Worry not about falling into illusion – worry about staying in devotion

Serious seekers often worry, “Will I fall back into the illusions of material existence?”

Yes, if we keep worrying about falling into illusion. No, if we worry about staying in devotion.

Illusion allures us by promising material happiness. What protects us from its lure is not just the knowledge that its promise is false, but also the knowledge that there’s real happiness elsewhere, and, better still, the experience of spiritual happiness.

Dwelling on various dangers makes us feel paranoid. And dwelling on various prohibitions makes us feel cramped.

We can access spiritual happiness most easily by devotionally connecting with Krishna. In the middle of its section on sense control (02.54-72), the Bhagavad-gita underscores that we succeed in sense control when we fix our consciousness on Krishna. If we don’t, the preceding (02.60) and succeeding (02.62-63) verses outline our fall trajectory. When we don’t think of Krishna, we fall out of devotion and lose access to higher spiritual happiness. Our innate need for happiness makes us seek it elsewhere, usually at the illusory material level to which we are habituated. Though we may intellectually analyze how such pleasure is illusion, our need eventually blunts our analysis and we fall into illusion.

And such relapse can’t be prevented merely by worrying, “From where will illusion attack next?”

Why?

Because dwelling on various dangers makes us feel paranoid. And dwelling on various prohibitions makes us feel cramped. Overall we feel de-energized and over time illusion overpowers us.

Instead, we can worry about somehow staying in devotion, “How can I serve Krishna now?” Such worry channelizes our energy, provides us divine security and keeps us on the path to happiness. Significantly, this devotional worry is our constitutional worry, the worry that animates our eternal life in Krishna’s abode. Therein we worry about how best to serve him, and that worry intensifies our contemplation on him, thereby increasing our ecstasy eternally.