The senses may be windows to the world, but they are mere portholes to reality

A window gives us the sensation that we are looking at a large part of the outside world through it. In contrast, a porthole, being a small window in a ship, reminds us that we are getting a bare peek at the large reality out there.

Our senses seem like windows to the world around us. Information from the world streams in to us through the senses, making us feel that we know or can know a lot about that world. This feeling of increased access to the world is further boosted by science, which starts with the information provided by the senses and theorizes to make sense of that information. Yet that very science suggests that there’s much more to reality than what is visible. For example, astrophysics holds that more than 95% of the universe is composed of invisible stuff called dark matter. Thus, even according to science, our senses give us only a tiny glimpse of reality.

Acknowledging that the senses are mere portholes to reality opens us to Gita wisdom. The Bhagavad-gita (15.10) stresses that the soul can be seen only with the eyes of knowledge. This principle that the senses can’t perceive the spiritual applies all the more so to the supreme soul, Krishna, who is infinite.

Nonetheless, the Gita (10.41) indicates that everything attractive reflects a spark of Krishna’s all-attractiveness. If we see the world’s attractive objects as independent sources of pleasure, our senses will act as doorways to illusion. But if we see those objects’ attractiveness as pointers to Krishna’s all-attractiveness – as we learn to see by the Gita’s eyes of knowledge – then our senses will serve as portholes to the highest spiritual reality. We will feel inspired to practice bhakti-yoga intensely to increasingly relish Krishna’s eternal all-attractiveness.

Failure is not catastrophic – to see failure as catastrophic is catastrophic

Our mind often makes problems seem worse than what they actually are. Suppose someone fails in an exam. Their mind may tell them that their failure proves that they are not good enough, for education or even for life itself. If they become so disheartened as to give up on life, that suicidal quitting is catastrophic.

When we fail at something, the mind often catastrophizes such failures. It berates us that we are good-for-nothing and that our failure proves that we will never be good for anything. Being battered thus by the mind, we lose the spirit to do what we could otherwise have done for dealing with the problem. Consequently, the situation worsens; the mind uses that worsened situation to beat us even more; and we end up paralyzed. Eventually, our seeing the failure as a catastrophe is what makes it a catastrophe.

We can counter the mind’s dystopia by internalizing Gita wisdom. The Gita explains that we are at our core indestructible souls. Whatever things go wrong are going wrong in the body or the world, which is ultimately peripheral to our essential self. Moreover, we have an eternal relationship with the supreme spiritual being, Krishna, who loves us always, no matter what goes wrong or even what we do wrong. The Bhagavad-gita (05.20) states that those who are situated in spiritual knowledge are not shaken by upheavals.

Our spiritual self-understanding gives us the inner security necessary to see things in perspective. We learn to view the reversal objectively. Instead of letting the mind unwarrantedly extrapolate from one failure to a blanket self-condemnation, we calmly discern how to best rectify the situation. Being no longer weighed down by our mental perception of the problem, we can use our energy optimally for responding effectively to the actual problem.

To lose one’s reason is bad, but to lose everything except one’s reason is far worse

Our reason, our rational faculty, is vital for keeping us intelligently regulated and purposefully directed in life. The use of reason has assisted in the development of many influential fields of knowledge such as science. If we lose our reason, we become sentimental and gullible, vulnerable to imprudent or even self-destructive choices.

Losing our reason is dangerous, but danger lies at the other extreme too – in losing everything except our reason. For example, the Nazis used reason to rationalize the Holocaust. They appropriated the prevalent theory of social Darwinism to convince themselves that they, the Nazis, were earth’s fittest race and that the Jews, whom they saw as their nemesis, were an unfit race that nature would eliminate in due course amidst the survival of the fittest. They saw their gas chambers simply as ways of helping nature in its evolutionary course. Their unidimensional devotion to their version of reason desensitized them to the monstrous atrocities they were inflicting on millions of Jews.

Reason, when made into a god, can make us unfeeling automatons who perpetrate unconscionable deeds remorselessly. The natural brainchild of reason is doubt: doubt towards anything that doesn’t submit itself to reason. When reason becomes our life’s sole arbiter, we doubt and discard other valid and valuable forms of knowing such as conscience, intuition, common sense, scriptural revelation and spiritual experience. The Bhagavad-gita (04.40) cautions that those who submit uncritically to doubt get happiness neither in this world nor the next.

Rather than granting reason monopoly over our life, we need to integrate it in a holistic life. Bhakti-yoga assists in such integration by enabling us to use all our faculties, including our reason, to connect lovingly with the supreme source of everyone, Krishna, thereby developing an empathic vision towards all.

Regulation is the foundation for purification

Suppose we had to clean a water tank. We would need to do two things: clean the water already in the tank and regulate the water flowing into it. If dirty water were allowed to flow in unrestrictedly, then despite the best cleaning, the tank would still remain unclean.

Like a water tank that needs cleaning, our consciousness needs purification; we need to purge it of base impressions for selfish, shortsighted indulgence so that we, as eternal spiritual beings, can actualize our potential for lasting fulfillment. To cleanse our consciousness, we need to expose it to pure stimuli. The best such stimulus is the supreme spiritual reality, God, Krishna, who is supremely pure and supremely purifying. Consistent connection with him can purify even the most contaminated consciousness.

Simultaneously, we need to avoid further exposure to impure, agitating stimuli. The Bhagavad-gita, while outlining how to control selfish desires (03.36-43), stresses that we need to begin by regulating our senses (03.41). Such regulation prevents the further contamination of our consciousness. Though we can’t avoid all contact of the senses with the sense objects, we can certainly minimize it to the essential.

Won’t such regulation seem like deprivation? Not if it is the springboard for connecting with a source of higher satisfaction. Pertinently, the Gita reminds us of our spiritual identity (03.42) and urges us to use our intelligence for situating ourselves on the spiritual platform (03.43). The most easy and effective way to become spiritually situated is by practicing bhakti-yoga (08.14). This yoga of love connects us with Krishna, who is the source of unlimited happiness. That connection enables us to gradually and increasingly relish life’s supreme happiness. The Gita (06.27) confirms that steady spiritual discipline enables us to find the ultimate joy.

Thus, regulation sets the ground for purification and ultimately the supreme satisfaction.

Don’t depress yourself – depress your expectation from yourself

 A child who wants to become a long-jump champion needs to start by taking tiny jumps that may seem negligibly ordinary. But for that child, those small jumps are practical, tangible, valuable steps forward.

Whenever we strive to achieve something worthwhile or glorious, we may fail.

That failure can dishearten and depress us. To avoid such depression, we need to recognize that more important than success is progress. If we develop a steady momentum of moving from where we are toward where we want to go, we will, sooner or later, reach where we are meant to be.

Based on our natures, talents and circumstances, we all have different starting points – what may be easy for someone else may not be so easy for us. If we disregard or deny this reality, we succumb to one of the two sides of the counterfeit coin of ego-induced temptation: unrealistic expectation (“I am so great”) and unwarranted depression (“I am so worthless”).

To resist such temptation, we need to depress our expectations. Depressing our expectations doesn’t mean licensing lethargy or apathy; it simply means acknowledging that long journeys are traversed through small steady steps, not through sudden stunning leaps. An attitude of humble realism towards our present status and capacity can help us build the momentum of steady progress that will eventually engender success.

This principle applies to spiritual growth too. The Bhagavad-gita (04.38) indicates that the ability to relish inner happiness through spiritual knowledge develops over time. In the same vein, the Gita (06.25-26) urges us to repeatedly strive for bringing the mind towards the spiritual without unrealistically expecting spiritual absorption overnight. Such sustained practice will eventually make us pacified, purified and satisfied (06.27-28).

By depressing our expectation from success to progress, we can resist the temptation of depression and progress towards success.

Bhakti is beyond feminism – and beyond male chauvinism too

Gender roles are becoming increasingly intermingled and blurred nowadays. Conservatives blame feminism for various social problems such as marital ruptures and teenage delinquency. Liberals counter that male chauvinism has caused far bigger social problems such as domestic violence and bridal burnings.

When people with such orientations start practicing bhakti, they often stress their orientations within their conception of bhakti. Thus, some hold that non-traditional ideologies such as feminism have caused the lack of spirituality among women and thereby in all of society; so, social re-spiritualization requires the repudiation of feminism. Others counter that today the lack of spirituality plagues men too, who would only exploit women if the clock were turned back; better to not position bhakti as antagonistic to influential social trends such as feminism.

Either way, such attacks and counter-attacks risk missing the problem: misdirected consciousness. The Bhagavad-gita (15.07) explains that we all are souls, parts of Krishna, and are meant to love and serve him. Be we men or women, conservatives or liberals, if we don’t live harmoniously with Krishna, our consciousness gets misdirected by our mind and senses. These inner agents of illusion torment us with various desires and conceptions. And goaded by their torment, we end up acting in ways that torment others. Amidst such internal and external torment, worldly conceptions such as feminism or male chauvinism often become convenient whipping boys.

Ultimately, bhakti is transcendental to all worldly conceptions – it is the human heart’s loving connection with the divine heart. Whatever our personal disposition or social position, we all can cultivate bhakti. When we focus on practicing bhakti-yoga diligently, the resulting deepened devotion will make us more open to Krishna’s inner guidance (10.10). With such spiritualized intelligence, we will understand how we can best act as parts of the solution, not parts of the problem.

In bhakti, understanding and practice are not just sequential, but also symbiotic

When we understand how some process works, say, how a particular fitness regimen works, our motivation to practice it increases. Thus, understanding inspires and intensifies practice.

From understanding to practice is frequently the sequence of our spiritual growth too. We may be introduced to bhakti philosophy through some books or classes. On understanding the philosophy’s cogency, we may start practicing bhakti-yoga practice diligently.

But in some cases, practice may precede understanding, as happens especially for those born or brought up in a devotional culture. Deference to that culture may make them practice bhakti. Later, if they comprehend bhakti’s intellectual depth, such comprehension can strengthen their practice.

Thus, deepening our understanding of bhakti is always helpful, both for starters and practitioners.

Still, we needn’t make our bhakti practice conditional to understanding. Why not? Because bhakti centers on the supreme reality, Krishna, who is greater than the intelligence. So, some bhakti principles can lie beyond the ken of the intelligence. Such principles may seem contradictory, but they are actually paradoxical. Instead of struggling intellectually to decipher such paradoxes, we can focus on practicing bhakti. Bhakti practice will purify and elevate our consciousness, thereby granting us a higher perspective to better appreciate how the paradoxes are true.

Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (18.55) states that only through bhakti is Krishna understood. Here the sequence is reversed: rather than practice being boosted by understanding, practice bestows understanding. This reverse sequence is reiterated in the Gita (10.10): for devoted practitioners, Krishna grants the intelligence to come to him.

That understanding and practice can both boost each other underscores their symbiotic relationship. If we strive to do both, each according to our capacity, Krishna will reciprocate mercifully. And his infinite capacity will empower us to grow spiritually far beyond what we had presumed was our capacity.

Delusion makes eating a life-threatening activity

Commensality, the act of eating together with others, is one of the commonest relaxing and rejuvenating activities. While our body gets necessary nourishment through good food, our heart gets comfort amidst our loved ones.

Unfortunately, commensality has nowadays become hostage to the corporate-controlled media, whose relentless propaganda has distorted our definition of good food. Get-togethers aren’t considered cool unless they feature fast foods and other glamorized, but unhealthy, foodstuffs. While we are eating such food, little do we realize that we are setting ourselves up for being eaten by obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. And these are just the toppers in a crowded field of food-induced maladies, which are often life-threatening. Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (17.09) cautions that food which hyper-stimulates our senses is in the mode of passion – such food leads to misery.

If we don’t want to be thus deluded, we need to rescue our definition of good food from materialistic captivity. The most holistic way to redefining good food is to redefine the good life. The Gita explains that our present existence is three-dimensional: physical, mental and spiritual. That life is truly good which nourishes all three dimensions of our being.

For such all-round nourishment, Gita wisdom introduces us to a beautiful bhakti culture wherein good food plays a vital part, as does good association. We can prepare healthy vegetarian food and offer it prayerfully to God, Krishna, thereby acknowledging that he is our sustainer. When we honor such sanctified food in the company of loving devotees, we are not just nourished physically and sheltered emotionally. We are also uplifted spiritually, because the food, the association and the whole setting are centered on Krishna, the highest spiritual reality.

Ultimately, spiritual commensality forms the heart of the potent bhakti process that propels us towards the best life – the life of eternal spiritual love.

Bhakti-yoga takes our relationship with Krishna from familiarity to comfort to desire to need

Bhakti-yoga takes our relationship with Krishna from familiarity to comfort to desire to need Suppose we wish to learn car driving. Initially, we try to become familiar with a car by riding in it. After riding a few times, we start feeling comfortable in it. On regularly seeing acquaintances driving a car, our desire to drive one increases. And if we move to a city with poor public transport, car driving becomes a need.

Our relationship with Krishna grows through similar stages. Of course, Krishna being the source of everything that exists is not comparable with a car. Still, the principles of developing a relationship are similar. Let’s see how.

Familiarity: When we associate with people devoted to Krishna, we start becoming familiar with Krishna’s various manifestations such as Deities, holy names, scriptures and sacred places.

Comfort: Devotees inspire us to move from familiarity with Krishna to practicing bhakti-yoga. By such practice, Krishna’s message helps us make increasing sense of life, and his remembrance gives glimpses of profound peace and bliss. Thus, we start feeling comfortable amidst Krishna’s various manifestations.

Desire: When we see the purity, potency, serenity and ecstasy serious devotees get through their absorption in Krishna, we start desiring similar absorption. The Bhagavad-gita (12.09) states that when we repeatedly strive to remember Krishna – a striving that naturally happens in devotee association – our desire for him strengthens.

Need: When diligent bhakti-yoga practice purifies us, we recognize that our life has no meaning or value without Krishna. He becomes our foremost need, akin to how materialists feel that sense objects are their greatest need. Significantly, when we are pure, we need Krishna not because he can give us the things we love, but because he is so lovable.

Being thus convinced that Krishna is Krishna’s greatest blessing, we live absorbed in him, both in this life and in the hereafter.

Appreciating Krishna’s immanence integrates recollection and participation

The Bhagavad-gita’s directive (08.07) – always remember Krishna and do your prescribed duty – raises the question: “How can we do both simultaneously? If we are to do our duties responsibly, we need to focus on them. Does the Gita recommend living with a split consciousness – recollecting Krishna with half of our consciousness and participating in our work with the other half?”

No, not at all. That distracted functioning isn’t the Gita’s call is evident from the actions of its original student, Arjuna; after hearing the Gita, he executed his martial duty whole-heartedly – and did it in divine consciousness.

We too can infuse our work with such divine consciousness by making Krishna the purpose of our life and by realizing his proximity.

First and foremost, we need to daily invest some quality time, wholeheartedly absorbing ourselves in Krishna’s remembrance by connecting with his direct manifestations such as Deity, scripture and the holy name. By such absorption, we realize and relish his greatness and sweetness. Thus, our devotion becomes enhanced and our conviction to dedicate our life to him becomes reinforced. With this heightened devotional sensibility, we can increasingly sense Krishna’s immanence, thereby helping us realize that he is never far from us.

Pertinently, the Gita explains that Krishna is not just transcendent but is also immanent. The Gita’s tenth chapter illustrates Krishna’s immanence by listing some fifty opulent manifestations. The chapter concludes by declaring that everything attractive manifests a spark of Krishna’s attractiveness (10.41). This insight implies that while doing our duty, if something attracts our attention, we can redirect our attention from that object to its source. And that all-attractive source is present in our own hearts in his immanent manifestation as the Supersoul.

By thus cultivating devotional purposefulness and relishing divine immanence, we can both remember Krishna and do our duty diligently.

Humility propels us on the journey from self-absorption to Krishna-absorption

People sometimes ask, “Isn’t humility demeaning and disempowering to oneself?”

No, actual humility is elevating and empowering, freeing us from self-absorption in all its forms, including the two extremes of self-congratulation or in self-recrimination. During self-congratulation, we obsess over how great we are – how talented, special, cool we are. Such self-obsession can degenerate to megalomania. During self-recrimination, we obsess over how bad we are – how untalented, ordinary, uncool we are. Such self-recrimination can trigger inferiority complex, depression and even suicidal urges.

Humility enables us to go beyond such self-absorption to absorption in some higher purpose. Gita wisdom introduces us to the highest purpose: the purpose of love. At our core, we are all souls, spiritual beings, who long to love and be loved. And this innate longing for love is best fulfilled when directed towards the eternal, all-attractive Supreme, Krishna. Underscoring that his all-attractiveness is appreciated by the knowledgeable, the Bhagavad-gita (07.19) states that they surrender to him, understanding him to be everything.

Later, the Gita (13.08-12) states that knowledge comprises twenty qualities, which begin with humility. This knowledge is not theoretical but is transformational. It is the knowledge of bhakti-yoga, the kind of all knowledge (09.02), the knowledge that changes our object of love from the world to the source of the world, Krishna.

In fact, humility works symbiotically with bhakti-yoga. Humility, the doorway to knowledge, liberates us from the self-absorption that entraps us in the cocoon of our own little world. And devotion, the culmination of knowledge, enables us to become absorbed in Krishna.

The combination of humility and devotion is both elevating and empowering. Elevating because we gain profound higher spiritual satisfaction when we focus on Krishna, the source of all pleasure. And empowering because his omnipotent grace helps us forever break free from unfulfilling, binding self-absorption.

Even if bhakti is not joyful, it is still fruitful

When we hear scriptural descriptions about the immense, intense bliss of bhakti, we may get the question, “Is this for real?” This question may become all the more acute when our bhakti practice doesn’t yield similar bliss.

To understand how bhakti is really joyful, we need to first appreciate that it acts in two ways: as nectar and as medicine. How it appears to us depends on how pure our consciousness is. The Bhagavad-gita (10.18) reports the pure devotee Arjuna’s experience: the bhakti activity of hearing Krishna’s glories is like an unendingly relishable flow of nectar.

However, when we are materially attached, as most of us presently are, our consciousness gets distracted from Krishna even during our bhakti practices. Because of such a distracted consciousness, we can’t focus on Krishna. So, we stay deprived of the joy that comes from connecting with the supreme reservoir of all joy.

Significantly though, Srimad-Bhagavatam (10.1.4) indicates that bhakti benefits even the materially attached. How? By acting like a medicine. Some medicines taste bitter, but if they make us better, we gird ourselves to take them – not for their taste but for their effect.

A similar no-nonsense approach towards bhakti can stabilize and strengthen our devotional practices. Every moment that we focus our mind on Krishna, that contact with the all-pure supreme purifies us. Even if we can’t focus, if we just sincerely strive to focus, that endeavor pleases Krishna, thereby attracting his potent and purifying mercy. Purification essentially implies the subordination or elimination of distractions. Freed from distractions, we can increasingly access the joyfulness of absorption in Krishna. Pertinently, the Gita (18.37) assures that even if elevating activities taste like poison initially, they will taste like nectar eventually.

So, whenever bhakti’s joyfulness doesn’t seem evident, we can persevere by meditating on its fruitfulness.

Commitment is the complement of talent, not its replacement

A contemporary debate centers on the source of genius: Do geniuses become geniuses because of their inborn talent? Or can hard work make anyone a genius?

Certainly, hard work is essential for achieving anything outstanding. Still, can hard work alone make any aspiring cricketer the next Sachin Tendulkar? Thousands of wanna-be Tendulkars work just as hard as he did, but can’t replicate his sustained batting brilliance.

Gita wisdom explains that we all are souls on a multi-life journey, a journey that is meant to culminate in eternal ecstatic love for God. In each lifetime, we start with a certain psychophysical nature acquired from our previous lives, based on the way we have lived and the choices we have made. This nature, with its constellation of talents and interests, is different for different people. Some people are born with phenomenal talent that serves as a powerful launching pad for extraordinary achievement. But what propels them towards achievement is their commitment, their hard work in training and practice for honing that talent.

Can commitment help the untalented improve? Certainly. But commitment alone can’t replace talent; it can’t make a tone-deaf person the next Mozart. The Bhagavad-gita (03.35) points to this innate diversity of talent when it recommends that we not seek success in areas where we don’t have the requisite talents, even if such areas seem easy, lucrative or glamorous.

This synergy of talent and commitment points to an underlying human-divine synergy in life at large. By giving due recognition to people’s talent, we acknowledge the role of divine arrangement. By giving due recognition to people’s commitment, we acknowledge their hard work.

Overall, by internalizing Gita wisdom, we can both introspect better to discover our hidden God-given talents and commit more firmly for tapping those talents in a mood of service and contribution.

Constancy of purpose often necessitates change of strategy

India dominated world hockey from the 1920s to the 1970s. Its success came from its wizard-like expertise in using the hockey stick. But after artificial turfs were introduced in the 1970s, success required strength and stamina more than stick wizardry. As India didn’t or couldn’t develop changed strategies to meet these new requirements, its position in world hockey soon declined from supremacy to mediocrity.

This example illustrates that achieving the same purpose – in this case, winning at hockey – sometimes requires adopting a changed strategy. This principle applies in spiritual life too, especially in making spiritual wisdom relevant and appealing for society.

The Bhagavad-gita reveals such resourcefulness when it expands Arjuna’s vision beyond the two strategies for spiritual growth known to him – the path of action, which he thought would keep him entangled; and the path of renunciation, which he thought would liberate him. Considering Arjuna’s context, he was poised to fight a war necessary for establishing dharma. Accordingly, Krishna harmonized spiritual strategy with dharmic necessity and introduced Arjuna to a third option: neither action, nor renunciation of action, but renunciation in action. The Bhagavad-gita (05.11) indicates that we can pursue purification and spiritual elevation by using all our resources, even our senses. The Gita’s thought-flow culminates in devotion, wherein absorption in the all-attractive Supreme Krishna is declared the best way for being renounced internally while performing action externally. Action with such devotional service attitude comprises the best way for both growing spiritually and contributing socially.

Applying this devotional spirit of inner renunciation and outer contribution, Gita exponents regularly devise strategies customized for their time-place-circumstance. For example, contemporary Gita teachers may use the latest social media to take spiritual wisdom to people’s homes and phones.

By similarly adopting tailor-made strategies, we can assist in fulfilling Krishna’s timeless purpose: sharing spiritual wisdom with everyone.