Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 16, Text 11

The Bhagavad Gita, 16.11, explains that as long as we are going to be attached, we will be fearful.

 

Whenever we start experiencing fear, we allow that fear to activate our imagination and feel overwhelmed. Our fears always point towards something that we hold very close to ourselves.

 

What can our fears tell us about Ourselves?

 

If we use our fears as an inspiration to introspect ourselves, we can find out:

 

• What we are attached to?

 

• What is so special about the object, that it attracts us so much?

 

How does Bhagavad Gita’s knowledge inspire us to redirect our attachment?

 

The study of Bhagavad Gita, allows to understand that whatever pleasures or shelter we are expecting to get from the object we are attracted towards, we can get all that pleasure and infact much more from Krishna.

 

Why?

 

Because he is the source, source of all shelter, pleasure and attractiveness (BG 10.41).

 

The long standing process of Bhakti Yoga allows us to make Krishna our supreme object of attachment and start seeing all our other attachments in relationship to him.

 

So, does becoming attached to Krishna means that we don’t take any practical measures to deal with our fears?

 

No

 

It simply means, that only practical measures, alone, are not enough – we also need  to take transcendental measure to spiritualize our  attachments, by means of practicing Bhakti Yoga.

 

How does attachment to Krishna calm us amidst our fears?

 

The consistent practice of bhakti results in divine attachment with Krishna  and directs our consciousness to flow naturally towards the Supreme personality of Godhead.

 

This flow of consciousness towards him, calms us amidst fearful situations. This is because we start understanding that he is the supreme spiritual reality and always resides us inside our hearts.

 

It does not matter how fearful the things are and how much they try to threaten us, he always remains our supreme well wisher and is competent enough to bring good even in the worst of the situations.

 

Therefore, when we are attached to Krishna, we become better in tolerating and transcending our fears.

 

The uncertainty of the material world still remains there, but our attachment towards the uncertain material world ends.

Whenever we come across various difficult situations in our life, we start feeling negative emotions like anger, irritation, self-pity. Even though such feelings may appear to be natural they do not have the right determine our consciousness.

There is no doubt that the situations and their associated emotions will certainly affect our consciousness but we can still choose what we have to focus our thoughts onto.


Unfortunately, most of the time we, unknowingly let our thoughts be obsessed with our negative emotions and hence end up even feeling more worst then what the situation actually demands for.

If we keep dwelling ourselves onto those negative emotions, it becomes a habit. We should keep a check on how often we dwell ourselves onto those emotions. 

Negative emotions are similar to the psychological emotions. Just like, if we keep scratching or rubbing our physical wounds they become even worse, if we keep worrying all the time about our negative emotions, our psychological wounds become worse.

If we allow our emotions to heal in spite of worrying about them all the time, they get healed in the due course.

So what we need to do in order to facilitate such healing?

We need to decide, to consciously redirect our thoughts towards something beyond those difficult situations.

How does Bhagavad Gita’s knowledge help us in such  decision – making?

Bhagavad Gita helps us to understand that we are much bigger than our situations – bigger not in an egoistic sense but in an integral sense.

According to Bhagavad Gita, we are eternal spiritual beings, part and parcel of the Supreme eternal being, Krishna; whereas our situations, no matter how worst and stressful they are, are temporary.

So complementing the above said statement the Bhagavad Gita offers was the time-honored process of Bhakti-yoga, through which we can redirect our thoughts towards Krishna. 

When, with full consciousness, we decide to focus our thoughts onto him, we regain inner strength to calmly face our difficulties & intelligently find the best way forward.

The Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 18, Shloka 58 , assures us that when we become conscious of him, by his grace, we will cross over all the obstacles.

Therefore, our consciousness, our attitude & ultimately our destiny are not determined by our situations, but by our decisions.