“I am Your eternal servant, but I forgot Your Lordship. Now I have fallen into the ocean of nescience and have been conditioned by the external energy”

– Lord Chaitanya’s prayer in Chaitanya Charitamrita (CC. Antya 20.33)

While chanting today morning I began to feel hopeless as I realized how the mind is invincible; it’s deeply programmed to take me away from Krishna. The harder I try, the severe the backlash seems to be. Many spiritual practitioners are likely to face the stark reality sooner or later; our mind is a formidable enemy who is here to stay and relentlessly harass us. Then is our condition hopeless?

This is yet another trick of the mind; “you are useless. You can never do it”. Don’t listen to this analysis of the mind. The mind is expert in presenting a poor estimation of yourself, and don’t be surprised if later the mind also drags you to the other extreme, “Oh, you are the best, but all others are envious of you” All proposals of the mind regarding our position is based on falsity; our real identity is ‘I am a servant of Krishna’ and to the extent we are fixed in this consciousness, the mind is peaceful.

The more we think of ourselves as someone significant, independent of Krishna, we’d hover between the extremes of trying to enjoy in this world, and when our attempts to exploit the resources of this world fail, we’d drift to the other extreme of feeling frustrated.

Now let me chant again, this time only listening to the Holy Names of Krishna, and as and when the mind wanders, let me gently pull it back, with a silent prayer, “Krishna, I can’t do it on my own; I need Your help to be able to serve You. Krishna, please accept me, let me remain always your servant” I feel very hopeful making this prayer; I am after all an ever hopeful servant.