like eating a lot what to do Prabhupada gave different answer and one time he said yes if you feel like eating eat a lot of prasad but then work hard professionally don’t just eat prasad and sleep so the point is what is Prabhupada saying over here yes at one level we want to eat so eat but then the eating it is going to have some effect in terms of either creating lethargy that is our that is what Prabhupada is concerned about or obesity what people are concerned about but if you work hard then that effect can be counted that means a certain amount of discipline can be coupled with a certain restricted level of indulgence so that means if the mind says ok you should check your email or you should check your mobile messages or you should check your whatever whatsapp or whatever then you can decide ok I will study for half an hour then I will check it if you do this then you can do this so that way if the mind is like a child and parents who are trying to take care of a child they know that you just can’t have one formula for dealing with the child a formula that we seem to work for a few days the child will suddenly become disruptive the next day so it requires some amount of improvisation about how we will deal with the mind but in general with respect to temptations that are not very serious which are just minor distractions yes even if I decide to look at my email or check at the news I am not going to spend 6 hours on that maybe 5 minutes 10 minutes whatever but that also we can restrict sometime so giving that creating a package where ok you do this level of discipline then you can have this level of indulgence within limits of course that can help calm the mind a little bit so that is with respect to some negotiation we try to do and actually this negotiation involves itself some amount of daam also we are giving the mind some reward this is what you can do now we don’t have to think of rewards only in stereotype terms that means within devotional life we may like certain things which we can do more if we feel if we are able to achieve certain targets in our discipline or even within our material life there are certain things which we like which are not necessarily sensory deprecating there are liking which are sattvic relatively speaking something like some people have some hobbies or whatever and there may be of interest and utility also some people may just like to there are different things which might apply in different situations which might be available in devotional service or say like somebody likes to play music now you want to learn music you can directly hear devotional music if you want to learn more music you may want to hear some other music which may help you practice devotional music I am not going to go into the details of that the principle is that we need to avoid the two extremes of firstly either expecting absolute control over the mind or giving up in total frustration and being unable to control the mind so if we expect this occasionally it may work absolute control over the mind but when it doesn’t work we may feel that I am worthless and we may go to the other extreme and just give up in hopelessness but if we are open minded whichever strategy works I will use it and then we are open to various kinds of negotiations as we can say various kinds of strategies and over a period of time we will ourselves find that chanting Hare Krishna or hearing some lectures or reading some passages about the mind and its nature they can help but those passages are also meant to guide us in coming to know our own mind because there are principles and there are specifics so when a war is being fought there is a principle which determines the strategy but after the strategy is determined each soldier has to fight one’s own war and how the opponent is, how the terrain is, what kind of weapons the opponent has, what kind of weapons I have all that is going to be specific for the situation and so the soldier has to use one’s own intelligence and one’s own presence of mind at that time so like that avoiding these two extreme oscillations just focusing on what can I do in the situation and finding out which strategy works and if something works then you can note it down in your diary, keep it for yourself and usually if we just have it written down whenever I get bored, whenever I get distracted there are these 5-6 things which have worked for me in the past, there is no guarantee that any one of them will work at this time but just know that there are so many things which I can try out that itself gives you a sense of relief not in terms of having solved the problem but at least having gaining the reassurance that I have some alternatives to try out, otherwise dealing with the mind can feel like hitting your head against the wall because just trying enough things seems to be working, just learning what way we can be with our mind devising our own strategies based on that can help a lot so you focus on trying to find out with your mind how you can apply samdham, bhedam, dandam and then make the strategies and keep them and here also we do our sadhana bhakti nicely, Krishna will give us more and more intelligence and whichever way we can find that we can deal with our mind that is what we should use so bhakti is transcendental, bhakti is supremely potent and we should not reduce bhakti only to specific forms of devotional activities, that means chanting or studying, praying, yes these are all important but that same Krishna his guidance is not limited only to these devotional activities, Krishna can we ourselves know that it’s that even in varanashram it is not that a brahmana is 24 hours doing directly worship of Krishna or chanting bholis, brahmana studies shastra, teaches shastra, learns there are all those activities and usually according to one’s varna one gets absorbed in certain activities a kshatriya can get hours and hours absorbed in training for fighting, developing administrative skills martial skills so the material absorption is something according to our nature is also conducive because it can keep us away from adharma and it can keep us, it can prepare us for an engagement that will enable us to eventually serve Krishna when Arjuna is practicing archery, at one level archery is a mundane skill but its purpose was transcendental and he was absorbed in archery for hours and hours, day and night he would practice archery so we shouldn’t reuse the idea that absorption means only absorption and directly devotional activities, yes that’s important because that will create the awareness of what the purpose of our life is and not create it, it will reinforce that awareness in our mind, but along that you also find out how we can best deal with the mind even with respect to studies now we may find different strategies working sometimes you study one subject for 3-4 hours if you cannot absorb other time you decide ok half an hour I will keep studying the subject, whichever way it works so this this individualized intelligence for dealing with our own mind is something we will learn by our experience, we learn from Shastra, get the principles try to apply the principles according to our intelligence and then we see whatever results we get in dealing with our mind as also the gifts of Krishna because those insights are what are going to help us in our individual battle and that way we can, it’s not easy by any means but it doesn’t have to be it doesn’t have to be as difficult as it may seem if we go into that battle expecting absolute domination and expecting it with one particular strategy alone being open to negotiation at different levels and being open to various strategies will itself give a lot of reassurance, ok this doesn’t work I can try this, I can try this, I can try this and that way we can deal with the mind and continue on