Suppose we are living on some land and want to purchase some other land. Suppose further we have with us someone who insistently shows us the worst aspects of that land: it’s too costly, too remote, too barren, too rocky, too messy. If we hear only them, we will never purchase that land, or, for that matter, any other land because they will find negatives with all new land. 

Whenever we try to do anything enterprising, a negative voice speaks from inside us: the voice of doubt. That voice may say, “You are not smart enough, not experienced enough, not fortunate enough.” What if those statements are true? Even if they have some grains of truth, the truth is usually bigger than those grains. If we accept whatever doubt says, we will never attempt anything challenging.  And we will stay where we are, never doing  anything that may improve us, externally or internally. 

When we strive to explore life’s higher spiritual dimensions, that voice often takes an especially intellectual tone and starts highlighting everything that seems problematic with the path we are considering. While each specific doubt can be addressed appropriately, the point is to go beyond arguing over specifics to recognize its overall strategy: undermining and sabotaging us. In fact, doubt can permanently imprison us in a life far below our potential, in this world and the next (Bhagavad-gita 04.40). 

Doubt can be healthy when it points out the problems and dangers in a particular enterprise. However, doubt becomes unhealthy when it makes us obsess over those problems and blinds us to everything else, including especially all possibility of improving from our present situation. 

One-sentence summary: 

Doubt claims to be just showing us the reality while showing us only the worst part of that reality.

Think it over:

  • How does doubt mislead us?
  • When is doubt healthy and when does it become unhealthy?
  • What are the common claims with which doubt undermines you?

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04.40: But ignorant and faithless persons who doubt the revealed scriptures do not attain God consciousness; they fall down. For the doubting soul there is happiness neither in this world nor in the next.

 

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