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Seminars a Success at Festival of Inspiration at New Vrindavana
The Grihastha Vision Team offered a number of interesting seminars at New Vrndavana's Festival of Inspiration last May. One popular seminar attended by over 70 participants, was Arcana siddhi dasi and Karnamrita das's “What About My Mind?" Following is an exerpt.
"Marriage is a meeting of two minds. Once a guest at a temple asked SP loudly, in great frustration," What about my mind?" SP answered, I have no other medicine but the holy name. Our challenge is how control the mind so that the medicine of the holy name will have full effect. Prabhupada did indeed give us many tips in his books to help us control the mind. These instructions can help us receive the full benefit of the holy name. The more we understand our mind, the less it will frustrate us. We can learn to quickly change a negative mind state into a more conducive mind state for our emotional and spiritual growth.
We may think we can't change our bad habits, like anger but the mind is malleable and we can create dramatic change in this lifetime, especially coupled with chanting. Good and bad habits are just behaviors we repeat over and over again. With a little desire and determination we can begin or stop behaviors.
The mind is the lens through which we see the world, so if the mind is dark, the world seems depressed. We want to see the world though the lens of Krsna colored glasses, where you see everything in relation with Krsna. The illusion is that the relationship is not there, but we can see the world from a Krsna conscious viewpoint.
Pain is inevitable but suffering is optional so if we can learn to use our mind in the right fashion, we can keep it in positive mind states. What we focus on expands and we have choice where we want to focus. In any relationship we can choose to act from our positive mind states."
Arcana siddhi dasi taught everyone an important formula:
O=E+R
The outcome is equal to the event plus our response. In other words the outcome is determined by how we respond to an event. This is really our only freedom in life—how we respond to people and situations. Responding with empathy and care to others helps us to grow and become more than we are now. Responding with envy, malice or anger will stifle our growth and keep us entrapped in our suffering mental condition. If things are not going well for you in a certain situation in your life, think about how you can change your response. A famous saying “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you have always gotten.”
