Question: If there is something that is haunting one’s mind everyday in one’s thought pattern and there is nothing one can do about it, and it gives lot of irritation, anger and suspicion, what should one do?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
Since the specific details are not clear, I will attempt to give only a very general answer.
The mind is a repository of lifetimes of thoughts, impressions, attachments and aversions. It is also greatly and very subtly affected by our immediate circumstances and surroundings. The food we eat, the company we keep, our daily activities, the sounds and sights we are exposed to, etc., have a great bearing upon our mental state; for example, by eating food cooked by someone who is irritated, we can become affected with a similar mental state for apparently no reason!
In this Iron Age, these above mentioned aspects of our life are all contaminated and naturally people in general are always disturbed. Or even if there are no immediate causes for disturbance, impressions stored from the past can rise to one’s conscious awareness, like a bubble rising from the bottom to the surface of a clear lake. In either case, these disturbances are by and large taken care of by molding our lives so as to minimize the disturbing impressions. In Bhagavad-Gita (6.17) it is described how by leading a regulated life, and adopting spiritual practices, one can mitigate almost all material pains, including those disturbances arising from the body and mind.
Even further, by spiritualizing our activities – for example, by eating spiritual food cooked and offered to the Lord with devotion, by associating with saintly persons, by carefully following the regulative principles of spiritual life – we can inoculate ourselves from most disturbances from within or without.
Most effective of all is hearing / reading transcendental literatures about Krishna, and chanting His holy names. These spiritual vibrations not only cleanse the mind of all contamination but are so attractive and powerful that they can capture even the most disturbed mind from its preoccupations.
There may be some other practical measures you may have to take, but reposing the mind in taking shelter of spiritual energy as said above gives the basis and support for all other secondary measures, and it is the only ultimate solution to all difficulties.
