Question: When we come to spiritual life and understand that we have many bad habits due to being conditioning in the material world for long time, we try to over come the habits by knowledge of shastras, hearing lectures from devotees, by performing service to Vaishnavas and the Lord etc. Some habits are easy to give up, some take little endeavor to overcome and some habits are really very hard to give up. We try our best to overcome these anarthas, but these deeply rooted anarthas seem impossible to overcome. For some time it seems that we have overcome the habits, but after some time they come back to haunt us again and become stumbling block on path of devotion. How do we deal with these kind of Bad Habits or anarthas?
Answer by Romapada Swami:
There is a difference between healthy remorse and guilt. In reestablishing our relationship with Krsna, there’s a place for recognizing and repenting the fundamentally unloving choice of action in forgetfulness of Him. Srila Bhaktivinoda Thakura describes the fire of that kind of regret as purifying.
It serves as impetus to again choose love and remembrance, acting in relationship with Krsna.
On the other hand, regret that takes on the flavor of guilt, seasoned with despondency and dejection, is toxic. Such lamentation is characteristic of the mode of ignorance, tamo-guna. It is another way of forgetting Krsna and one’s own eternal spiritual nature as part-and-parcel in relationship with Him. It places oneself (the false conception of self, that is) at the center of one’s consciousness – “How shameful I am!” – and ensnares such a lamenter in a downward spiral that distracts and detracts energy from positive engagement of all thoughts and energy in devotional service to Krsna instead.
The toxicity of guilt and lamentation can be counteracted and transformed into the nourishment of bhakti by knowledge of sambandha-jnana (i.e.
‘knowledge of our relationship with our Source’), for starters. The soul is part of Krsna – never separated from Him, expanded from His energy, of His quality, always pure. The soul is not ‘the doer’ of any action, nor touched by fruitive action, karma. In fact, by nature, by constitutional design, the tiny jiva soul is technically called tatastha-sakti, marginal energy – that is, inherent within the soul is the dual options of a propensity to be influenced by the spiritual energy as well as a propensity to be influenced by the material energy.
The material energy’s influence upon the soul is called “covering potency”.
So, as soon as you become aware of having come under the influence of the material energy, having become covered and forgetful of Krsna, and thus having made undesirable choices contrary to relationship with Him, you can choose in that very moment to again align yourself with the spiritual energy in devotional service. There is no need to linger there in lamentation; it is enough to simply take note and move on.
While doing so, you can also remember the nature of Krsna, who is kind, compassionate, loving, forgiving… He has witnessed all of our activities, including the most abominable ones, with our backs turned towards Him, throughout innumerable lifetimes — and He still chooses to accompany us without interruption in our hearts as Paramatma! *AND* He grants us unlimited chances to come back to Him, including welcoming us to the path of bhakti in this very lifetime. How gloriously forgiving is He! That quality in Him alone is so lovable, so inviting of our reciprocation!
Let that enthuse you to be more determined to serve Him in pure devotional consciousness!
