While praying to Lord Krishna, sometimes my mind says He is false. What should I do?

From: Birendra

  While praying to Lord Krishna, sometimes my mind says He is false, He is not God, He is a thief…so on, whereas my heart says he is God. Why do my mind and my heart differ? Although I feel guilty for entertaining any negative thoughts, they are they because the more I try not to think about them they are there because not to think about them make me think about them.

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Question from Direndra, whereas my heart says he is God.
I feel guilty for entertaining your negative thoughts. They are there. Because the more I try not to think about them, they are there.
Because not to think about them makes me think about them. Answer, fortunate that at least your heart accepts that Krishna is God. That itself indicates that there is a core element of faith, which will advance as we keep practicing Krishna Consciousness.
Regarding the mind, the mind’s nature is to distract us from practically anything. Even if we try to study, the mind will distract us from studies. Even if we say, I will go and watch a movie, the mind may enjoy watching a movie for some time, but as soon as the movie gets boring, the mind will say, come on, you’re wasting your time and you’re doing this and you’re doing that.
So in any worldly activity that we do also, the mind distracts us. Although the level of and the frequency of distraction may be lesser in worldly activities, because there is some gratification coming over there. Now when it comes to devotional activities, there is the supreme satisfaction that is available when we connect with Krishna through devotion.
At the same time, the mind has this tendency of being chanchal, going here, going there, and that’s why it creates various distractions. So rather than focusing on the specifics of the distraction, it is best to increase our absorption in what we are doing. That means if I’m driving a vehicle, then I can’t expect that there’ll be no distractions in the road.
There may be seductive holdings, there may be some people shouting and arguing in a very comical or a very threatening way on the side of the road. There may be so much chaos happening on the sides of the road, but I have to keep driving by keeping my eyes on the straight ahead of the road. And the more I consciously try to not think of other things, I will think of those things, as you rightly pointed out.
So rather than not thinking of certain things, you should think of certain things. That means if I focus my attention on the road ahead, then automatically I put other things out of my vision. The same way, when we pray to Lord Krishna, then we can add to our prayers certain verses, certain prayers of the previous Acharyas, which we have developed some attraction for, and in that way our mind can get absorbed.
And if we find that the mind is distracting too much, and if there are specific objections, then we can tackle them head-on. That means there is Saam, Daam, Danda, Bhed. There are four ways in which to deal with the other people.
That’s what traditionally the Shastras say. So Saam is try to have some and give and take. Daam is to try to give money and to silence.
Bhed is to try to divide and rule. And Danda is to punish. So that means if the neglecting policy doesn’t work, then we will have to use our intelligence to convince and silence the mind.
That means if you have specific philosophical doubts, which keep coming up repeatedly, okay, Krishna is a thief. Then you have to think, okay, but what did Krishna steal? No, he just stole butter. Did stealing cause any harm to anyone? No, it brought ecstasy to the devotees.
And Krishna steals not because he needs something, but because he wants to reciprocate love with his devotees. So actually that is only in the realm of Leela. And Krishna’s mischief is the, mischievous stealing is the staff of the poetry of great saints.
Iqbal Vamangal Thakur glorifies Krishna as the foremost among all things. Chauragrahan Yashtakam is a celebrated prayer of the devotees. So therefore, Krishna’s theory is also based on love and it is a part of his Leela.
Normal stealing is bad because it causes harm to others because we are encroaching on that which does not belong to us. Krishna’s stealing does not cause any harm. It brings ecstasy to his devotees and he’s not encroaching upon anyone because everything in the universe belongs ultimately only to him.
So it is simply a Leela. If I take something from my front pocket and put it in my back pocket, I’m not stealing anything. So everything in the creation belongs to Krishna.
So if Krishna takes it from one house and puts it in another place, his own stomach, you know, it’s just like moving from, taking a thing from one’s pocket and putting it in another pocket. So Krishna is certainly not stealing it. So that’s why we need to use philosophy to silence the mind.
If it is coming up with similar or same arguments and distractions again and again, but if there are distractions which come only occasionally, then giving thought to them will increase them more and more. But once we have got some reasoning to counter the mind’s argument, then again the best way is to neglect. And the way to neglect is not by thinking that I will not think about it, but by having many other more satisfying and enriching things to think about.
So we can make a list within Krishna consciousness of the various features of Krishna, verses about Krishna, prayers about Krishna, that charm us, that attract us to him. And we can have them at our disposal. If we’re writing down in the pocket diary or better still, maybe memorizing them so that we can immediately call these verses aside and that’s how we can transcend the distractions of