Illuminations – A Spiritual Self Help Newsletter

 “God Helps Those Who Help Themselves”

 

Issue 4 December 8, 2005

  Published Bi-weekly by Mahatma Das

 

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New Year's Resolutions
 
 


Since the new year is coming and many of us think about making new year’s resolutions, in this newsletter we discuss why it is often difficult to follow through on the resolutions we make.
 
 May you always think of Krsna.
 
 Mahatma Das __________________________________________________________
 
The new year is a few weeks away and we might be thinking about making new year’s resolutions. Unfortunately, many of us haven’t followed through on the resolutions we made for this year. The reality is that it’s not always easy to do what’s right. Have you ever said - or heard someone say - “I know I should do this, but I don’t?” When I say that to myself I believe I have a serious and difficult obstacle that I am dealing with. But when I hear someone else say this to me, it almost sounds like a crazy person talking. I often think, “What’s wrong with him? Is he insane?” Doesn’t he care about himself? Why is he doing things to harm himself?”
 
 I find it telling that sastra has this to say about the mind:
 
 The mind can be your worst enemy
 
 You can’t trust your mind
 
 Neglect your mind
 
 It almost sounds like the kind of instructions you’d give to patients of a mental institution. Are we really crazy?
 
 Of course, Krsna says the mind can also be our friend. When the mind is our friend we obviously wouldn’t want to neglect it or not trust it. So part of our sadhana is to pacify this potential enemy. It is a bit like taming a wild animal. So how do we do that?
 
 Beat the rascal mind (knock sense into it and also beat it at its game of taking you away from Krsna).
 
 “Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura used to say that in the morning our first business should be to beat the mind with shoes a hundred times. And before going to bed, to beat the mind a hundred times with a broomstick. In this way one's mind can be kept under control. An uncontrolled mind and an unchaste wife are the same. An unchaste wife can kill her husband at any time, and an uncontrolled mind, followed by lust, anger, greed, madness, envy and illusion, can certainly kill the yogi. When the yogi is controlled by the mind, he falls down into the material condition. One should be very careful of the mind, just as a husband should be careful of an unchaste wife.” (SB 5.6.4 purport) 
 
 If you want to make some new year’s resolutions, you might have to deal with a little voice in your head that is telling you, “Yeah, you tried to make some resolutions before and you couldn’t follow them. Don’t waste your time this year. You know you can’t do it. You know you can’t change. You know you don’t have the will power.” And then we think, “You know, you’ve got a point there. I guess it is just better to continue doing what I am doing and hope that someday things will get better.”
 
 If you’ve ever thought like this, you’ve been sold a bag of tricks by the enemy. And the result is you will feel miserable and powerless.
 
 “One who cannot control his mind lives always with the greatest enemy, and thus his life and its mission are spoiled.” (BG purport 6.6) 
 
 Wherever we go our minds go with us. So how can we be happy if we bring our enemy wherever we go? Unfortunately, we often try to make this enemy a friend in the wrong way, by doing what he dictates. He says, “ Surround yourself with things to make you happy and feel good. Now doesn’t that feel better?” Yeah, it might feel better for a while. But ultimately we can never be happy living with an enemy (it appears like nectar at first and poison in the end).
 
 “Before giving up this present body, if one is able to tolerate the urges of the material senses and check the force of desire and anger, he is well situated and is happy in this world.” (BG 5.23)
 
 Here is the paradox. The mind tells us we will be happy by letting it run free, and Krsna tells us we will be happy by tolerating the demands of the mind and senses. Krsna’s advice seems almost counter-intuitive. How could refraining from doing what I want make me happy?
 
 That’s because it is not what we want. Much of what we think we want is just conditioning. For example, how could someone really want a cigarette since that very cigarette is going to kill him. Advertisements associate cigarettes with pleasure, sex, being cool, etc. And for women, they associate smoking with independence (“you’ve come along way baby”). Once the sub-conscious mind associates pleasure with smoking, a person will think smoking is cool, smoking is enjoyable, smoking is sexy. He won’t think that smoking is death.
 
 Society and the mass media have programmed us to associate pleasure with all kinds of things that can’t actually make us happy. So when we listen to the mind, we are often not listening to what we want but are listening to what we have been programmed to want, told what will make us happy. And what makes it so difficult for us is that we don’t always recognize this. We naturally think our mind must be working for us – that it must be looking out for our self-interest. We don’t naturally relate to our mind as the enemy it often is.
 
 Imagine that almost everything you had was taken away from you and all you had left were a few basic necessities of life, your service, the devotees association, the holy name and your relationship with your guru and Krsna. Would you be happy? I think most of us would be happier! Isn’t this what we really want?
 
 It’s clear that the mind can sell us on things we don’t need or want. So it boils down to this; either you sell your mind on your ideas, on what you want, or it will sell you on its agenda. Selling is always going on.
 
Exercise
Who is going to win this year when it comes time to follow through on the changes you want to make: you or your mind? Who is going to make the sell?
 
 Make your new year’s resolution based on what you really want. Then sell your mind on it. The proof that you made the sell is that you will do it.