Meditation shrinks our problems by increasing our awareness of Krishna’s greatness

Suppose in a cartoon when two characters are fighting, one character keeps growing bigger and the other, smaller. For the dwarfed fighter, the fight would become increasingly difficult.

A similar shifting of the odds happens in our inner world when we grapple with problems. To tackle troubling situations, we need to think about them. But, if we are not careful, such thinking often becomes obsessive-compulsive, wherein we keep worrying, lamenting, resenting. And the more we dwell on a vexing issue, the bigger it seems to become. Worse still, we too seem to become smaller; we become disheartened by the problem’s magnitude and feel ourselves increasingly running out of options to address the issue.

Worst of all, some problems often seem to come with a mental adhesive. Even if we know that worrying doesn’t help, even if others counsel us to stop obsessing over the problem, even if we resolve to think of other things that are in our power to influence, still problems seem to adhere to our consciousness.

To end our disempowering problem-consciousness, we need not just an alternative object of thought; we need the supreme object of thought: God. That supreme object in his most attractive manifestation is Krishna. When we think about him – and think not just cursorily, but steadily and devotionally – we feel enriched and empowered by realizing his omnipotent presence manifested in our heart. Contemplating the supreme spiritual reality is the essence of meditation.

Meditation makes us aware of Krishna’s greatness, of his benevolent connection with us and of our indestructible spiritual essence as his parts. Such calming awareness enables us to think clearly and devise intelligent ways to deal with the problem. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (18.58) assures that when we become conscious of Krishna, we cross over our problems by his grace.