Gurudev, I am a soldier. Will doing sadhana reduce my zeal and enthusiasm?
No, not at all. In fact, doing sadhana will help you strengthen and maintain your enthusiasm and positivity. Do not think that by doing sadhana you will become passive and lose the will to fight. If that was the case, then why would the Bhagavad Gita have been recited in the midst of the battlefield? Why would Lord Krishna encourage Arjuna to fight? Lord Krishna’s very purpose behind reciting the Gita was to fill Arjuna with enthusiasm from within. Arjuna had become dejected and lost the will to fight; he just wanted to run away from the battlefield and retire into the caves of the Himalayas as a recluse.
He told Lord Krishna, “O Lord, what would I possibly need? Just two square meals a day to sustain myself? I would readily get that there also. Why engage in all this bloodshed? I can live off the fruits from the trees”.
But Lord Krishna persisted and told Arjuna, “O Arjuna! It is not so. All this is just the weakness of the mind that you are caught up in. Drop all this and fight”.
See, sometime or the other, even a strong soldier gets caught up in emotional weaknesses of the heart and mind. He may feel loneliness, or he may be overcome with doubt and fear. For a soldier to be able to rise above all such negativity, sadhana will be of utmost help. So do not ever think that one loses enthusiasm and zeal because of doing sadhana. Yes, by doing sadhana, one becomes free from the clutches of anger, aversions and envy, but you will never lose your sense of duty and responsibility.
Do not think that if there is no sense of hatred or aversion, then you will not be able to fight. It is not so. Hatred and aversion only make you weaker. A person filled with hatred may appear to be angry and very strong on the outside, but in reality he gets shaken because of this and the mind becomes weak and unsteady. Even our muscles and sinews grow weak. So when you fight, do not fight out of hatred and feverishness; instead fight with a firm determination and steady mind. There is a huge difference between these two states, When you fight, fight with full enthusiasm and also with total awareness. This is the spiritual path, this is Dharma.