08.07: Bhakti takes us beyond the naughty and the knotty.
When we embark on our inward spiritual journey towards Krishna, our mind and intelligence pose significant and distinct roadblocks. The mind blocks us with naughty desires and the intelligence, with knotty doubts.
Bhakti removes both these roadblocks, as indicated in the Bhagavad-gita (8.7): mayy arpita mano buddhir mam evaishyasy asamshayah. Here’s how bhakti works its magic:
- Naughty desires: The mind is like a naughty child that is readily allured by anything that seems new. Though the mind can do much more harm than a naughty child, we have to live with it lifelong; we cannot execute or exile it. Neither can we silence or shackle it lifelong; we need to offer it a safe playing arena. Bhakti offers our mind just that: freedom to explore and enjoy within the perimeter of service to Krishna and everything that we can relate with Krishna.
- Knotty doubts: The intelligence shackles us with doubts about knotty philosophical paradoxes that we just can’t comprehend at our present level of consciousness. A common such knotty doubt is: how did we fall from the spiritual world? The spiritual world is beyond the arena of time as we know it. There, causality – the system of connection between cause and effect – is radically different from causality here, within the arena of time. Consequently, we are as likely to resolve this doubt as a monkey is likely to understand quantum physics. Bhakti frees us from the fate of banging our intelligence against such philosophical stone-walls. It offers our intelligence a far more relishable and profitable engagement: comprehending Krishna’s glories and thereby boosting our conviction about the reality of Krishna’s love. That conviction empowers us to neglect irresolvable doubts as irrelevant, and march confidently and joyfully towards Krishna.