The Gita reveals that Krishna doesn’t delight in majestic aloofness from everything else, considering it below his imperial dignity to stoop down to contact anything.  Instead, he acts as the source, sustenance and summit of everything so as to provide us a facility to re-orient our heart towards him. Everything that exists is an extension of his grace, an expression of his merciful desire to give us an opportunity to learn to love him again. Even the worldly beauty that often distracts us from him is ultimately meant to remind us of his supreme beauty. Even the harmful and dreadful things of this world are meant to redirect our love to him by serving as graphic reminders of the temporality of all other loves.

Gita wisdom illuminates us with the understanding of how to use everything for its ultimate intended function: to help us remember and serve and love Krishna. When we assimilate this wisdom, then we too realize that Krishna is everything, but everything is not Krishna.

Our capacity to desire is our most powerful resource, second only to our capacity to access Krishna’s grace. Our desires shape our life’s direction and destination; our past desires have molded us into what we presently are and our present desires will mold us into what we will be in future. 

Unfortunately, despite the defining role that desires play in our life, we often imprudently squander their power. We frequently let our desires be determined by trendiness rather than worthiness; we desire that which is praised in the current social mirror rather than  that which is prized in the eternal spiritual barometer. Consequently, we end up desiring and sweating for petty trinkets and titillations that are entirely unworthy of our spiritual sanctity and even our human dignity. This colossal waste of desires cumulates into a tragic waste of an entire lifetime, when death forces us to leave behind all that we have desired and achieved. 

Gita wisdom rescues us from getting buried in the trendiness trap by raising our eyes to that which is truly worthy: our eternal loving relationship with Krishna. When we direct and focus our immense power of desire on loving and serving Krishna, then our desires become the cause of not repeated disappointment, but perennial fulfillment.

The domineering force that material desires often exert on us is due to the two deadly characteristics of these desires: insatiability and irresistibility. To grasp why these characteristics are deadly, let’s compare engaging material desires with playing a game. 

Insatiability: When we say yes to material desires, they become not pacified, but aggravated; not silenced, but incited; not satisfied, but stimulated – like a fire that is fed with fuel. Consequently, the craving becomes stronger, not weaker, forcing us to repeatedly, and even perpetually, keep saying yes to those desires. Metaphorically, engaging with material desires is a game that we just can’t win.

Irresistibility: When we get fed up with the futile attempt to fulfill these desires and decide to say no to them, they charge into our consciousness repeatedly and relentlessly, making them seem irresistible and saying no to them impossible. Metaphorically, this situation is like wanting to quit the game, but not being allowed to.

Fortunately, there is a way out of this catch-22 situation. Though we can neither win nor quit, that doesn’t mean we have to keep getting pound. We have a third alternative: switch to playing a different game altogether. 

The Gita (2.61) describes that if we fix our minds on Krishna, experience spiritual happiness in remembering him and fill our heart with devotional desires to love and serve him, then material desires find themselves crowded out of the playing arena of our consciousness - and we find ourselves freed from their tyranny. 

This ability to understand the true colors of temptation is a prime barometer of our intellectual health. When we are intellectually sick, the arrival of temptation sets off a welcome tune in our consciousness; our unhealthy intelligence has no strength or spunk to unmask the treacherous façade of temptation. Consequently, we get helplessly, even eagerly, carried away by the doomed hope that indulging in the temptation will make us happy.

But when we are intellectually healthy, the arrival of the same temptation triggers an alarm bell in our consciousness; our robust intelligence swings into action to pound out the temptation, knowing well that it is a forerunner of emotional distraction that can snowball into spiritual destruction. Consequently, we gird ourselves for an inner battle that leads to a gradual but inevitable triumph if we seek shelter and strength in the remembrance of Krishna.

Of course, if the arrival of temptation leads to no response – neither a welcome tune nor an alarm bell, then that absence of response indicates, not that we have transcended temptation, but that our intelligence has fallen asleep due to a cocksure complacency that can be suicidal. Therefore, the absence of the triggering of an alarm bell should itself trigger an alarm bell and galvanize us to arouse and activate our intelligence, and protect our spiritual integrity.

The first verse offers a glimpse of the unconditional nature of Krishna’s love: there is nothing that we can ever do – be it virtuous or vicious – that can stop Krishna from loving us; he will forever act as our well wisher and benefactor, just as the sun forever gives illumination.

However, love can be unilateral, but a loving relationship can never be unilateral; it always has to be bilateral. If we neglect or reject Krishna’s love by busying ourselves in non-devotional or anti-devotional activities, then we paralyze our capacity to experience Krishna’s love, just as closing or blindfolding one’s eyes disables one’s capacity to see the sun’s illumination. So, Krishna’s love can be said to be conditional in the sense that we need to cultivate a certain condition of the heart to experience his love. That’s why the second verse indirectly urges us to return to a virtuous, devotional lifestyle by first unequivocally reassuring us that such a change is definitely possible, even inevitable, and then disarmingly arming us for the inner battle by declaring that all of Krishna’s omnipotence is there to back us up.

S: Satisfying: Unlike material sounds that leave us bored if we repeat them too many times, the sound of the holy name makes us increasingly satisfied when we repeat it more and more.

O: Omnipotent: Krishna has invested all his supreme power in his holy name and thus it has the power to break what the most powerful nuclear bomb can’t break: the shell of ignorance and selfishness around our soul that obstructs our spiritual potential from unfolding.

U: Universal: The sound of the holy name can attract and transform the hearts of all people everywhere, because it acts at the universal level of the soul that transcends all sectarian barriers of language, culture, nationality and even religion.

N: Non-material: The holy name is itself spiritual and its chanting invokes and activates subtler, non-material energies that originate in the spiritual grace of Krishna.

D: Direct: As Krishna is non-different from his holy name, we directly contact Krishna through the sound of his holy name. That’s why the more we tune ourselves devotionally to the sound of the holy name, the more we realize and relish the direct presence and love of Krishna

A helpful exercise-aid for keeping our intelligence fit is the acronym FIT (Futility, Insubstantiality, Temporality) that encompasses the three possible results when we seek sense pleasures:

1. Futility: We desire to enjoy, but the opportunity never turns up. E.g. we long for our favorite delicacy in an upcoming feast, but the menu doesn’t include that delicacy.
2. Insubstantiality: We get the opportunity to enjoy, but the enjoyment turns out to be an anti-climax. E.g. the menu includes our cherished delicacy, but it is poorly cooked and is a far cry from our expectation.
3. Temporality: We enjoy the pleasure, but it ends too soon either due to external limited availability or internal limited capacity, leaving us tormented by the craving for more. E.g. the delicacy tastes good, but our enjoyment ends too early either because the servings of the delicacy are limited or because the capacity of our stomach is limited.

When this contemplation convinces us that all possible results of the pursuit of sense pleasure end in frustration, we recognize that sense pleasure is an intrinsically doomed prospect. This recognition empowers us to seek unhesitatingly and savor undistractedly the supreme happiness of Krishna consciousness.

Gita wisdom helps us see such mania in new light. The Bhagavad-gita (10.41) indicates that whatever we find attractive in the world derives its potency to attract from Krishna. This insight reveals the sense, the nonsense and the trans-sense of worldly mania:

The Sense: We recognize the cause of maniac attraction is not the particular person, but the spark of the all-attractive Supreme Lord that is manifesting through that person.

The Nonsense: We understand the futility and the tragedy of all worldly mania because, just as a spark of fire can allure but never deliver the warmth available from the whole fire, the temporary feats of worldly heroes can allure but never deliver the fulfillment of heart and upliftment of spirit available from the eternal and unlimited qualities of the supreme hero, Krishna.

The Trans-sense (The Transcendental Sense): We can become encouraged in our attempts to enhance our attraction for Krishna by contemplating, “If a tiny spark of Krishna has so much attractive potency, how much more attractive potency will Krishna have? If I just persevere in my devotional service and beseech Krishna’s mercy, soon he will quell all of my heart’s misdirected attractions that are like the rusts on iron that are preventing me from being drawn in by his magnetic all-attractiveness. Then I will be overpoweringly, irresistibly attracted to Krishna – and thus attain the ultimate perfection of life.”

The Bhagavad-gita (18.64) reveals Krishna’s love for all of us by the unequivocal proclamation, “you are dearly loved by me” and then (18.65) calls for a reciprocal love from us, “Becoming my devotee, offer your mind and heart to me.”

Worldly love promises much but delivers little; it appoints to dis-appoint. But Krishna’s love is entirely different from such worldly love, as can be understood by the acronym DIS:

1. Durable: It is durable, in fact, eternal, not only because Krishna and his love for us are everlasting, but also because that divine love is based on the platform of our eternal spiritual identity, not on the platform of our temporary, material identity on which all worldly love is formulated and frustrated.
2. Integral: Our love for Krishna is innate and integral to us; we simply have to revive through devotional remembrance. On the other hand, all worldly love is external, superficial and artificial, and is actually incompatible with and insufficient for our heart's innermost longing.
3. Supra-real: Worldly love may appear real to us at present, but it is inevitably washed away by the waves of time,which is the ultimate reality in the world. But all-devouring time can do nothing to destroy or even deteriorate our love for Krishna, for that love is supra-real or supremely real.

This verse comes at the end of a three-verse section (15.12-14) that indicates how our existence and enjoyment in the word of matter depend on something - rather someone – beyond matter. We may enjoy the good-looking face or the sweet-sounding voice of a person we love, but neither we nor that person arranged for the beauty of that face or the melody of that voice. Neither did the face muscles of voice cords arrange themselves because they being made of matter have no teleological capacity.

This section of the Gita is primarily directed to those of us who think that matter is all that matters; it prompts us to recognize that even the matter that matters to us depends on something more than matter. By directing our thought to the non-material organizing personality that underlies matter and its arrangement, Gita wisdom gradually urges us to realize that the beauty of that creator would far exceed the creation and we would be better off by loving the eternal creator than the temporal creation.

Then, developing our relationship with that source of all beauty becomes the matter that matters most for us.