​When bad thoughts trouble us during our bhakti practice, how to respond?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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So if while practicing bhakti Sometimes bad thoughts come and trouble us What should we do? See We As I explained in the class Just because We have decided to change the way we live Advertisers are not going to stop advertising Similarly The minds patterns are not going to change immediately Say most of us Use computers We may surf on the internet Now If we say use Google Then if we visit a particular site repeatedly Then what happens? Google starts doing auto-complete If I just type If I visited India.com Or IndiaTimes.com Then I just start typing IN Immediately the remaining gets completed So like that Our mind has got certain default patterns Of functioning So we start We start thinking And suddenly the mind’s thoughts go here or they go there They go somewhere So now just as When the Browser does an auto-complete Of a link Of a site name Now we don’t have to go along with that auto-complete You know If I want to go to some other site Even if that auto-complete is there I reject that and I type where I want to go and I go ahead So similarly We can see these bad thoughts coming Like say auto-completes But I don’t have to go along with that auto-complete So the more we dwell On the thought The more the thought will grow Now Just because a thought is present in the mind Does not make us bad It does not make us Evil or fallen or anything like that It’s only when we Act on the thought So Akshila Prabhupada would say to have a wrong desire Is not a problem To act on that wrong desire is a problem So Negative thoughts Terrible thoughts whatever they may come in We don’t let them grow Now how do we do that See The The best way To deal with negative thoughts Is to not deal with What that means is Sometimes if a salesman comes along And that salesman is very skilled Now if we try to convince the salesman Why I don’t want this product A salesman will convince us Why you want this product So best thing is we just don’t talk with the salesman If we start talking They are expert at talking And they will outwit us So like that when the thoughts come If we start focusing on them No this is not true This is false This is not the way I am This is not the way I want to act This is not the way I want to think But the more we dwell on it Actually that desire will become stronger That perception will become stronger So best is to direct the thoughts Somewhere else And chanting is of course one powerful way But it is not the only activity In bhakti See we have to find out for ourselves What is the best way I can fix the mind in Krishna So for some of us it may be kirtans Just having some nice kirtan going on Or ourselves singing some tune For some of us we may find some pictures of Krishna Some picture of deity is very attractive Just keep them always with us And then whenever we feel such negative thoughts Turn towards them and pray to those pictures Just look at those pictures Or we may find Maybe reciting shlokas Or hearing some classes Whatever it is we find can quickly Direct our thoughts towards Krishna We should have that with us regularly So when we have that way Then when this thought starts growing We don’t let it grow We direct our thoughts towards Krishna And gradually As we Stop paying attention to those thoughts Thoughts will decrease And then eventually they will go away Just like If we repeatedly don’t visit a particular site Then the google autocomplete Will go into other sites Then autocomplete will not pop up again Because we will go into past remote history So the same way for us We shouldn’t become disheartened Just because the thoughts are coming We should say okay these thoughts are coming from the past Somewhere something I may not know also From where they are coming But I don’t have to dwell on them And It’s not possible to just say don’t dwell on them Rather find out something positive to dwell on And don’t make it a stereotype that I have to chant only We have to find out According to our individual nature and interests What is it that we can direct Our thoughts towards And then we will be able to By neglecting those thoughts We can counter them Now if some same thought patterns keep coming repeatedly Then We may Use our intelligence to deal with them That means say If I have a tendency to worry about something a lot Then We can use our philosophical knowledge To just write it down This is my worry, this is my fear And then after that I write down Okay but this is unlikely to happen We can write down Some rational way of countering the fear We may not be able to do it at that time But afterwards And then When we write down If this is the problem I can deal with it this way But this problem is not likely to happen Whatever it is We can objectively write down How to address that fear And then afterwards If we write it down and keep it with us Then Later When that fear comes We can just refer back to it Yeah this makes sense I don’t have to worry so much We all are expert at giving advice to others There is nothing Which we give as freely as advice But what we can do is We can use that tendency on ourselves That means Yes I have this fear If I have this Worrying tendency So If somebody else came to me with this worrying tendency How would I counsel them And then try to apply that to yourself Now we may consult someone else Also to deal with specific issues But that way We can use our intelligence also to Counter that worry or counter that negativity Whatever it is But primarily it is We don’t dwell on it If we don’t dwell on it it will gradually go away And if we have something more positive to dwell on Then not dwelling on it becomes much easier Does it address your question?