Let your dreams be a spur for action, not a substitute for them

We often dream of improving things. Among all species, we humans have the distinctive, even unique, capacity to dream of a better future and then strive to actualize it. For example, birds keep staying in a similar kind of nest generation after generation, but we envision and erect better houses. Indeed, our capacity to dream has enabled us to develop technology and change the shape of the world around us. And yet this very capacity can work against us if we let our dreams become divorced from reality. That is, if we dream without doing anything tangible to change things, then our dreaming aggravates our divorce from reality. We may keep fantasizing about doing big, big things, while actually becoming increasingly paralytic about doing even simple, basic things. The Bhagavad-gita (18.35) cautions that daydreaming characterizes determination in the mode of ignorance. To keep fantasizing amidst an unpleasant reality requires determination. But if such dreaming is used to rationalize negligence of reality and responsibility, then such behavior represents determination in ignorance. Instead of such ignorant dreaming, Gita wisdom offers us a far superior alternative: enlightened dreaming. The Gita sparks our spiritual imagination by helping us understand our essential identity as souls and providing us access to the unlimited happiness available to us as eternal, beloved parts of the all-attractive, all-loving supreme: Krishna. And the practice of bhakti-yoga in the association of seasoned spiritualists gives us glimpses of that sublime satisfaction, further kindling our devotional dreams. Being thus inspired, when we take tangible steps towards developing spiritual love for Krishna, our dreams become spurs for dynamic activism in a mood of devotion . Such devotional activism brings about, by Krishna’s mercy, the most enduring and fulfilling improvement: the spiritualization of our consciousness and the unending satisfaction thereof.