10.09 – “Live for the moment?” But does the moment live for me?

“Live for the moment.” So chimes the materialist credo. It is a curious slogan, assuming as it does that a moment is itself an entity worth living for. But within the materialist belief system, the moment is just a unit of time that has no sentience; it doesn’t live for us. In fact, it doesn’t live at all.

Therefore, no one can live for the moment; everyone lives the moment for something.

What is the something that materialism wants us to live for? Ultimately, it is just material pleasure. And material pleasure is never available at every moment. It is limited because both the external objects of enjoyment and the bodily tools for enjoyment are temporary. That’s why material pleasure never lives for more than a few moments. So living for material pleasure means living for those few moments – and hankering and lamenting for all the remaining moments.

Gita wisdom offers the best something to live the moment for: Krishna. He is a loving, endearing person, who lives every moment for us if we choose to live our moment for him. Krishna is the supreme reservoir of unending happiness. When we connect with him through devotional remembrance, we start relishing a sublime happiness that is far superior to the most glamorized material pleasure. Whereas worldly objects of enjoyment are temporary, Krishna is eternal. Whereas the bodily tools for enjoyment enjoy is temporary, our spiritual ability to love Krishna is eternal, because we as souls are eternal. All we need to do is revive that ability by practicing devotional service.

The Bhagavad-gita (10.9) indicates that those who have revived that ability live every moment joyfully for Krishna – for all moments to come, eternally.