When austerity is to be implemented, our resolve weakens – how to counter?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So When we actually are lost The mind starts saying no no How to deal with that See one of the best ways to deal with the mind Is to Have someone other than us Give us a second look At the mind That means what If we have Any kind of Committed activity that we are going to do I will talk A little bit I am currently writing a book on the mind In Bhagavad Gita Or mind as understood in psychology And Bhagavad Gita’s conception of the mind So I will talk a couple of terms from psychology And then I will bring them to Bhagavad Gita See in de-addiction People may be addicted to drugs or alcohol or whatever In de-addiction One of the fundamental tenets That they say if a person has to Become free from addiction Is they say you should have an Accountability partner And accountability partner means That somebody To whom you are accountable So if I get An urge to drink If X is alcoholic And X gets an urge to drink Now if I say no I am not going to drink I am not going to drink Without that if you just say no It’s very difficult But if they have an accountability partner Then just call them and feel very strong about it Then X says oh remember You made this resolution like this And then just getting that second person’s Perspective helps And even if somehow that person has a relapse But at least after that don’t cover it up Tell them honestly And by that also the next time you think Oh I will have to tell this to them Okay no I didn’t feel so bad And what happens is The If we If we just keep Things between us and the mind Then The mind becomes like a black hole That sucks everything inside Everything Whatever resolution that we make Whatever determination we have Whatever purification that we acquire But if we have some accountability partner Then that creates a Distance between us and the mind So If you are going to make some resolutions Then it is all To perform austerity We don’t have to go and broadcast The resolution to the whole world But we can surely tell it to Some friends And not just everyone Even if we have one friend who can act as accountability partner for us And then they are saying we are planning to do this How is it going Actually it was not going well But now I will try So That accountability partner helps a lot That is the first thing And So for the accountability partner basically It can be Our counselor or it can be some devotee friend also Whom we understand And who understands us The second is We need to understand Our own Triggers And our own barriers See Trigger means that Different people Their desires get Triggered by certain things So if I have made a resolution not to do a particular thing Then suddenly I may feel like doing it And at that time I may just have to battle to not do it But afterwards If I look back and think What triggered the desire So we all have Our triggers And if we can identify those triggers Then we can Keep a distance from those triggers See so For example some alcoholic is there And then they know that if they party With their friends Maybe in a particular mood or a particular time Or a particular setting Then that is when the desire to drink comes And you know this is a trigger, try to avoid that trigger So All of us also have No matter how Fallen we are or how elevated we are We have certain Inner limits that we will not cross So for example Say I will not lie to my spiritual master Or I will not lie to this so and so person Or I will not do this Now all of us we have certain limits Which we will not cross And certain other limits we might cross also You know maybe sometimes they have to speak like this They have to speak like that, we may do that So we should know What are our barriers that we will not cross And then Bring those barriers Between us and That particular temptation See how that can be brought in So we have to find out, Prabhupada talks about A sense of honour A sense of honour means that if I make a word I will keep it So we have to find out what it is That can act as a good barrier for us So that If we find out That means Ideally speaking We should never do immoral things We should never do anti-devotional things But there are some things which we are wishy-washy about Sometimes we are loose about certain things But there are certain things which are like absolute principles This is something which I will never do So we find that out and try to use that In the process of bhakti So by having an accountability partner And by finding out our triggers Keeping away from those triggers And finding out our inviolable barriers And making sure that we Stick to those barriers That will help us in Sticking to our resolutions