In the truth of who we are and what we love lies our deepest fulfillment

We all desire lasting life, lasting love and lasting happiness. We expect certain things from those whom we love and feel disappointed when they don’t live up to our expectations. Actually, these aspirations can be fulfilled not by acquiring something external or finding some elusive person in some corner of the world to love. Yes, some such things may be better than other, but none can fulfill our deepest longing. Our aspiration can be fulfilled by going inwards to understand who we are and act according to the truth of our identity. In the truth of who we are — eternal souls who are parts of Krishna, as the Bhagavad-gita (15.07) states — lies the origin of our deepest longing. And in truth of what we love — that is, in the true understanding of who is the truest object meant for our love, we can move closer and closer towards the elusive happiness that we are looking for. The Gita (18.54) states that when we realize our spiritual essence, we become free from the worldly cravings and frustrations that characterize our life at the material level of consciousness. By finding satisfaction in our spiritual identity and glory, we become free from dependence on outer pleasures and thus become free also from vulnerability to the misery that comes from loss of those pleasures. And in that purified state of spiritual realization, we direct our love fully towards Krishna, not for getting something from him at the material level of reality, but because we recognize him that he is the embodiment and fulfillment of our deepest aspirations, that he is his greatest blessing and that he gives himself to us by his sublimely relishable self-revelation when we learn to love him purely.