Appreciating Krishna’s immanence integrates recollection and participation

The Bhagavad-gita’s directive (08.07) – always remember Krishna and do your prescribed duty – raises the question: “How can we do both simultaneously? If we are to do our duties responsibly, we need to focus on them. Does the Gita recommend living with a split consciousness – recollecting Krishna with half of our consciousness and participating in our work with the other half?”

No, not at all. That distracted functioning isn’t the Gita’s call is evident from the actions of its original student, Arjuna; after hearing the Gita, he executed his martial duty whole-heartedly – and did it in divine consciousness.

We too can infuse our work with such divine consciousness by making Krishna the purpose of our life and by realizing his proximity.

First and foremost, we need to daily invest some quality time, wholeheartedly absorbing ourselves in Krishna’s remembrance by connecting with his direct manifestations such as Deity, scripture and the holy name. By such absorption, we realize and relish his greatness and sweetness. Thus, our devotion becomes enhanced and our conviction to dedicate our life to him becomes reinforced. With this heightened devotional sensibility, we can increasingly sense Krishna’s immanence, thereby helping us realize that he is never far from us.

Pertinently, the Gita explains that Krishna is not just transcendent but is also immanent. The Gita’s tenth chapter illustrates Krishna’s immanence by listing some fifty opulent manifestations. The chapter concludes by declaring that everything attractive manifests a spark of Krishna’s attractiveness (10.41). This insight implies that while doing our duty, if something attracts our attention, we can redirect our attention from that object to its source. And that all-attractive source is present in our own hearts in his immanent manifestation as the Supersoul.

By thus cultivating devotional purposefulness and relishing divine immanence, we can both remember Krishna and do our duty diligently.

Suffering doesn’t have to be isolating – it can be integrating

When some adversity afflicts us, grief is natural and understandable. Still, after we have given our emotions the necessary vent, we need to counter the mind’s sorry story, which it often spins amidst suffering. Its story usually runs along these lines: “Everyone is enjoying. I alone am suffering. Life is so unfair to me.” This tale worsens our misery by adding feelings of isolation, alienation and victimization.

The reality, as opposed to the mind’s tale, is that we are not alone in our distress. True, others’ problems may not be as grave as ours. But then, some others’ problems may be far graver. The Bhagavad-gita (08.15) states that this world is a place of misery. Meditating on suffering’s universality deflates the mind’s fantasy that happiness is just a few adjustments away – adjustments that others have been able to do, but we haven’t. Freed from this fantasy, we can integrate with material existence’s unpalatable yet undeniable reality: everyone has problems.

More importantly, the Gita helps us see suffering as an impetus for integrating with spiritual reality. The same verse stresses that those who devote themselves to Krishna go beyond this world, uniting with him for a life of eternal love. Even in this world, the more we become absorbed in Krishna by practicing bhakti-yoga, the more we access a spiritual shelter that transcends our material condition.

Moreover, when we experience bhakti’s shelter amidst our specific suffering, that realization can help us connects with others who are suffering similarly. After we have healed sufficiently, we can empathically share with them our realized conviction that bhakti can shelter and heal them too.

Thus, suffering can serve a dual purpose: an impetus for us to go closer to Krishna and a bond that links us with others, thereby helping others come closer to him.

We can’t drive out darkness, but we can turn on the light

Suppose we find ourselves groping and stumbling in a dark room. We may feel irritated at the darkness, but cursing or punching it achieves nothing. We need to find the light switch and turn it on. Once light appears, the darkness will automatically disappear; we can’t separately drive it out – and don’t need to.

Similarly, while living in this material world, we are surrounded by the darkness of ignorance that blinds us to the best way to happiness. We stumble through life, trying various things for enjoyment, but getting multiple miseries instead.

We may want to get rid of the mistakes and misconceptions that mislead us. We might fight against each of these misleading notions separately, but the underlying illusion continues and deludes in some other way. Just as darkness can be removed by turning on light, illusion can be removed by acquiring the knowledge that grants right perception. That knowledge is spiritual knowledge. The Bhagavad-gita (05.16) states that spiritual knowledge acts like a sun for illumining our inner world. Being thus illumined, we can see which desires are beneficial and which inimical.

While such knowledge can manifest in various ways and at various levels, it manifests brightest and fullest when we invoke in our heart the presence of Krishna, the supreme source of all knowledge. We can best invoke his presence by practicing bhakti-yoga diligently. The more we perceive his presence in our heart, the more we get the inspiration and illumination to make wise choices.

So, when we find ourselves struggling and stumbling amidst life’s problems, rather than flailing at our conditions or conditionings, we can focus on devotionally seeking Krishna’s shelter. The resulting inner illumination – the calmness and clarity of our consciousness – will help us find the best way to move ahead in life.

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.

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.

Give the world your attention, but don’t give it monopoly over your attention

“Don’t miss the forest for the trees” is a saying that conveys how we may get so caught in the details of things that we forget their purpose, that we may let small things consume us so much that we forget far bigger things.

When we understand our spiritual identity – when we understand that we are at our core, souls, who are parts of Krishna – then our vision rises beyond this world to Krishna. He becomes the object of our love, the purpose of our life, the objective we wish to achieve through whatever we do.

The Bhagavad-gita (18.46) urges us to spiritualize our work by doing it in the mood of worship for him who is the source of the world and who pervades the world.

Paradoxically, when we give too much attention to the world, we are often unable to to give proper attention to it. That is, when we let ourselves be consumed by the world’s inevitable ups and downs, we make it impossible for ourselves to deal with those issues properly. If we are emotionally consumed by those ups and downs, then our destabilized emotions often prevent us from responding intelligently.

When we think about Krishna and how best we can serve him, when our vision is thus fixed on the one who is the Lord of the world, we become emotionally sheltered in him and then when our emotions are engaged in this world, we can be engaged without becoming encaged

By cultivating a spiritual cyclic routine of engagement and withdrawal, we candy our best serve in the world while also staying fixed in our ultimate goal beyond this world.

Perhaps the fastest way to harm the world is to not see beyond the world – the world in and of itself being filled with temporary things can never satisfy fully our longing for happiness. And letting it monopolize our attention and aspiration means to ensure that we sentence ourselves to dissatisfaction and destructive competition with others who imagine that their pleasure too depends on similar this-worldly gratification.

Fire-sacrifice is literal, metaphorical and transformational

The Gita talks repeatedly about yajna, sacrifices wherein oblations are offered to the sacred fire. We may wonder, “Does it recommend this activity literally or metaphorically?”

Actually, it does both. The principle of offering is universal, being woven into the very fabric of existence. It is manifest not just in spiritual life but also in secular life. Parents offer necessities and comforts to their children; soldiers offer salutes to their commander; citizens offer taxes to their government.

The Gita reveals the universe to be a universal government, wherein the ritual of fire-sacrifice taps into the interconnectedness of the various levels of the cosmos. The sacred fire, invoked through special chants during fire-sacrifices, acts as a conduit for transporting our offerings to the gods who reside at higher cosmic levels. Thus, fire-sacrifice is a literal activity.

But today’s humans can’t perform competently all the minutiae associated with sacrifice, especially the precise intonation of mantras. So, literal fire-sacrifices aren’t recommended today as the primary mode of offering.

Nonetheless, the metaphorical principle underlying sacrifice – of offering something dear to someone dear – still holds true. The Gita (04.25-29) itself underscores this broadened vision of sacrifice when it deems as forms of sacrifice a wide variety of activities such as breathing exercises, charity, scriptural study and fasting. The Gita (04.30) concludes its expansive explanation by stressing the transformational potency of sacrifice: its performers become purified and progress towards destination eternity.

Today, the best way to perform sacrifice is through mantra meditation, which the Gita (10.25) deems a prominent manifestation of sacrifice. Therein, we offer our most innate energy, our consciousness, to the Absolute Truth, Krishna, who manifests in his eminently accessible form as transcendental sound vibration. By becoming purified and transformed through the sacrifice of chanting, we can connect with the highest reality and relish life’s supreme fulfillment.

The lower our consciousness, the lesser is our contribution

When we live in a fast-paced activity-centered culture, we may wonder whether we are wasting our time by practicing spiritual life, wherein we don’t do anything practical; we just sit and meditate.

Actually, our spiritual activities are potent means for raising our consciousness and thereby maximizing our contribution.

Our consciousness goes up and down because of the three modes of material nature: goodness, passion and ignorance. When we are situated in the elevated mode of goodness, knowledge illumines us (Gita 14.11), thus making our actions contemplative and contributive. When we are situated in passion (14.12), we are impelled towards actions driven by selfish desire, especially greed. Amidst such action, we focus not on contribution, but on consumption. Though we may do a lot, we remain obsessed with what we will get out of what we do, not what we are giving.

When our consciousness is in the lowest mode of ignorance, we are stripped of our capacities for both illumination and action – we are afflicted by a delusion that induces paralysis. We sink into ourselves, daydreaming about doing hundreds of things but not doing even one of them. We may even withdraw into some alternate reality through TV or video games, imagining ourselves to be big heroes shooting images on a screen. When we do act while being driven by ignorance, our actions are not contributive, but destructive.

As our contemporary culture is largely in the modes of passion and ignorance, we are constantly susceptible to be caught by those modes, thus undermining our higher purpose and our bigger contribution. When we invest time in spiritual practices such as meditation and scriptural study, we become empowered to raise our consciousness and become enriched with the capacities for clear illumination and purposeful action, thereby maximizing our contributions.

Regulation is a protection measure, not a trust issue

Suppose a teenager is to stay alone at home. When his parents are leaving, they remind him to bolt the door and activate the security system. But, with typical adolescent machismo, he bristles, “Don’t you trust me? I can fight off any thieves. Just see my biceps.” Closing doors is not a trust issue, but a protection measure. What if several thieves come in – or if they come armed? Why risk unnecessary danger? Today’s Internet-based digital culture offers us round-the-clock access to a whole universe of distraction. Such distraction threatens our basic concentration and contribution, and even our ethical and moral standards. Moreover, with the proliferation of unsolicited mails, deceptive links and pop-ups, we may find ourselves transported digitally into triviality or obscenity without even realizing where we are going. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (03.41), while outlining how to combat lust, recommends that we begin by regulating our senses. Regulation of senses means not just regulating sensual indulgence, but also regulating access to opportunities for such indulgence. Translated to the digital domain, this Gita recommendation can mean regulating net access through appropriate filters. When our well-wishers recommend such regulation, we may take offense and ask, “Don’t you trust me?” Actually, that’s the wrong question to ask because the issue here is not trust, but protection. We gain nothing except danger by keeping a door unnecessarily open in our digital domain. Even if we can resist distractions, we have better things to do in life than fighting avoidable distractions. The best thing we can do, Gita wisdom explains, is to learn to love and serve Krishna, thereby progressing towards meaningful contribution in this life and ultimate liberation in the next. By voluntarily closing the door to non-devotional and anti-devotional alternatives, we give ourselves opportunities for deeper absorption in constructive service to Krishna.

Nothing distracts us as much as we ourselves

We live in a culture of mass distraction. Worldly things around us try to catch our eye in myriad ways. And with us lie devices that are potentially universes of distraction. No doubt, in today’s work environment, devices are often indispensable. Still, even when we are using a device for our work, we may get distracted on the device itself to social media, net surfing, emails and what not. We may chat here, read there, watch somewhere else — forgetting what we intended to do and forgetting even that we have forgotten. Even if we put our phone in silent mode, disconnect ourselves from the internet and move away from chat boxes and chatterboxes — all conditions conducive for undistracted work — we may give in to some wayward impulse and seek out some distraction. Such incidents show that outer distractions are not as big a problem as our inner distractibility. Such distractibility stems from our dangerous inner distractor: the mind. The Bhagavad-gita (06.26) acknowledges the mind’s restlessness, but still exhorts us to focus it on spiritual reality. This exhortation implies that we have the capacity to focus our mind. Though our capacity for mental focus is presently under-developed, we can boost it by practicing bhakti-yoga. This time-honored yoga links the mind with the supremely pacifying and satisfying object of thought, Krishna. When we relish the serenity and joy of absorption in Krishna, we get convinced that we can do better than wander off wherever the mind wishes to wander. This conviction inspires within us the resolution to no longer pay heed to the inner distractor, but to focus on Krishna as our object of service in all our activities. By this devotional resolution, we gradually get empowered by divine grace to detect, neglect and reject distractions, both external and internal.

Break people’s misconceptions – don’t break

 peopleThe Bhagavad-gita concludes by urging us to share its message of love with others (18.68-69). Sometimes, we misconstrue this call to share as a license to go on the offensive, to break people’s misconceptions for getting them to accept the Gita. Unfortunately, our overzealousness makes us go beyond breaking their misconceptions to hurting and breaking them. Thus, we end up alienating them instead of attracting them. To prevent such unintended consequences, we need to remember that people are not their opinions. They are souls, eternal and beloved parts of Krishna, even if they have strong misconceptions. When we equate people with their present opinions, then, during our preaching, we end up targeting people instead of their misconceptions. If people sense that an intellectual discussion has turned into a personal attack, their defences go up. Even if our strong arguments break those defences, people don’t get persuaded; they feel even more threatened now that their defences have broken. So, being driven by a misinformed reflex for self-defence, they come up with some excuse, however flimsy, for not accepting the truth. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (03.26) urges us to not disturb people’s minds, but to encourage them onwards in their spiritual journey at a speed and level they find suitable. Essentially, we need to see people as partners, not opponents, in the search for the truth. Of course, some people may stay antagonistic, no matter how amiable our conduct. If their hostility is unremitting, then we may need to end the discussion and serve them through our prayers. But frequently when we change our attitude from inimical to cordial, then we will speak and act, consciously and subconsciously, in ways that gets people’s defences down. The more they become more open to the Gita’s illuminating wisdom, the more it empowers them to overcome their misconceptions.

Discipline is the fusion of intention with action

We may sometimes lament: “I could do so much more in my life if I were more disciplined.” To cultivate discipline, we can break it into its essential components, which can be said to be inner contemplation and outer execution. When either of these is missing, our attempts for discipline flounder and falter. Suppose we do something externally because others want us to do it – not because we ourselves are convinced about doing it. For example, if we begin dieting because our well-wishers tell us to, we will soon give in to eating binges if we still believe that dieting isn’t all that important. Conversely, we may feel inspired to do something worthwhile, but may not act tangibly on it. For example, if we aspire to write a book, our aspiration will languish on our unfulfilled dreams list if we don’t make any time for it in our schedules. Once we understand discipline’s inner and outer dimensions, we can boost ourselves with aids at both levels. Internally, we can read inspiring wisdom about that discipline, prepare and verbalize our statement of purpose, and revisit it regularly to solidify our intention. Externally, we can associate with those aspiring to be similarly disciplined and connect with friends who can act as our accountability partners. Gita wisdom helps us to fuse intention with action especially when we strive for spiritual discipline. By illumining our inner territory with philosophical wisdom, it reminds us that we are souls, parts of the omnipotent supreme, Krishna, and are meant for everlasting devotional fulfillment. And the Gita guides us towards spiritually-minded people, thereby helping us start and sustain spiritual actions. The Bhagavad-gita (02.64) indicates that when we regulate outer sensory engagement and cultivate inner restraint, we attain purity and mercy – the harbingers of unending spiritual satisfaction.

Purification means changing the mind’s default programming

While practicing spiritual life and striving for purity, we may become disheartened: “Today’s culture fills me with so many impure desires. And my mind too goes off on so many impure fantasies. Will I ever become pure?” Yes, definitely. In fact, purity is our eternal natural state. We are at our core pure – we are souls, who are eternal parts of the all-pure Supreme, Krishna. To reclaim our innate purity, we just need to change our mind’s default programming. Suppose we have a computer with some undesirable default programming. We don’t need to blame or discard the computer. Nor do we need to berate ourselves or dismiss our chances of using it. We just need to get down to work for changing its programming. Similarly, even if we find ourselves getting caught in impure thoughts, we don’t need to blame the world, thereby casting ourselves into the role of a helpless victim. Nor do we need to blame ourselves, thereby burdening ourselves with unhelpful guilt. We just need to get down to work for changing the mind’s default programming. Indeed, the whole process of yoga is meant for bringing about this change in the mind. TheBhagavad-gita (06.15) assures that the mind becomes calmed by sustained yoga practice, thereby facilitating the seeker’s progress towards liberation. Bhakti-yoga purifies the mind most expeditiously because it offers the most satisfying object for contemplation: the all-attractive, all-pure supreme spiritual reality, Krishna. Though our mind may wander during our devotional practices, still the effort to focus it on Krishna gives it a glimpse of higher reality and deeper fulfillment thereof. By repeated experience of this higher sweeter reality, the mind gradually becomes inclined to focus on Krishna instead of worldly objects. When the mind accepts Krishna as its default source of happiness, purity becomes ours.

Materialism reduces life to a disrelation of unrelated events

Suppose we watch a movie in which events are utterly unconnected, characters pop in and out with no logic and the story moves without any theme or direction, leave alone conclusion. We would soon get exasperated: “What’s the point of all this? Why should I watch such a movie?” Unfortunately, materialism forces us to not just watch such a pointless movie – it makes us live such a movie. A materialistic worldview reduces our life to a disrelation of unrelated events. It makes us believe that we are nothing but chemicals that have somehow come alive. And that delicate chemical balance that comprises us can be destroyed forever at any moment, by just one bug or one bag. Thus, our present existence is reduced to a wobbly, chancy chaos within two infinities of non-existence. Outlining such a materialistic worldview, the Bhagavad-gita (16.08) states that the ungodly proponents of such a belief system hold that there exists no God and no ultimate reality – selfish desire is existence’s only motivating force. And even that desire is doomed to frustration with inexorable death. Rescuing us from such a morass of meaninglessness, Gita wisdom debunks materialism by spotlighting life’s spiritual side. It explains that our search for meaning comes from something beyond matter – our spiritual essence. And only at that same trans-material level of reality is meaning truly found. The ephemerality and misery of life in this world is meant ultimately to impel us to raise our consciousness to the spiritual level. At that level, we as eternal souls can relish love eternal with the all-attractive Absolute Truth, Krishna. By learning to love him through the practice of bhakti-yoga, we can persevere and grow even through life’s greatest reversals, knowing that his immortal love will endure and elevate us beyond the vagaries of this mortal world –

See seeming scriptural contradictions as counterbalances, not counters

Some people argue, “The world is a place of entanglement that needs to be renounced to attain liberation.” Some others argue, “Our duties in this world are ordained by God – by doing these duties responsibly, we can please God.” Both sides can quote scripture to bolster their point of view. Indeed, the Bhagavad-gita (05.02) commends both such paths as conducive to transcendence. While the Gita recommends the path of engagement, it refers respectfully to the path of renunciation, deeming its proponents wise (18.03: manishinah) Such opposing arguments about engagement and renunciation are not counters, but are counterbalances. A counter-argument aims to refute the original argument. A counter-balancing argument, on the other hand, aims to restore balance by presenting the other side of the story. Counter-balancing presentations can be seen in the paths stressed in the Bhagavad-gita and the Srimad-Bhagavatam respectively. The Gita is primarily world-affirming, whereas the Bhagavatam is largely world-renouncing. This difference demonstrates how the same spiritual principles can have differing, even opposing, applications in different contexts. When Arjuna desires to renounce the world, the Gita urges him to act in the world with a devotional mood. In his circumstance, with he being the foremost warrior on the side of virtue, he could best contribute by fighting to establish the rule of dharma in the world. On the other hand, when Parikshit was cursed to die in seven days, the circumstances were different – with Kali-yuga imminent, the king who had lifelong held that age’s influence back could now best serve the world in another way – he could demonstrate for all people the best process of holding Kali’s influence back: hearing about Krishna and absorption in Krishna thereof. By thus seeing varying scriptural stresses as counterbalances rather than as counters, we can detect the underlying consistent purpose that harmonizes apparently contradictory scriptural injunctions.

By looking further horizontally, we can’t see vertically

Suppose a person walking along a road wants to see ahead – and does so using binoculars. But as long as they are looking ahead, they won’t see the vast sky above them. Similarly, many people desire to know more about life. But as long as they are looking at material things alone, they can’t perceive life’s spiritual side. The Bhagavad-gita (15.11) contrasts two kinds of spiritually interested people: the first perceive the spiritual realm, the other don’t. The first redirect their vision from forwards to upwards. That is, they follow the disciplines necessary for detaching their consciousness from the material level and raising it to the spiritual level. The other category comprises armchair speculators whose inner vision stays horizontal. That is, they are internally looking only for life’s material pleasures, even if they talk about life’s spiritual side. Consciously or subconsciously, they deem material reality as life’s foundational reality. So, they end up reducing the spiritual down to the material. Such reductionism is evident in, say, contemporary neuroscience’s attempts to reduce consciousness to biochemical changes in brain cells. Modern science is like binoculars to observe nature and understand its behavior, thereby achieving better prediction and control. It increases our capacity to see ahead horizontally. But it refuses to look vertically because of its operational principle of methodological naturalism, meaning that it aims to explain everything in natural or material terms. As it binds itself to the material, science can’t learn anything distinctive about spiritual reality. To raise our vision from horizontal to vertical, we need to open-mindedly consider realities higher than the material. For such open-minded seekers, the Gita offers the process of yoga, especially bhakti-yoga. By steady yogic practice, we get the eyes of knowledge to perceive the spiritual not just as real but also as life’s most treasured reality.

Our lack of confidence doesn’t choke us as much as our overconfidence in our hypercritical mind

When we get an opportunity to do something challenging – something that can help develop our God-given talents – we often shrink back in apprehension. Something within us says, “If you try this, you will only make a fool out of yourself.” Believing that voice, we don’t try at all. Or if we try, we try only diffidently and end up doing poorly. Then, that voice jeers, “See, I had warned you. Remember: you will never amount to much.” That disheartening voice comes from our mind. The Bhagavad-gita (06.06) explains that the mind often acts as our enemy. Its inimicality sometimes manifests through its minimizing monologues. By demoralizing whispers and deriding shouts, it chokes us. We start believing that we lack the ability, and especially the confidence, to do anything worthwhile. However, what cripples us is not diffidence but overconfidence – overconfidence in our mind’s hypercriticality. After all, is the mind a prophet to know for sure that we will never amount to much? It isn’t; it’s simply bluffing to keep us unresistingly in its clutches. Gita wisdom explains that we all are precious parts of Krishna. He loves us and has given us various abilities that he wants us to develop. By using those abilities in a mood of service to him, we all can make constructive contributions. Suppose someone mocked us on our face, saying that we were good-for-nothing and would always remain good-for-nothing. We would feel affronted and driven to do our best to prove them wrong. To counter our inner mocker, we need a similar fighting spirit. We can determinedly neglect the mind and courageously put our confidence in Krishna. When we practice bhakti-yoga diligently, we become divinely empowered, break the mind’s chokehold, and take small but strong steps towards actualizing our potentials. .

Our entanglement is caused not by our attachment, but by our detachment

As spiritual beginners, we may think that our attachments cause our entanglement. Such thinking doesn’t probe deep enough – it fails to ask: Why are we attached? What inner needs are our attachments filling or promising to fill? Frequently, our attachments promise relief, security, comfort, joy – promises that they fulfill at best only temporarily and partially. We are eternal souls, parts of Krishna – he alone can satisfy our needs perfectly and perennially. But unfortunately, we are detached from Krishna. That is, we are emotionally uninvolved with him. So, we seek our emotional needs in mundane objects, becoming attached to them. To counter such attachments, we need to cultivate our attachment to Krishna. Otherwise, even if we become detached by raw willpower, the resulting emotional barrenness will cause our relapse to worldly attachments, sooner or later. To prevent relapses, we need to become attached to Krishna. The Bhagavad-gita’s flow from chapter six to seven reflects this progression from detachment-centeredness to attachment-centeredness. After outlining the detachment-centered path of yoga in its sixth chapter, the Gita (06.47) declares that this path culminates in attachment to Krishna (06.47). And in its next chapter (07.01), it outlines an alternative path to that same summit: bhakti-yoga, which focuses not on detachment but on attachment to Krishna. Because Krishna is the source and shelter of everything, attachment to him requires not the rejection of all other attachments, but the rejection of only our anti-spiritual attachments –our other attachments can be incorporated within the inclusive scope of bhakti-yoga. At our seeker stage, attachment to Krishna manifests authentically not in imagination, but in dedication – not in imagining intimate emotions for Krishna, but in dedicating ourselves to his service. By such steady dedication, our emotions will get increasingly purified and engaged in him, thereby fostering liberating attachment to him.

Go beyond excusing yourself and accusing yourself to realizing your self

When something we are doing goes wrong, our mind often pushes us towards two broad thought-patterns: excusing ourselves and accusing ourselves.

In the first, we become defensive, trying to prove that something out there is to be blamed. In the second, we whip ourselves for being lazy, tactless, disorganized and so on – whatever negative labels our critics have affixed on us.

However, neither excusing ourselves nor accusing ourselves is helpful in dealing with the problem. Apart from doing necessary damage minimization, we need to see the problem as an opportunity to learn more about ourselves. The Bhagavad-gita (18.60) indicates that we all need to work according to our psychophysical nature. Based on our nature, we have certain strengths and certain limitations. Rather than blaming ourselves for what we don’t have, we can focus on realizing ourselves, that is, understanding who we are, what we have, what makes us tick and what makes us freeze. Without such basic self-understanding, we will keep bungling into incompatible situations and find our life degenerating into a perpetual firefighting nightmare.

To gain self-understanding, we need to look at ourselves calmly. But we can’t be calm as long as we fear that the next problem will destroy our self-identity and self-worth. Gita wisdom boosts our inner security with its basic teachings: We are essentially spiritual and indestructible; we are precious parts of God; he has blessed us all with gifts by which we can do our parts during our life-journey; we just need to discover and develop those gifts in a devotional mood.

Being thus reassured by Gita wisdom, we can focus on our strengths, put our best foot forward and make our contributions, thereby realizing ourselves – both in terms of actualizing our potentials in this world and experiencing our eternal identity beyond this world.

Don’t let the mind put your thoughts out of sync with your actions

We may have seen some crudely made videos wherein the sound and the action are out of sync. Suppose a fight between a hero and a villain is being depicted. Even before the hero’s fist hits the villain’s jaw, we hear the sound of the blow and of the bone cracking. An out-of-sync recording can make a serious scene seem humorous or even ridiculous.

What is frivolous in reel-life can be disastrous in real life. Important things can go dangerously wrong when our thoughts are out of sync with our actions. When our mind is uncontrolled, being buffeted by various desires and worries, then we end up thinking of things other than what we are doing. Indeed, the mind tends to think of everything except the thing that we are doing now. Aggravatingly, the mind thinks a lot about that thing after we have done it – and done it wrong due to the mind’s fickleness. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (06.34) cautions that the mind is restless, infatuated, forceful and obstinate – akin to a stormy wind. Due to the mind’s restlessness, we are often active without being productive. Worse still, we may be active and be destructive instead of productive.

Spiritual wisdom brings our thoughts and actions in sync by revealing to us an inner center of stability and strength. When we understand that we are at our core indestructible soul, we calm down. When we further understand that God is ultimately in control and that we are his parts whoa are meant to do our best in his service, we can restrain the restless mind and focus on the task at hand, leaving the past and future in his competent hands.

By thus syncing our thoughts with our actions, spirituality helps us transform our activity into productivity.