When we have difficulties in life, severe or mild, we are trained by our predecessor teachers or acharyas or saintly people to take shelter of Krishna in humility. Because when we experience anxiety, depression or other negative emotions like anger, self-pity etc, it is very difficult to control the mind on our own. Therefore taking shelter of Krishna in humility during these difficult times, as devotees, will help us solve our problem and take us closer to Krishna.
Shelter in humility means to give up our attachment to the result of our negative experience and simply accept the result of the negative event as an award from Krishna. We may not like the result given to us, we may feel unfairly treated, we may harbor anger and or hate but still if somehow we tolerate the outcome and accept all of it as the hand of God and take shelter of Him in humility, then the same bad experience will act as an incident in our life in cleaning our dirty heart and because of the cleaning we will actually feel relief followed by a sense of happiness followed by stronger faith upon Krishna. This is how we get closer to God.
So what is the heart actually cleansed of or what is really dirty in our heart?- It is our attachment as the cause (or doer) of activities in this world and our identity with this reality. As a result of this attachment we either rejoice or revel in sadness.
As this false sense of identity and doer of activity is cleaned, we will experience more and more joy ultimately bringing us to the platform of Brahman or pure consciousness. From this anti-material platform...one can never forget God Krishna or service to God. Unconditional and uninterrupted service and bhakti begins from here.
So let us try our best in moments of despair to take shelter of Krishna with whatever humility is at our disposal and pray that the Lord protects us from the external problems and also our internal negative mind. Krishna says in the Gita 6.7 for one who has conquered the mind, the supersoul is already reached.
Hare Krishna
