18.58 – Empower your thoughts to break free from their tired and tiring avenues
Life is never easy; every day brings new obstacles and some days bring major reversals.
We don’t have the power to make life problem-free, but we do have the power to maximize or minimize those problems. Often our thoughts become dominated by problems. We keep fretting over them without thinking constructively. Our energy gets dissipated in resenting the problems instead of in resolving them. Our thoughts keep going over again and again on the tired and tiring avenues of frustration, self-pity, resentment and the like.
The best way to avoid such unnecessary aggravation of our problems is to direct our thinking towards something constructive. Many constructive things may present themselves as potential candidates for engaging our mind. But the most constructive thing is fixing the mind on Krishna. That’s because remembrance of Krishna is infused with a mystical power that not only redirects but also rejuvenates our thinking. Krishna is our greatest well-wisher, he is supremely powerful and he is the wisest of all – and he is fully and perennially accessible through his remembrance. By cultivating devotional remembrance of Krishna, we connect with the benediction, the power and the wisdom of Krishna.
Do problems magically disappear by thinking about Krishna?
What magically disappears is not the problem but our negativity that makes the problems seem so menacing and overwhelming. The Bhagavad-gita (18.58) specifically states that we cross over problems when we become conscious of Krishna. The precise word tarishyasi conveys the idea of floating over, as in an ocean or scaling across, as in a hurdle race.
Understanding this frees us from the disempowering delusion that remembrance of Krishna is irrelevant to our pressing concerns. When we diligently cultivate the remembrance of Krishna, we gain his supreme empowerment and march confidently through life’s obstacles and reversals.
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18.58 – If you become conscious of Me, you will pass over all the obstacles of conditioned life by My grace. If, however, you do not work in such consciousness but act through false ego, not hearing Me, you will be lost.