Philadelphia, PA
Srila Prabhupada often says and writes that to understand the science of Krishna consciousness, one must keep a “cool head.”
For instance, in Message of Godhead, he writes: “ [In the material world] we are as if roaming in the street like street beggars, although we are all the transcendental sons of the richest personality, the Personality of Godhead. With a cool head, we could very well understand this fact.” (Message of Godhead)
Similarly, in his writings about morality, author Reinhold Niebuhr writes: “Rationality belongs to the cool observer.”
One who has a vested interest in something looses his or her power to see it objectively because of being overly attached or “too close” to it.
To advance in bhakti yoga, one must learn to be aloof (literally, “at a distance”) from matter and material desires.
Thinking, “there’s no profit for me at all in the material world,” one should keep a cool head and become a cool observer of the material world; neither hating things or being too much attached to them, one should simply engage whatever one gets in Krishna’s service.
Vaisesika Dasa
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