16 Chapter Sixteen

“No problem’s so big that sex can’t solve it.” So believe the materialists whose minds are filled with endless sexual fantasies. The Bhagavad-gita (16.10) indicates that such people take shelter of lust (kamam ashritya). Whenever they need a break amidst life’s problems, instead of seeking refuge in Krishna, they seek refuge in lust. Thus they…

Charity is usually thought of as an activity, the action of contributing to some worthy cause. But the Bhagavad-gita (16.01) lists charity as a quality. Why? Because for the godly who are described in this section of the Gita, charity is much more than an activity – it is a mentality, an inner disposition that…

We treasure freedom as an inalienable right and resist anything that threatens it. However, we think of freedom largely in terms of the freedom to pursue various forms of material pleasures. Gita wisdom expands our conception of freedom by extending it to the spiritual level. As everything material is temporary, so is the pleasure from…

Our culture often reduces character to image, wisdom to sound bytes and self-worth to net-worth. Being goaded by such a superficial environment, people frequently, even feverishly, aim to look big. They want to appear to be belonging among the best, even to be the numero uno. The Bhagavad-gita (16.15) characterizes such obsession with appearances as…

Most people get a rush of exhilaration when they go to a new place and find recognition and admiration for them in the eyes of others. And some people make this fame as their supreme source of enjoyment, their primary purpose of life. The Bhagavad-gita (16.04 – darpo abhimash) indicates that such obsession with fame…

We sometimes feel overwhelmed by the number of things that we need to get done. No doubt, we do have a lot to do, but we often put unnecessary loads on ourselves by our unregulated desires. The mind is the place where desires crowd. These desires may come from outside, entering through the doors of…

Heart attack. Recession. Earthquake. All of us have our fears. Fears that check even choke our energy, making things far more difficult than they need to be. How do we deal with fear? Some people increase their wealth or power, hoping that one day they will become so big that no fear will intimidate them….

When someone wrongs us, it is natural to feel angry. Yet just because it is natural doesn’t make it desirable. Of course, neither is it desirable to be passive amidst injustices; we need to be assertive and do what we can to set the situation right. But our response should alleviate the problem, not aggravate…

We are all shaped by our experiences. The way people deal with us, especially during our formative years, becomes our standard reference, conscious or subconscious, for how we deal with others later in our life. Unfortunately, this is how abuse becomes a tradition. Ragging in college hostels is a tragic example. Those who are at…

Today’s materialistic culture provokes us into seeing everything in monetary terms: “There are so many good-looking things that I could enjoy if only I had enough money.” Such a money-centered worldview leads to ominous consequences because greed for money acts sinisterly, devouring everything that blocks its way. It reduces to nothing one’s spirituality, morality, even…

Money, money, money. That’s the supreme goal of life for many people today. We obviously need money to survive. But is it survival that drives most people towards money? Not really. It’s happiness, the hope that money will enable them to live the kind of life that they have always longed for. That longing will…

Liberty. Freedom. Independence. These words appeal to us for they express the universal longing of the heart. However, these words have in recent times been hijacked by materialists. They promise to free us from all the cultural, social and religious shackles that purportedly hold us back from uninhibited material enjoyment. Rarely do they realize that…

When we neglect or reject relationships, we make ourselves lonely. But when we neglect or reject our relationship with Krishna, we make ourselves worse that lonely; we make ourselves empty. Life without Krishna becomes an emotional wasteland, a scorching desert wherein our emotions dry and die under the glare of ultimate meaninglessness. Emotions bring life…

Skeptics often ask, “What is the use of devoting so much time to God?” Little do they understand that Krishna brings meaning, purpose and joy to life: Meaning because our Krishna-connection reassures that that no matter how meaningless life’s events seem to be, Krishna by his benevolent orchestration will ensure the eventual emergence of meaning….

Faultfinding comes easy for most of us; it gives a much-craved boost to our false ego by making us feel superior to the faulty. And learning Gita wisdom may give a further fillip to our faultfinding mentality. Once we know the Gita’s moral standards, we can easily see how pitifully short almost everyone falls of…

“Purchase this and you will be happy.” “Wear this and you will enjoy.” “Own this and your dreams will be fulfilled.” Ads like these confront us so frequently that we often assume them integral to a normal cultural landscape. What we rarely realize, however, is that such a landscape is actually a prison – a…

“My home altar is more elegant than that of others.” “I pronounce verses more accurately than others.” “I give more donation than others.” Such thoughts sometimes come to us when we engage in religious activities. These thoughts if entertained distort religion into a gymnasium for the ego. Just as a gym is an arena for…

Some people parade their faithlessness as if it makes them intellectually superior: “I don’t believe in anything that I don’t see; I don’t believe in fairy tales about a good God watching over the world.” What such self-congratulatory atheists rarely acknowledge is that their faithlessness is rooted in faith. Let’s see how. Firstly, disbelief in…

The world defines us by our possessions – what we wear, where we stay, what we drive in, for example. However, these things are external to us, peripheral to our essential identity – unless of course we let them define our conception of ourselves. Such possession-based self-definition is unstable because worldly things come and go,…

Some exclusivist religions claim that no one can access God except through them. Such reduction of God to a monopolized commodity in the religious market is thoroughly rejected by Gita wisdom. The Bhagavad-gita (18.66) expresses this rejection in the most dramatic and emphatic way: by urging us to abandon all religions for the sake of…

Scripture often talks about times so radically different from ours that we may wonder: is this relevant for me? Yes, definitely. The relevance comes from the fact that the essential challenge facing humanity always remains the same: how to live spiritually in the material world. For meeting this challenge, regular study of scriptures provides us…

We all want to control our dependents. And we do need some control to guide them properly. Yet by their very nature people often go out of control. When that happens, we may react vehemently, even violently. What causes our extreme reaction? Often, it’s our uncontrolled ego. Feeling responsible for our dependents is desirable, even…

The religion of fanatical materialism is sweeping across the entire world. No doubt, materialism always had adherents throughout history. But what is alarming about modern materialism is its aggressive demand for exclusive devotion. In the past, materialism was integrated into a worldview that had respectable place for morality, relationships, tradition and God. But today’s materialism…

Fanatical materialists claim that matter is all that exists and that consciousness doesn’t exist as an independent causal agent. Whatever consciousness seems to exist, they argue, simply emerges from the matter that comprises brain cells. Of course, they conveniently forget that they need consciousness to say that consciousness doesn’t exist. Matter can’t say that –…

The scriptures compare the spiritual master’s words with a surgical knife. Those words cut through the misconceptions and illusions that bind materialistic people, thereby healing them spiritually. As aspiring devotees, we can use this metaphor to understand how unpalatable feedback from our spiritual mentors may be beneficial. But if we use it to justify our…

We reveal more about ourselves when we speak about others than when we speak about ourselves. All our words offer listeners glimpses into our heart. When we speak about ourselves, we consciously present our best image, concealing our blemishes and biases. However, when we speak about others, often those blemishes and biases unconsciously flow through…

In our life, we presume that we are the choosers and the doers, the central protagonists in an ongoing, unfolding drama. But are we, really? We often unwittingly let ourselves be displaced from the center of our life to the periphery. Replacing us at the center is a shadow version of ourselves, a weakling surrogate…

Today’s materialistic culture charms us by portraying itself as progressive. But is it really? Beyond its impressive technological wizardry, what does it actually do for us? The three main things it does are: Fill our mind: Through the marketing, advertising and entertainment industries, our culture exposes us to material temptations at a scale never before…

Materialism is the belief system that matter is all that exists. Sometimes it takes a slightly more tolerant form as the belief system that matter is all that matters; non-material things like soul and God may exist, but they don’t matter. Either way, materialism makes us believe that all our hopes for progress, success and…

The idea of progress attracts us because we are happiness-seeking beings and we are promised that progress will make us happier. However, our current culture indoctrinates us with the narrow-minded notion that progress means material progress, which in turn means economic growth, technological advancement and cultural liberalization. When our society apparently achieves this kind of…

Children desire toys and cry when thwarted and angered. Undiscriminating desire and unmanaged anger – these two defining emotions of childishness underlie many of our sociological problems. Today, most people, even if grown-up physically, remain childish emotionally; their physical growth just changes the toys they desire and the ways they cry. In the game of…

Suppose each time we want to type an email the computer asks us to choose the font, the font size, the alignment, the indentation, the line spacing and other such parameters. We would lose so much of our precious time before we could get down to the real work of typing the email. That’s why…