Let temptation activate the warrior within, not the philanderer within

Suppose enemy forces sneak in to attack a country. If the border is guarded by their own spy instead of a faithful warrior, the spy will open doors that need to be closed, thus subjecting the country to an avoidable defeat. If both the faithful soldier and the spy are at the border, the faithful soldier needs to spring into action before the spy.

When we start practicing spiritual life, we enter into a war against illusion. Illusion attacks primarily through temptations that promise pleasure but deliver misery. Unfortunately, the border of our consciousness is often not well-guarded.

Within us is a philanderer who wants to simply enjoy without considering any higher principles or purposes. And within us is also a warrior who recognizes that temptations can be deceptive, dangerous and degrading, and is alert to determinedly resist them. Our mind, predominated as it often is by shortsighted desires such as lust, is like the philanderer – it acts like illusion’s spy within our consciousness. Our intelligence, when illumined by spiritual wisdom, is like the warrior. The Bhagavad-gita (03.36-43) illumines us about the nature of lust and concludes (03.43) by exhorting us to use our intelligence to fight and overcome illusion’s formidable attacks.

When we are lax in our spiritual practices such as scriptural study, our inner warrior gets lulled into a deep slumber, whereas our inner philanderer becomes active and energetic. In contrast, diligent bhakti practice keeps our inner warrior alert and fighting fit. Thereafter, when temptation beckons, we see it not as an opportunity to enjoy or even a burden to resist, but as a danger to be avoided. In fact, bhakti wisdom offers a spiritually energizing vision of temptation as a devotional opportunity – an opportunity to show our devotion to Krishna by choosing him instead of illusion.

Set targets not so much to meet them as to meet Krishna through them

Few things are as empowering in casting off lethargy as setting targets – they infuse our work with urgency and intensity. Of course, there’s a danger: targets can become a consuming obsession.

Significantly, bhakti wisdom helps us see targets as tools to a higher end – the end of connecting purposefully and earnestly with Krishna. The Bhagavad-gita (11.33) points to such a targeted approach when it urges Arjuna to arise and fight, thereby overpowering his opponents and winning a prosperous kingdom. And the Gita boosts this call for targeted action by giving Arjuna the vision that his opponents have already been destroyed by divine arrangement.

But even while practicing bhakti, if we let our focus shift too much or too long from Krishna to the target, we can get caught in target obsession. To protect our consciousness, bhakti wisdom reminds us that for Krishna, the most important offering is the offering of our consciousness. And this devotional focus of our consciousness can be enhanced when we set targets in our services. But if we misconceive that the offering comprises something external to ourselves and that that external offering is the primary or only offering, we won’t be able to stay peaceful and devotionally disposed when worldly upheavals threaten that offering, as they inevitably will given the world’s unending uncertainties.

Of course, as we want to serve Krishna in this world, we can and should try our best to make the external offering. But if we are unable to do so, our focus on Krishna will increase our fervent prayerfulness, thereby granting us the sublime shelter of deep absorption in him. And as compared to our outer meeting of targets, our inner meeting with Krishna while pursuing our outer targets will be far more elevating, fulfilling and liberating.

Don’t give in to a death wish — give it the death sentence

The Bhagavad-gita (01.45) begins with a death wish. Arjuna is faced with the horrendous prospect of a fratricidal war against his loved ones, especially his venerable elders. Recoiling from that nightmarish prospect, he says that he would prefer to die rather than succumb to something so terrible, all for the sake of money in the form of a kingdom.

We too may get a death wish — life may sometimes confront us with such mortifying adversities that we may feel as if life itself is not worth living; whatever we do it seems will only worsen the situation, not resolve it.

At such times, the Gita’s timeless wisdom can raise our vision beyond the material level of reality that is the source and the arena of perplexities and adversities. The Gita helps us understand that we are indestructible spiritual beings, for whom death is only a transition, not a termination. So, death will not solve our problems for the karmic complications that have caused those problems will chase us doggedly and come upon us in our next incarnation and incarceration.

More importantly and more hope-impartingly, we need to recognize that Krishna’s love for us stands tall above whatever problems afflict us presently. Every situation is an opportunity to love and serve Krishna, no matter what happens. By focusing on how we can serve him in the present situation instead of lamenting about how or why things are not going according to our plan, we can shift our focus from the adversity or the perplexity to the opportunity. And the resulting positivity, when empowered with Gita wisdom, can be so transforming that it infuses us with an indefatigable purpose for our life, thereby giving the death sentence to the death wish.

On hearing and understanding the Gita, Arjuna exiled his death wish; indeed, we can say that he gave the death sentence to that death wish. Far from wallowing in self-pity or any other form of self-induced misery, he rose with determination and devotion, ready to fight for his life — not just his bodily life in this world but also his eternal life in the spiritual world in immortal love for Krishna.

Don’t equate the essential with the exclusive

A person driving a car needs fuel, but if they carry with them nothing except fuel and if they imagine that fuel can satisfy their hunger and their thirst, then they are mistaken — horrendously, tragically, ludicrously mistaken.

Money is often the stuff of our strongest fantasies. Such longing is understandable given that we need money for our necessities. Yet more often than not, our longing transmogrifies into an unbalanced, uni-dimensional obsession that has little to do with our needs, and everything to do with our wants, wants that are often triggered within us by our corporate controlled media.

To let money acquire exclusive control over our aspirations and actions is to set ourselves up for disaster. The more we recognize that we are meant to be more than money-minting machines, the more we can strive to ensure that money aids our purpose and doesn’t become our purpose. Otherwise, we court the deadly danger of money slowly, but sinisterly treading over and then trampling upon all the other aspects of our life, aspects that we hold sacred, aspects that make our life worth living. The Bhagavad-gita (16.13-15) outlines the money-centered megalomaniac mentality that makes people murderers of their rivals.

Those who drink car fuel hurt themselves. Similarly, those who live only for money end up hurting themselves. Only when we remember that money is meant to be used for a higher purpose can be keep money in its proper place in our priorities. Gita wisdom offers us a complete understanding of our being and of the purpose of our being, wherein the aspiration for pure eternal love — love for Krishna and all living beings in relationship with Krishna — helps us redefine money as a resource meant for service and contribution, not for aggrandizement and exploitation, thus contributing to our deep inner fulfillment.

Attachment to results confuses cause and effect

When we want to achieve something difficult, we often envision the result and that vision inspires us to strive determinedly. While envisioning the result can be inspiring, we need to avoid attachment to the result.

Why? Because the result is the effect of several factors of which our action is only one. When we become attached to the result, we set ourselves up for illusion in both success and failure – in success, we become proud thinking that we are so great that we have achieved the result. In failure, we become dejected thinking that the failure reflects our ineptitude and worthlessness, thus eroding our self-esteem.

But instead if we understand that our part is as one cause, then we can do our part diligently without becoming distracted or disheartened. The Bhagavad-gita (02.47) recommends that we focus on the work, knowing that that alone is in our hands. By knowing that we alone are not the cause of the result of the work, we can avoid becoming obsessed with the result. By knowing that our efforts do contribute to the result, we can also avoid the apathy and lethargy that breed inaction and irresponsibility.

A farmer who gets so caught in dreaming about the harvest as to neglect carefully plowing the land or sowing the crops sabotages their chances of getting the harvest. Similarly, we too sabotage our chance of getting the result by obsessing over them. In bhakti-yoga, with Krishna as the Lord of our life and work, we understand that he will be pleased with our endeavors even if the results don’t come about.

By thus keeping our head clear about what the cause is and what the effect is, we can avoid getting distracted by thoughts of the effect while also maximizing our contribution to the cause.

The lower our consciousness, the lesser is our contribution

When we live in a fast-paced activity-centered culture, we may wonder whether we are wasting our time by practicing spiritual life, wherein we don’t do anything practical; we just sit and meditate.

Actually, our spiritual activities are potent means for raising our consciousness and thereby maximizing our contribution.

Our consciousness goes up and down because of the three modes of material nature: goodness, passion and ignorance. When we are situated in the elevated mode of goodness, knowledge illumines us (Gita 14.11), thus making our actions contemplative and contributive. When we are situated in passion (14.12), we are impelled towards actions driven by selfish desire, especially greed. Amidst such action, we focus not on contribution, but on consumption. Though we may do a lot, we remain obsessed with what we will get out of what we do, not what we are giving.

When our consciousness is in the lowest mode of ignorance, we are stripped of our capacities for both illumination and action – we are afflicted by a delusion that induces paralysis. We sink into ourselves, daydreaming about doing hundreds of things but not doing even one of them. We may even withdraw into some alternate reality through TV or video games, imagining ourselves to be big heroes shooting images on a screen. When we do act while being driven by ignorance, our actions are not contributive, but destructive.

As our contemporary culture is largely in the modes of passion and ignorance, we are constantly susceptible to be caught by those modes, thus undermining our higher purpose and our bigger contribution. When we invest time in spiritual practices such as meditation and scriptural study, we become empowered to raise our consciousness and become enriched with the capacities for clear illumination and purposeful action, thereby maximizing our contributions.

Don’t just look for the silver lining — become the silver lining

When dark dreary dangerous clouds of perplexities and adversities start darkening the sky of our life, we become disheartened, hoping to find a silver lining somewhere.

Thankfully however, our life is not like the vast sky somewhere up there, about which we can do very little. Yes, there are factors beyond our control in our life, factors than can drastically change things for us. Yet our own responses still remain in our control.

The Bhagavad-gita (01.46) begins with Arjuna dejected, casting aside his bow, losing his resolve to fight. In despair, he turns to Krishna for help. And Krishna gives him the immortal, transformational, empowering wisdom of the Gita.

And the Gita centers on a call (11.33) for Arjuna to take action, to arise and act, for attaining victory in the virtuous cause of establishing dharma. And as the non-combatant Krishna helped Arjuna, he too similarly helps us by empowering us to help ourselves.

Arjuna heeds Krishna’s call, by determinedly resolving to do Krishna’s will (18.73) and lifting his bow aloft in readiness to fight (18.78).

This illustrates that the Gita’s onus for action is on us. It certainly gives us a positive message that goes far beyond platitudes to the power of spiritual love which infuses our aspirations and actions with a vision of higher reality. At the same time, the Gita doesn’t just reassure us that there is a silver lining beyond life’s dark clouds — it urges us to become the silver lining, by resolving to devotedly and determinedly to our part in the whole, as did Arjuna. When we thus take up the initiative and the responsibility to become the silver lining without passively waiting for it to appear mysteriously, we accelerate its appearance and become engines and harbingers of positivity and change.

Those who don’t have money are poor, but those who have only money are poorer still

To be labeled as poor and be looked down at by others ranks among people’s most dreaded nightmares.

Money is essential. However, when it becomes our primary, even sole, craving, we evaluate everything in monetary terms. The Bhagavad-gita (16.14) paints a dire scenario wherein money-mad people even become murderous towards those whom they perceive as threats. While we may think ourselves immune to such extremes, still we are very much vulnerable to the underlying mentality that breeds those extremes.

Thus, for example, we end up ruining our health by taking up too many projects that cause us stress, hypertension and other health issues. Or we become suspicious of anyone and everyone, especially our well-wishers when they urge us to seek moderation and balance for protecting ourselves from our obsession with money. By such suspiciousness, we sentence ourselves to loneliness, which makes impossible the very love that we had hoped to attract and increase by acquiring money.

Our innermost longing is to love and to be loved. Desiring to earn people’s love, we strive and slave to earn more and more money. But unfortunately, we soon discover that most of the people who are attracted to us are attracted to our money, not to us. Such experiences make us reactionary, overly suspicious of everyone, including those who are actually concerned about us, not our money. The resulting loneliness is the most heart-wrenching form of poverty.

Gita wisdom helps us arrive at a balance by reminding us of our core need of love and by giving us a spiritualized vision of everything, even money seeing it as a manifestation of the Goddess of Fortune, who is blessing us with opportunities to engage her gifts in the service of her Lord for our and others’ lasting well-being.

Don’t raise your eyes alone – raise your heart too

When we face overwhelming problems in life, we may lift our eyes and look for help from higher powers, ultimately from God, Krishna.

Such lifting our eyes above life’s routine realities is auspicious; it indicates that we have accepted that forces higher than the human are for real and can make a real difference. The Bhagavad-gita (07.16) appreciates such people who approach Krishna as pious.

While the mitigation of our problems does provide some relief, unfortunately, no worldly relief lasts for long. Some or the other problem soon comes up. Our vulnerability to such disruptions stems from our misdirected desire. We are souls who are eternal parts of Krishna. Though we are meant to love and serve him, we are craving for worldly things. But these things are inherently temporary, so they are incapable of providing us lasting shelter.

If we are fortunate, we understand by studying the Gita that Krishna is the embodiment and fulfillment of all our heart’s desires. Whatever has attracted us gets its attractiveness from Krishna, as the Gita (10.41) informs us. Understanding this inspires us to seek him as our ultimate goal, not as a means to something else that presently rules our heart.

Thus, we raise not just our eyes but also our heart. That is, we strive to make Krishna our most desirable object by practicing bhakti-yoga diligently. When we thus enthrone him as the Lord of our heart or at least cherish him as our loftiest aspiration, then we experience a sublime peace and empowerment in our inner connectedness with him through devotional remembrance.

Aptly, the Gita (07.19) declares that those who devote themselves to Krishna are enriched with knowledge (jnana-van); they surrender wholeheartedly to him, thus deserving and receiving the worthy epithet of being great souls (mahatmas).

The Lord does not belong to any dynasty; all dynasties belong to him

One of the most endearing aspect of the conception of God revealed in the Vedic tradition is that he doesn’t let his greatness create a great distance between him and us. He makes himself accessible by manifesting in this world in various forms, specifically the forms that are attractive according to contemporary conceptions of attractiveness.

Thus, Krishna manifests in one of the most powerful dynasties of his times: the Yadu dynasty. And yet even when he appears as a scion of that dynasty, he remains eternal and transcendental.

The Bhagavatam gives the example that just as a sandal can be found anywhere, but is found especially in the place known as Malaya. Similarly, the Lord can appear in any dynasty but he chooses to appear in the dynasty of the Yadus. Just as sandal doesn’t belong to the Malaya region alone, the Lord doesn’t belong to the Yadu dynasty alone.

Thus, the Bhagavad-gita (10.06) states that Krishna is the source of all the progenitors of the universe from whom in due course the whole universe became populated. This implies that Krishna is the source of all the dynasties that existed at that time when the Gita was spoken and indeed of all dynasties existing at all times everywhere.

To the extent we dwell on the all-inclusiveness of his supreme position, to that extent we can appreciate the extraordinary accessibility of his manifestation in his two-handed form.

Just as the sun rises from the eastern direction, but was not birthed by that direction, similarly, the dynasty in which Krishna appears is the channel for manifestation, not the cause of creation.

By thus appreciating how the source of everything makes himself mercifully accessible to us, we can increase our pure affection for him.

Focus on the present, but don’t fragment it from the future

“Live in the present” is a popular self-help slogan that can enhance our concentration and contribution in whatever we do. However, if this slogan becomes our sole guide, we may succumb to a shortsighted feel-good mentality that is blind to the present’s future consequences. If we eat a dozen fatty candies because they taste so good now, we may end up with stomach upset, obesity, even diabetes. The Bhagavad-gita (18.38) cautions that things which taste like nectar initially often taste like poison eventually – that is the nature of sensual pleasures. In contrast, things that taste like poison initially often taste like nectar eventually – such is the nature of refined pleasures (18.37). Consider learning a new skill or subject. If we get caught only in the present, the difficulty in learning may overwhelm us – all the more so if, because of being caught in the present, we mistakenly imagine that things will always be as difficult as they are at present. But if we remember that the present difficulty is temporary and will give way to a whole new world of experience and enjoyment, we can summon the determination to persevere through the present. Such farsightedness is vital for our bhakti practice, wherein we need to persevere through the initial poison of purification to relish the eventual nectar of joyful absorption in Krishna. Of course, we need to avoid the other extreme: idly daydreaming about the future without doing in the present. After all, it is the present – our diligent learning in the present – that will bring about that future. By seeing the present as the essential way to the future, we can focus duly on the present while also staying encouraged by remembering that what we are learning is much richer than our present experience of it. 

For self-improvement, go beyond self-criticism and self-congratulation to self-realization

Some people say that to succeed in life, we should be hard on ourselves. We should unrelentingly critique ourselves, unsparingly punish ourselves for our mistakes and unsentimentally subject ourselves to the grind of discipline. Such self-criticism can help us on the path of self-improvement. But it can harm too – it can keep us trapped under a heavy burden of negativity that can sap our morale and prevent us in the long run from even attempting some difficult things because of the fear of doing them wrong. Some other people say that we should be gentle to ourselves and coddle our inner child – by generously praising ourselves for even our smallest self-improvement steps, we will feel encouraged to take bigger steps. Such self-consideration can help us progress realistically towards self-improvement. But it can degenerate into a form of self-congratulation, wherein we get so caught in lauding ourselves for being good as we are now that we don’t push ourselves out of our comfort zones. The authentic path to self-improvements steers clear of both extremes of self-criticism and self-congratulation and focuses instead on self-realization. The Bhagavad-gita (02.13) begins by explaining that we are at our core spiritual beings. As souls, we are eternal parts of Krishna (15.07) and can relish lasting happiness by learning to love him with whatever talents and resources we presently have. For such devotional utilization of our God-given gifts, self-realization also means better understanding our present embodied condition, wherein we understand our God-given strengths and our limitations. We can work on our strengths to improve them, thereby making tangible contributions. And by learning to live with our limitations, we can vigilantly steer clear of any pitfalls that those limitations make us prone to. By such holistic self-realization, we can march steadily and strongly towards self-improvement and self-actualization in a mood of loving service to Krishna. –