tired of the same old?

Verse 3.41: Therefore, O Arjuna, best of the Bhāratas, in the very beginning curb this great symbol of sin [lust] by regulating the senses, and slay this destroyer of knowledge and self-realization.

Find yourself doing the same old things again and again and not really feeling any happier? I was reflecting on this yesterday night as I caught myself falling into the trap of doing the same old things that honestly don't help increase my happiness levels. After all, let's be perfectly honest - most of us want to be happy and there's nothing wrong with that!

It may seem contradictory, but the advice we hear today of regulating the senses can lead to new experiences, fun AND has the benefit of progressing in our path of self-discovery. It's not as limiting as one might think.

For some of us, it means taking a good hard look at our lives and asking, "What makes me happy?" In fact, it's an exercise I'd encourage everyone to do. Take a piece of paper and write down what you do in your free time. Now, write down on a scale of 1-10 how happy those activities make you. It could be anything from eating, hanging out with friends, sleeping etc... Got that down...well now comes the tough question:

How long does that happiness last?

That's the question we should really be asking. It's become enough to just feel happy, no matter how temporary it may be. But yoga isn't about getting second rate things, it's about getting the best. The best is finding those things that will sustain our happiness.

Regulating the senses means to stop settling for second best.

Practically speaking, it means recognizing that happiness comes from service as opposed to selfishness. It ties back into the concept of non-attachment and gratitude. After all -

A life of happiness is directly proportional to the gratitude that we feel and express.

When we are covered over by lust, we feel the need to possess and control things because we are feeling empty. Gratitude, on the other hand, paves the way to invoking the love that is lying within us and fills us with it. It reminds us that we are recipients of great gifts, talents, and facility.

Regulating the senses means to utilize our senses in expressing gratitude to the Divine for giving us so much. Instead of trying to satisfy our own senses, which are limited and are always hankering for more, we can utilize our senses to convey how grateful we are. It's a matter of changing our attitude.

In the beginning, it can simple as expressing positive words to one another since we recognize that we are all part of a spiritual family, incorporating a compassionate vegetarian lifestyle or praying on behalf of loved ones. As our thoughts become filled with positivity and appreciation, a positive feedback loop starts to form. We experience a profound internal happiness that can't compete with the temporary pleasures we experienced before. That gratitude becomes a permanent fixture in our lives and we'll see more than our mind-sets and attitudes change - we'll actually become (and remain) happy.

strategic yoga

Verse 3.40: The senses, the mind and the intelligence are the sitting places of this lust. Through them lust covers the real knowledge of the living entity and bewilders him.

Strategy and planning are essential ingredients to achieving success.

Whether your desire is to pass your physics final, travel around the world or become a great singer, everything requires planning and strategy. Today, we learn that the practice of yoga is no different.

In order to be successful yogis, we require a strategy..

One of the biggest obstacles to discovering who we really are is lust. That lust is what blinds many of us us from realizing that we are the recipients of great gifts and instead compels us to think that everything is ours. It promotes selfishness and pride and masks the mood of service and love which lies dormant within us.

It only makes sense that one who is truly seeking lasting happiness will want to understand who they really are. As we've mentioned before: if you don't know who you really are, then how will you know what will make you happy?

The Gita has already outlined that we are eternal souls, which means that only those things that are eternal will make us happy. It's not that temporary relationships, things and situations don't make us happy, it's just that they can't provide the two key elements that we are constantly looking for: eternal love.

Now, when we understand that lust is a covering that is preventing us from realizing our true selves, it only logical that the thoughtful yogi would want to know how to remove this impediment.

And that, my friends, is called strategic thinking. That's why today's verse of the Gita is so important. It is giving valuable information which we can add to our strategic plan of discovering who we are - where lust can be found.

Three places are specifically named:

1. Senses
2. Mind
3. Intelligence

Continuing along the lines of strategic yoga, it makes sense that instead of spending our resources trying to combat this lust in these places that we start where it can make the most difference. Previously, we learned that there is a hierarchy. The mind is the leader of the senses and the intelligence is what is supposed to control the mind.

By this token, if we can start to remove lust (or the tendency of trying to enjoy the property of the Supreme instead of engaging in a relationship with the Supreme) from the intelligence, then naturally the mind and senses can start to become free from it as well.

So then how does one go about clearing lust from these different places? Join us tomorrow to find out!

burning like fire

Verse 3.39: Thus the wise living entity's pure consciousness becomes covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire.

Very often readers of the Gita pose this question: "If I'm an eternal soul which is always blissful and full of knowledge, then why don't I experience those qualities?" It's a great question and one which is answered here today-

When the pure consciousness of the soul is covered by lust, the soul forgets who it really is.

This lust is what causes us to feel empty and lonely. As a quick reminder, lust is the negative transformation of love and compels the covered soul to seek enjoyment in all that is temporary. That search for pleasure outside of ourselves in temporary material things is what often leads to great frustration.

Makes sense if you think about it. If we are eternal, then how can we be satisfied by impermanence? It just doesn't work.

The thing is, although the soul has forgotten its eternality, its inherent pleasure seeking characteristic still remains. That's we continue to try to seek eternal happiness despite all our failures. In fact, it is this lust which continues to burn within us and fuels our desire to keep trying to find that pleasure - just in all the wrong places!

That's where the Gita provides the solution. The Gita doesn't promote that we just ignore our inherent nature to desire pleasure. Instead, it teaches us how to transform our lust into its original state of love. Specifically, it teaches us:

We're searching for pleasure in the wrong places.

See the difference? The search still remains...it's just that it becomes transformed. Instead of seeking pleasure in the temporary, material world, instead we are directed to seek pleasure in that which is eternal - our relationship with the Supreme.

It is this relationship which will revive our pure consciousness and which will transform all the lust in our heart to pure love.

power of analogies

Verse 3.38: As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, the living entity is similarly covered by different degrees of this lust.

I love analogies. A good one is able to simplify concepts that are complicated or foreign by making them understandable and relatable.

Yesterday we were introduced to what bhakti yoga defines as lust - a negative transformation of love. While love is selfless and giving, lust is selfish and greedy. The soul's true nature is one of love, but when the soul is covered by different degrees of lust, that lust acts as a covering which prevents the soul from understanding its true nature.

Today, through the power of analogy, we dive deeper into understanding how there are three degrees by which a living entity (i.e. soul) can be covered by lust.

The first example of fire covered by smoke relates to all of us who are living in human bodies. The bhakti texts describe that human life is one of responsibility. Whereas plants and animals are not subject to the laws of karma, human beings are. The reason why is due to the fact that we have the power of discrimination. This discrimination allows us to introspect and question who we are, why we are here, where we came from and do something about it!

This is not to say that those of us in human bodies are better than plants or animals...after all there are souls inside those bodies as well! It's to note and remember that the gift of discrimination is part of the human body experience.

When this discrimination is used to question "Who am I?", the soul can embark on a journey of self-discovery. Just like smoke may prevent us from seeing the fire which is producing it, clearing the smoke reveals its source. Similarly, the soul which can be compared to the fire, is driving the body. When we start turning our attention to it, we start to recognize that is who we really are.

The second analogy of a mirror covered by dust refers to birds and beasts. Dust is heavier than smoke and can be harder to clear. Similarly, for those souls that are in the bodies of birds and beasts, the covering of lust is greater and therefore it is harder to achieve self-realization.

Finally, the third analogy of the embryo being covered by the womb refers to the densest covering of lust over a soul. Such souls that are so heavily covered that they inhabit the bodies of plants.

So why does the Gita go into so much detail? To highlight how lucky we are to be in a human body! It gives us the facility to achieve self-realization much more easily and to help others as well. We can help our fellow souls in the bodies of birds, beasts and plants very easily - by exposing them to the power of mantra meditation and prayer.

That's right! Practicing mantra meditation, like uttering the most powerful maha mantra, in the presence of other living beings can help remove the dense covering of lust.

Bhakti yoga is so wonderful that just by helping others, we help ourselves.

love vs. lust

Verse 3.37: The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material mode of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring sinful enemy of this world.

Have you ever heard of the expression "transforming lust into love"? If so, you might not have known it at the time, but you were actually hearing the very essence of the Gita.

Although certain imagery or thoughts may come to mind when we think of the word lust, the Gita explains that that it is a transformation of love.

So what does love really mean then? Yoga defines love, in its highest form, to be the natural inclination of the soul to give pleasure to the Supreme. If you really meditate on that definition, it makes a lot of sense.

We all, by nature, are seeking that person who will provide us with all our necessities, never abandon us, is capable of loving us completely and is the only person who truly understands how we feel. Am I right or am I right? ;)

It's no coincidence that the Gita, along with all other authorized spiritual texts, give us one unanimous answer to that question - the Supreme.

If it's natural that we love the Divine, then why is it so hard for some of us to access that love. Why do we turn to so many other things? That question is answered here today: Because we are clouded by lust.

"When the soul's natural affection for the Supreme is misplaced, by trying instead to enjoy the property of the Supreme instead of engaging in a relationship with the Supreme, then that love is transformed into lust"

In other words, due to lifetimes of taking on different bodies, we've forgotten our love for the Divine. Instead, some of us try to fill the God-shaped hole in our hearts with all sorts of gadgets, people and situations that we think might make us happy. If that doesn't work and we feel dejected, frustrated and become angry), we still keep trying to seek eternal happiness through our temporary material bodies.

Many of us are under a type of amnesia. The only cure to re-awaken to our natural position of happiness is to associate with those persons who have come out from the fog and confusion. That's why bhakti yoga is a transformation of the heart, not just the mind or intelligence. By practicing mantra meditation, reading bhakti texts and spending time with advanced bhakti practitioners, we start to remember who we really are and gratitude starts to infuse the heart.

That gratitude is the path by which love can develop and we can truly remember who we are.

For many of us:

Life is a journey to find true love.

That true love is waiting for us. We just need to clear the fog of lust and realize that our greatest happiness is not found outside ourselves, but by connecting to the Supreme.