In mind management, find the balance between laxity and stringency through maturity

When our child acts mischievously, we can empathize if we remember how we too were restless at that age. Still, if they start doing something dangerous, we would show zero tolerance. By being lax, we might end up doing violence to them.

The Bhagavad-gita (06.34) deems the mind restless, a describer often used for children. In dealing with such a mind, our intelligence has to become like a mature parent and treat it with empathy but not laxity.

While managing the mind, we need maturity. Just as we can’t expect the child to give up restlessness overnight, we can’t expect the mind to change its ways overnight. Whenever and wherever the mind wanders, the Gita (06.26) urges us to restrain it and re-focus it on spiritual reality. By thus acknowledging that the mind of even spiritual seekers will wander, this verse cautions us to not expect unrealistically that it will stop wandering immediately or completely.

Simultaneously, we need to avoid laxity, lest we give the mind free rein for its sinful, self-destructive fantasizing. As the thought is the ancestor to the deed, best to stringently restrain such dangerous mental wandering.

With maturity and without laxity, we need to diligently keep the mind within an acceptable perimeter of thought. By not expecting overnight changes while not allowing dangerous flights, we can keep the mind under regulation and engage it in purification through the practice of bhakti-yoga.

When we thus focus it consistently on the highest spiritual reality, Krishna, it gradually grows up. For the mind, growing up means accepting the twin truths that its restlessness doesn’t lead to anything really enjoyable and that calmly focusing on Krishna provides far greater fulfillment. When the mind thus matures, the Gita (06.06) indicates that it becomes our friend.

Be not tired of fighting against temptation – be tired of forgetting Krishna

If a shooter misses the target again and again, they may become tired of practicing, lose heart and give up. Or, they can resolve to redirect the tiredness constructively: “I am tired of missing – I am going to focus and practice and hit the bull’s eye.” Such an attitude can infuse them with the energy to persevere till they hit the target.

In sports, as in life, the results may not be in our hands, but our endeavor is. And our endeavor’s quality is determined largely by our attitude.

As spiritual seekers, we strive to live a principle-centered life by fighting against temptation. If we find ourselves repeatedly succumbing to temptation, we may feel tired of fighting and may feel like giving up.

But instead we can meditate on how absorption in Krishna is fulfilling, purifying, empowering. We can envision such absorption as a feast that we could be having at every moment but are being deprived of by worldly temptations. This vision pinpoints the cause of our tiredness: not the strength of our enemy, but our weakness caused by starvation. This insight can energize us to keep fighting against forgetfulness of Krishna.

To further energize ourselves, we can remember that the temptation sentencing us to starvation, which is selfish desire embodied primarily as lust, is our eternal enemy (Bhagavad-gita 03.39). This means that temptation will keep distracting and depriving us lifetime after lifetime, till we defeat it.

Seeing temptations as sentences to spiritual starvation can energize us to fight for absorption in Krishna. Rather than becoming tired of the fight, we can become tired of the starvation. The more we strive for devotional absorption, the more we will, slowly but surely, gain the upper hand in our inner war. Ultimately, by Krishna’s grace, we will emerge triumphant.

Our words should open people’s hearts, not close them

Suppose a surgeon operates without considering the patient’s weak heart, and the surgery leads to a fatal complication. The surgeon would be considered negligent if they hadn’t bothered to know about the patient’s heart problems or the surgery’s possible complications. But if they had known about the problem and the complication, and had still not taken the necessary precautions during the surgery, they would be considered culpable.

In the bhakti tradition, a sage’s words are often compared to a surgeon’s scalpel. Just as surgeons cut to heal, sages speak to cut people’s misconceptions and help them understand life’s spiritual purpose.

Like patients with health weaknesses, people often have sore spots. Based on their background, they may feel strongly about particular teachers, practices or ideas. If spiritual teachers attack these cherished beliefs prematurely or insensitively, their words often trigger such a strong defensive reaction in those people that they close their hearts and don’t give the Gita’s message a fair hearing. Even if such teachers have noble intentions, their actions equate them with negligent or culpable surgeons.

Just as responsible surgeons do appropriate background tests on patients before operating, responsible Gita teachers educate themselves in advance about their audience’s sore spots. Just as expert surgeons take additional precautions when operating on vulnerable patients, expert Gita teachers modulate their presentations when speaking to sensitive audiences. They may initially avoid addressing their audience’s pet notions and instead speak general wisdom that earns the audience’s trust. This trust decreases the chances of audience alienation when touchy issues are later addressed.

Pertinently, the Gita (03.26) urges us to not speak in ways that agitate people’s minds, but to resourcefully engage them on the path of consciousness elevation, even if they progress slowly.

Better to speak sensitively and illuminate gradually than to speak indiscriminately and alienate permanently.

The Gita is too important to be left to scholars alone

The Gita is a scholarly book – its verses, analysis and flow are all intellectually stimulating. But it is not meant for scholars alone. The fruit of understanding the Gita, as depicted in its conclusion (18.73), is loving surrender to Krishna. Such surrender fulfills our longing for enduring love and grants the highest happiness.

Scholars too can relish this fruit – though not just by scholarship, but by the scholarship that culminates in devotion. To the extent their scholarship enhances their appreciation of Krishna’s greatness and sweetness, to that extent they feel inspired to devote themselves to him, thereby accessing the Gita’s fruit.

Still, scholars are especially vulnerable to the temptation of over-intellectualism, wherein they complicate things in their head and live in the head instead of in the heart. The Gita talks about various paths – more precisely, it talks about how various paths culminate in the path of bhakti. However, the exposition and reconciliation of all these paths can be intellectually taxing, even bewildering. This can distract one from its conclusion of spiritual love. If the Gita is left to scholars alone, they can make it seem too abstruse to be practical.

Those who live the Gita and love Krishna can demonstrate and communicate the transformational power of love that is the Gita’s essential message – a message that is relevant and empowering for everyone, not just scholars.

The Gita (09.32) itself declares that even non-intellectual people can attain perfection by practicing bhakti. And it culminates (18.66) by calling everyone, whatever one’s deficiencies and the concomitant reactions, to surrender to Krishna.

Indeed, the Gita is a manual for living that reveals itself to be a guidebook for loving. By approaching it with a heart open to love, we all can tap into its timeless essence and relish life’s supreme fulfillment.

How everything came from nothing is not explained by italicizing nothing

Where did everything come from? This is one of the biggest unanswered questions in science. Of course, this question precedes modern naturalist science; it has engaged and vexed thinkers since time immemorial.

The question is especially troubling for atheists. If God doesn’t exist, as they believe, and the universe hasn’t existed eternally, as science has shown, everything has to have come from nothing. But that is both counterintuitive and counter-observational. Why should something that is never seen to happen in the universe happen at its beginning?

Still, preachers of atheism try aggressively to explain, or more precisely explain away, this problem. And they often misappropriate science for furthering their atheistic agenda. Thus, for example, some atheists write books that claim to explain scientifically how everything came from nothing. Yet beneath their scientific-sounding verbiage, what they offer is not explanation but redefinition. They redefine nothing by equating it with a quantum mechanical vacuum. But this vacuum requires pages of complex calculus to describe. It is certainly not nothing; it is something; quite a thing, in fact.

To differentiate their redefined nothing from the standard meaning of nothing, the absence of anything, atheists italicize the word nothing. But italicizing nothing doesn’t change the referent – something – to nothing. And explaining how everything came from something doesn’t even begin explaining how everything came from nothing.

If everything has to come from something, then that something needs to have the potential to manifest everything. That potent something, Gita wisdom explains, is the Absolute Truth who eternally has matter and consciousness as energies.

The Bhagavad-gita (10.08) indicates that this source of everything is God, Krishna. Positing an omnipotent source of everything offers a far more intellectually satisfying explanation of origins than any prestidigitation that centers on redefining nothing and ends up explaining nothing

Our choice has a louder voice than our voice

If leaders leading a country through recession urge citizens to adopt austerity measures, but live in luxury themselves, their choice will belie their voice and will provoke citizens into non-cooperation. The Bhagavad-gita (03.21) stresses this principle of actions speaking louder than words when it states that leaders set the standards for others by their actions.

This principle applies to spiritual life too. Many people become anti-religious on seeing godmen who sermonize about simple living but head ultra-commercialized corporate empires. Similarly, some social leaders speak eloquently about the importance of spirituality in strengthening society’s ethical fabric, but live materialistically themselves. Again, their choice drowns out their voice.

We all are leaders in some capacity, small or large. If we harmonize our choice and voice in adopting and advocating a more spiritual way of living, we can contribute to society’s spiritual rejuvenation.

Harmonizing our choice with our voice is important in our own spiritual life too. If we say that we want to love Krishna, but keep choosing worldly objects over him whenever temptation beckons, our choice will speak to him far louder than our voice.

Thankfully, Krishna is so merciful that he sees even our voice as a choice. If we consistently voice our aspiration to put him first through our prayers and chants, this verbalization itself comprises a limb of bhakti; it can attract his mercy and purify us, enabling us to make better choices. However, such divine assistance comes only when our voice is an expression of a sincere intention that we are presently unable to implement, not a cover-up for our wanting the prestige of appearing spiritually advanced without paying the price of purification.

The more we strive to take our choice closer to our voice, the more we move closer to Krishna and relish sublime spiritual fulfillment.

Addiction makes us crave for the things we don’t even like

Recovering drug addicts often report that they relapse into indulgence not because they want to get high but because they just want to feel normal.

They understand that the drug offers far more trouble than pleasure. Having experienced repeatedly how it makes them do terrible things, they have come to a stage where they don’t even like the drug very much.

But still they feel near-irresistible craving for it. That craving doesn’t come from physical withdrawal symptoms alone. It comes also from the psychological torments that they undergo. The Bhagavad-gita (16.11) indicates that desires act like shackles. Repeated indulgence creates almost unbreakable shackles between the drug addicts and the drug. The pull of those inner shackles is so acutely painful as to be unbearable. Thus, they end up craving for the thing they don’t even like.

The torment addicts feel to an extreme degree because of their addiction, we all feel to a moderate degree because of our attachments. In the Gita (03.36), Arjuna echoes this feeling when he asks: What impels us to act sinfully even when we don’t want to?

The Gita identifies selfish desire embodied by lust as the culprit (03.37). After explaining how the culprit acts and how we can counter-act (03.37-42), it (03.43) recommends that we can best overcome such desire by intelligently absorbing ourselves in spiritual reality. Bhakti-yoga offers the easiest way to such absorption because it provides quick access to the all-attractive source of all pleasure, Krishna.

By regular bhakti practice, our intellectual and devotional reflexes become strong and sharp. With such trained reflexes, whenever lower desires torment us, we seek relief not in our attachments, but in Krishna. By the security and serenity of such absorption, we can end the tragedy of craving for the things we don’t even like.

Aversion to commitment is not detachment

We live in a culture of aversion to commitment. People want to dabble in things, especially relationships, without committing. Such unwillingness to commit is a primary cause of the widespread breakdown of marriages in contemporary society.

Unfortunately, our aversion to commitment may get aggravated on the spiritual path if we conflate it with detachment. Detachment means becoming indifferent to the mind’s schemes for material indulgence. Such indifference comes from realizing that worldly things never live up to their promise of pleasure.

In contrast, aversion to commitment comes from our desire to stay open to the mind’s many schemes. We still believe that material things will provide pleasure – we are just unsure which of the mind’s schemes will provide the most pleasure. As sticking to one option often implies losing the other options, we refuse to commit to anything.

Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (18.08) cautions that renunciation adopted because of the fear of discomfort is renunciation in the mode of passion. In our context, the discomfort is the price of committing to any one option. The same Gita verse cautions that such renunciation doesn’t bear fruit – it doesn’t lead to purification or liberation, the purposes of spiritual growth.

To help us purify the mind, the Gita recommends bhakti-yoga. This yoga of love requires commitment – commitment to the devotional practices that bring us closer to all-pure Krishna. This proximity calms and clears the mind, thereby enabling us to develop detachment. Therein, we give up the attachments that hold us back and take up the commitments that bring out our best.

To summarize, detachment means closing the door to the mind’s proposals, whereas aversion to commitment means keeping all the doors open. Detachment is a virtue that helps us turn away from matter towards spirit, whereas aversion to commitment is a weakness that keeps us locked in matter.

Be not distracted or disheartened – be devoted

Suppose a football player is approaching the opposite side’s goal. But someone suddenly distracts the player towards something unimportant and an opposing player seizes the ball.

Or suppose someone reminds the player of all their past misses and the player becomes disheartened, aiming only halfheartedly and missing the goal.

In both cases, the player is responsible for the lapse. But to prevent recurrence of such lapses, the distracter or discourager needs to be dealt with too.

Suppose that distracter or discourager were inside the player instead of outside. That would make the player even more vulnerable and would make dealing with the hostile inner voice even more vital.

The Bhagavad-gita (06.06) indicates that the hostile voice often belongs to our mind. When we attempt anything purposeful, our mind starts talking about worthless things that simply waste our time and distract us from constructive actions. Or it talks about how we have erred in the past, thereby disheartening us, preventing us from doing our best and sabotaging our chances of success.

The best way to deal with the mind is by becoming devoted to Krishna. Bhakti-yoga provides us a higher taste that makes the mind’s distractions more resistible. And meditating on Krishna’s merciful nature helps us counter feelings of discouragement. The Bhagavad-gita assures that no matter what our lapses, if we just persevere in our devotional practices, we are well-situated (09.30), and we will eventually progress towards success – we will never meet with ultimate destruction in our inner battle (09.31).

When we take our resolve from the negative, “I won’t become distracted or disheartened” to the positive, “I will become devoted to Krishna”, that affirmative resolution raises our consciousness to the spiritual level from where we can either neglect the mind’s voice or catch and correct it faster.

Enlightenment culminates not just in comprehension but also in wonder

The Bhagavad-gita’s ending reveals two facets of enlightenment: one expressed by Arjuna and the other by Sanjaya.

After Krishna finishes speaking (18.72), Arjuna responds that his illusions have been destroyed, and he will do Krishna’s will (18.73). That his doubts are destroyed means that comprehension has dawned in him. He comprehends Krishna’s position not only as the Absolute Truth but also as the ultimate well-wisher of all living beings. Arjuna’s comprehension manifests in his action: when he understands that Krishna’s will is the best course of action for us, souls, who are his eternal parts, he naturally surrenders.

In Sanjay’s ensuing speech (18.73-78), well-known is his concluding prophecy of the victory of the Krishna-Arjuna duo (18.78). Lesser known are the preceding verses, which convey his vision of enlightenment: he is thrilled on contemplating Krishna’s words (18.76) and form (18.77).

Thrill conveys a sense distinct from comprehension – whereas comprehension connotes a sense of knowing and understanding, thrill connotes a sense of astonishment and excitement at glimpsing a newer, bigger, finer aspect of something thought to be known.

We can reconcile these two aspects of enlightenment when we appreciate the unlimitedness of the object of enlightenment, Krishna. Become enlightened by comprehending him is not a finite intellectual challenge like, say, solving a crossword puzzle; once it’s done, it’s done, and we look elsewhere for stimulation. Becoming enlightened is an endless journey of ecstatic absorption.

When we are enlightened in the sense of Arjuna – we understand Krishna to be the supreme reality and the pivot of all reality – then we focus undistractedly on him. With such focus, we appreciate his glories more and more. As he is unlimited, we keep appreciating him endlessly. Thus, we become enlightened in the sense of Sanjaya, being wonder-struck at Krishna’s inconceivable infiniteness, immeasurable greatness and inexhaustible sweetness.

The mind is like a dog that barks but can’t bite – unless we let it

A dog that barks ferociously can terrify passers-by. Their fear disappears, however, if they come to know that the dog barks loudly, but can’t bite.

Our mind is that kind of dog. It susurrates, sweet-talks and screams, diverting us from important things and goading us to do things that have caught its fancy. If we yield to it, we end up doing unimportant, useless or even unconscionable things. To protect ourselves from this dog-like mind, the vital insight is: no matter how fiercely it barks, it can’t bite – unless we let it bite.

How do we let it bite? By identifying with it and doing its bidding, thereby letting it harm us. If we can just avoid mistaking its voice to be our voice, we can take away its power to bite us, even if it keeps barking.

The Bhagavad-gita (06.05) urges us to elevate ourselves with the mind, and not degrade ourselves. This exhortation implies that we have the capacity to choose how the mind affects us. How can we access that capacity? By applying the Gita’s recommendation to practice bhakti-yoga.

By cultivating bhakti, we learn to focus our consciousness on Krishna. The more we busy ourselves in remembering and serving him, the more we enhance our capacity to neglect the mind. Thus, we can avoid its bites, even if its barks continue.

Over time, as we relish the sweetness of absorption in Krishna, the mind realizes that Krishna offers far greater happiness than all the things it has been fancying for so long. Thereafter, it stops barking, and we attain lasting peace (06.07).

Even if we can’t stop the mind’s barks right now, we can still avoid its bites by remembering that we are not our mind and staying fixed in Krishna’s service.

We have to fall asleep, but we don’t have to fall for sleep

Sleeping is a biological need for resting and rejuvenating the body. The Bhagavad-gita acknowledges the indispensability of sleep when it (06.16) recommends avoidance of too little sleep – and recommends such avoidance even for renounced yogis.

Yet the same Gita (18.39) later declares that the pleasure coming from from lethargy, intoxication and sleep is in the mode of ignorance. When sleep is a bodily necessity, why is it considered characteristic of ignorance? Actually, what is ignorant is not sleep per se, but the pleasure sought from sleep.

Different people sleep for different purposes. Yogis see the body as a means for spiritual growth. Kalidas echoes this in Kumarsambhavam (5.33): shariram aadyam khalu dharmasaadhanam “The body is certainly a vital instrument for performing dharma.” Bhakti-yogis see the body as Krishna’s gift. Knowing that its condition determines significantly the quality of the service we can offer him, we take due care of it by doing the necessary things such as eating healthily and sleeping adequately.

In contrast, the ignorant sleep not to rest the body, but to escape from life’s problems – just as some people seek similar escape through laziness and intoxication, the other two things mentioned in the same verse as characteristic of ignorance. Such ignorant people don’t fall asleep; they fall for sleep. They succumb to the lure of sleep as an escape-way. Such indulgence in sleep arises from ignorance and it aggravates ignorance.

When, after a day of diligent service, we sleep with gratitude to Krishna for having received and used opportunities for constructive contribution and when, after a good night’s sleep, we wake with prayerful enthusiasm looking forward to another day of similar service, our sleeping becomes spiritually subsumed in a life of fulfilling devotion that elevates us from ignorance towards transcendence

The intellectual temptation for quick comprehension leads to erroneous generalization

We all feel an innate need to gain some understanding of things in our life. When things don’t make sense, we resort to our preferred analytical frames for coming up with explanations.

Thus, for example, atheists with anti-religious bias may blame all terrorist violence on religious ideology without considering any historical, economic or political causes of insurgency. Or spouses with pro-astrology predilection may blame every marital problem on lack of astrological consultation, overlooking that millions of marriages the world over have endured without consulting any astrologer.

In attributing a complex problem to a single cause, we succumb to the temptation for quick intellectual comprehension, which is somewhat like the temptation for quick sensual gratification. We want the gratification for comprehension without the hard work of systematic, sustained analysis. Rather than analyzing a problem in its complexity, we reduce it to fit into our favorite analytical framework.

Pertinently, for helping us make sense of things, the Bhagavad-gita (14.05-09) introduces us to the analytical framework of the three modes. But it is quick to underscore (14.10) that these modes often compete with each other. The overlap of the modes often leads to complex situations that need to be specifically analyzed, not simplistically generalized.

More importantly, Gita wisdom treats the universe as a university, wherein Krishna, the source of all wisdom, guides us from within and without towards a life of ongoing learning. The higher fulfillment coming from our spiritual connection with him increases our immunity to the temptation for quick intellectual comprehension – we don’t feel insecure because of being unsure. Being secure in our spiritual connectedness in him, we don’t need to reduce our life experiences to any quick explanations; we can wait with patience and diligence as we process events intellectually in a mood of devotional service till mature understanding dawns

Even if we can’t be spiritually joyful, we can be spiritually purposeful

Whenever anyone seeks to achieve anything wonderful or even worthwhile, they know that they have to work for it.

Consider tennis players, Even if they love tennis, still they don’t find all the workouts, diets and various daily disciplines enjoyable. They would just prefer to just play tennis on the court. But they know that how well they perform on the court is influenced hugely by how well they discipline themselves during the rest of their lives. Even if discipline isn’t joyful, they remain purposeful – and their purposefulness carries them through the joyless phases.

Curiously however, we often overlook the similar importance of purposefulness in our spiritual life, being too enamored by the expectation of spiritual joy. When we start practicing spiritual life, we often unrealistically expect to relish spiritual happiness immediately and constantly. But our conditionings may prevent us from relishing some aspects of spiritual life. Or the modes may subject us to phases of tastelessness.

The Bhagavad-gita (02.41) reminds us that as spiritual seekers, we need one-pointed intelligence – we need to be spiritually purposeful. By remembering that we are engaged in the process of purification, which takes time but will gradually activate our immortal love for Krishna, thereby granting everlasting happiness, we can boost our determination and purposefulness.

During the seeker stage, relishing joy constantly in our spiritual life is not in our hands – it requires purification and the mercy of Krishna and his devotees. But remaining purposeful is largely in our hands; by diligent study of scripture and regular association of purposeful devotees, we can create stimuli that remind us of our higher purpose. The strength of our purpose will enable us to endure the phases of joylessness, till eventually purification will bring about the culmination of our persistent purposefulness in perennial joyfulness.

The difference between confidence and overconfidence is vigilance

Suppose some soldiers are guarding the national boundary from infiltration by terrorists. If the soldiers are diffident that too many terrorists may attack, they may flee at the first sign of danger. On the other hand, if they are overconfident, they will not be alert enough, thereby becoming unnecessarily vulnerable to sudden terrorist attacks. They need to be confident without becoming overconfident. How? By being vigilant. – the overconfident don’t stay vigilant, whereas the confident do.

A similar dynamic applies to our attempts in spiritual life to guard our consciousness from infiltration by anti-devotional desires. If we are diffident, thinking that such desires will be too strong to resist, we will cave in at the first sign of temptation. On the other hand, if we are overconfident, we may believe that we are already pure and are in no danger of being tempted. Being thus misled, we won’t stay on guard and will find ourselves overpowered by temptation even before we realize what is happening.

The Bhagavad-gita (02.60) cautions against overconfidence when it declares that even discerning seekers striving for sense control can be overwhelmed by temptations. Thankfully, this is not a scary prognosis of defeat – it is a sobering call to vigilance. The next verse (02.61) assures that if we focus our consciousness on Krishna, we will stay spiritually safe and well-situated. Thus, the Gita recommends vigilance – vigilance not so much to watch out for temptation’s next attack, but more so to stay connected with Krishna through service and remembrance.

Overconfidence means imagining that we don’t need Krishna, that we can deal with temptation ourselves. Confidence means the conviction that if we stay connected with Krishna, his mercy will empower us to survive and triumph.

Thus, being vigilant in executing our devotional practices will enable us to be confident without becoming overconfident.

To overcome desires, outgrow them

When children want to spend all their time playing and their parents force them to study, the children resent their studies and sneak back to playing at the first opportunity.

Similarly, when we start practicing spiritual life, we, because of our past conditionings and attachments, still define happiness in material terms. So, when we have to apply ourselves to spiritual practice, instead of indulging in worldly pleasures, as we are by default inclined to do, we feel resentful. With our higher self – our intelligence and conscience – we may practice bhakti, but as soon as we let our guard down, we will find our thoughts sneaking back to worldly indulgences and we may even find ourselves relapsing into those indulgences.

If we try to give up our lower desires while still conceiving of pleasure in worldly terms, we will find ourselves fighting a losing battle. While we certainly need to rein in our desires, we can’t overcome them simply by fighting them. We need to outgrow them – that is, we need to grow spiritually, thereby expanding our conception of happiness and realizing that far higher happiness awaits us in our spiritual relationship with Krishna, a relationship that can be accessed and relished through the practice of bhakti-yoga. The Bhagavad-gita (05.21) indicates that those who focus inwards gain access to imperishable spiritual happiness, thereby becoming detached from outer sensual lures. We needn’t focus on fighting desires – we can focus on growing spiritually by practicing bhakti-yoga.

As children grow up, they gradually relish the joy of learning and realize the importance of studying in providing a bright future, they become more amenable to studying. A similar contemplation on the rich rewards of spirituality can inspire us to stick to the path of spiritual growth, thereby outgrowing the desires for petty worldly indulgences.