what do you really want?

Verse 4.12: Men in this world desire success in fruitive activities, and therefore they worship the demigods. Quickly, of course, men get results from fruitive work in this world.

One of the good (bad?!) things about bhakti yoga is that it forces you to really face your intentions and desires. Not just the superficial ones, but the deep one's that we try to hide and forget about.

It's open, non-sectarian and there's something in it for everyone. It's an ideal process because it teaches us how to be successful as persons living in this material world, and for those who are interested, the process by which we can successfully reconnect with our true selves and find eternal happiness.

But...for those who are interested in the latter, bhakti yoga is about work. The best analogy that comes to mind is that of cleaning a really messy room. At the outset there needs to be some faith that cleaning the room will actually help you. Mustering up some enthusiasm (and determination!), you get started and in the beginning may start to experience a sense of accomplishment. But as time progresses (and if you're anything like me), you realize that you had no clue what you were getting yourself into!

That's because as you stand surrounded by clothes and other objects lay strewn about you, shaking your head in disbelief at the amount of things you've accumulated, it becomes clear. There's a lot of junk that just needs to be thrown out.

That's exactly what the practice of bhakti yoga reveals: we have a lot of junk that surrounds our heart and prevents us from experiencing true happiness.

Because we invest our time and energy in that junk, we get side-tracked and forget that happiness actually lies within.

Distilling this verse down, it's stating that if we really want to accumulate more junk, then there's a certain place to go to ask for such blessings. Again, the Gita is not stating that it is bad, per say, but is giving the process (Remember! It's a handbook for both material and spiritual success) to achieve material success.

However, staying true to it's purpose, the Gita does not recommend this path. For the sake of completeness, it is presented and for those who choose that path it gives the formula.

But, if we are truly interested in cleaning our room, it will remain in our consciousness that going out and buying more things will be counter-productive. Similarly, for those who are genuinely interested in attaining permanent happiness and peace, this path isn't the one for them.

The only question you have to ask is - what do you want? Do you really want to clean the room of your heart or are you interested in just accumulating more?

get in touch

Verse 2.66: One who is not connected with the Supreme [in Kṛṣṇa consciousness] can have neither transcendental intelligence nor a steady mind, without which there is no possibility of peace. And how can there be any happiness without peace?

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With so many disturbing events taking place all over the world, the topic of peace keeps coming up in conversations. Whether it be peace between nations, individual and country, or between individuals themselves, the streets and internet are overflowing with questions like: "What's going on? Why isn't it possible for everyone to just live in peace?" My personal opinion is that if everyone could experience peace in their own lives, society as a whole wouldn't be as dysfunctional as it is.

The Gita will present the ultimate peace formula in it's entirety in Chapter 5, but today I'd like to explore the question of why, as individuals, it's so difficult for many of us to experience peace.

This verse very clearly presents why many of us aren't peaceful - we are not connected to the Supreme. My favorite definition of yoga is a phrase that the great bhakti master, Srila Prabhupada, coined: "Yoga means to keep in touch with the Supreme." How beautiful is that? It gets to the heart of what yoga is about - relationships and connection.

Relationships require one to put time and energy into them. It requires one to "keep in touch". As has been repeatedly mentioned, the Gita teaches that we are the soul, an eternal spiritual spark. A spark is very tiny and limited in it's capacity to ignite anything if it is not connected to the flame from where it came from. But, the moment that spark is reunited with the flame it originated from - WOAH! There's some serious power.

Similarly, on our own we are minute and lonely when we are not connected with the Supreme. Very practically speaking, if we were under the shelter of the one who is most powerful, rich, famous, knowledgeable, beautiful and renounced, wouldn't we feel protected and loved? Right now, as souls wearing different bodies, we are under the illusion that we are the controller. The thing is, it's hard to fill a role that we're not qualified for. As we continue to operate under the illusion that "we can take care of everything on our own", many of us only experience greater loneliness and a sense of dissatisfaction.

Bhakti yoga is about teaching us how to "get back in touch" with both ourselves and the Supreme. Through the process of acting in a spirit of gratitude and becoming unattached to the fruits of our results, we're re-investing in a relationship that we've been taking for granted for so long. Gratitude is a beautiful platform to build a relationship. As we start to live our lives acknowledging and marveling at the gifts and talents we've been given, we start to realize that our happiness doesn't depend on material objects.

Naturally, our senses become controlled and the mind becomes peaceful. It takes a lot of energy to constantly live a "what's in it for me" kind of life. Instead, when we realize we are connected to the Divine, who provides everything we need anyways, that burden is lifted from our shoulders. At that stage, guess what we experience? Peace.