Everyone

Lord Krishna says in the Bhagavad-gita (13.2–3):

“This body, O son of Kunti, is called the field, and one who knows this body is called the knower of the field.”

Excerpted from Madhya-khanda, chapter twenty-three, of the seven-volume Sri Chaitanya-bhagavata of Srila Vrindavana dasa Thakura, with commentary by Sri Srimad Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Goswami Maharaja Prabhupada. Translated by Bhumipati Dasa. Edited and published by Pundarika Vidyanidhi Dasa. © Vrajraj Press 2002. This edition contains the original Bengali texts, which we have omitted here. It is available at ISKCON Vrindavan and is included in the VedaBase produced by the Bhaktivedanta Archives.

We all face fearful situations in life. The Vedic literature tells us that fear is one of the ever-present conditions of life in the material world. How can we deal with our fears effectively? Here I propose four strategies, summed up as the acronym FEAR:

F – Focus
E – Engage
A – Arise
R – Release

A New York Times article published in 1977 sums up the incredible splendor of Devasadan Mandir, ISKCON’s Hare Krishna temple in Detroit, Michigan, where I lived in 1994 and ’95:

The esteemed Narottama Dasa Thakura (born 1520 CE) taught that to understand the loving affairs of Radha and Krishna we must serve the lotus feet of Sri Rupa Goswami with intense eagerness. He also wrote:

Achieving anything in life requires focus and determination. If our efforts and attitudes are consistent, we can achieve our intended goals easily and quickly. But if our motives are impure and our endeavors distracted, our success is hampered. In spiritual life, pure intentions and consistent focus on the prescribed practices are of vital importance. The timeless scripture Srimad-Bhagavatam (1.2.6) emphasizes this principle:

A pandemic can seem monstrously meaningless. A virus from one corner of the world can mean death for thousands, disease for millions, and disruption of daily life for billions.

No one likes suffering. But what we especially dislike is meaningless suffering. If we are given an injection, we accept the momentary pain as part of the cure. But if a thorn pricks us while we walk on a road, we find that pointless pain especially annoying.

prabhu kahe, vedanta-sutra ishvara-vachana
vyasa-rupe kaila yaha shri-narayana

bhrama, pramada, vipralipsa, karanapatava
ishvarera vakye nahi dosha ei saba

It has been almost two years since I began to deal more deeply with the issue of sustainable living. When I started, I did not think that researching sustainability would lead me to another interesting field, which was meditation, a topic I had already known to some extent. I would like to share the key steps of this exciting intellectual journey so that I can rouse or further your interest in both areas.