Suppose someone starts showing us a horror movie. If we find such movies disconcerting or distasteful, we will refuse to watch it.

We need to similarly refuse when the mind starts showing us a horror movie internally. Consider an example of how an inner horror movie may unfold. In office, we may be mildly reproached by our boss for a minor mistake. From that rebuke, the mind may imagine that we are disgraced and dismissed, are unable to get any job, can’t pay our mortgage, are on the streets and are reduced to starvation. Actually, we might be sitting in an AC room, fully capable of correcting the mistake for which we were reprimanded. But the mind can make us feel jobless, homeless, penniless, foodless, helpless. In its perversely petrifying horror movie, it casts us not as spectators, but as victims.

Hardly ever does the mind’s dystopia materialize. Most of our fears are simply imagined, never actualized. If ever a fear does actualize, we can, at that time, find some way to go through and grow through it. Why let problems existing only in our imagination crush us in reality?

Significantly, the mind can overwhelm us only after we consent, usually unwittingly, to watching its movie. The Bhagavad-gita (06.06) warns that the uncontrolled mind is a dangerous enemy. To keep the mind under control, we need to be internally alert to turn away from its horror movie.

The best way to turn away from the mind’s horror channel is to turn on Krishna’s bhakti channel. By chanting his holy names, studying his message and prayerfully engaging in his service, we can get inner strength and security. Boosted thus, we can stop the mind’s dystopia and calmly figure out how to tackle life’s real issues.

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