Gita 14.12 Desires that drive us with the lure of pleasure are insatiable

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
we can learn to bring balance in our work, our family and our bhakti.
Thank you. So here Krishna is speaking about the time when the modes of goodness, mode of passion becomes prominent, in this section he is talking about three modes of material nature and how to recognize which mode has become prominent at a particular time. In 14.10 he said that the three modes are in competition, in 14.11 he gives the characteristics of the consciousness wherein the mode of goodness is prominent and now he gives the consciousness wherein the mode of passion is prominent.
So lobha pravrttirarambhaha lobhaha. So lobha is greed, very very strong desire for more and more and more and more. Lobha is probably the defining characteristic of modern civilization.
Of course greed is present in all times in the material world just as lust is present also but there are times when the greed can become prominent, even dominant, can become the defining value of some people and that is what has happened over here that greed has become for some people, for most people, for significant minority or even majority we could say, that has become the defining value of their life and greed is fueled today by the media which shows the best of everything so that people don’t just see their immediate vicinity and immediate surroundings or their immediate community as a reference point for comparison but they have the whole world for comparing with. If I have a simple vehicle with me, I don’t necessarily compare with other people in my locality who probably will be of a financial bracket similar to mine but I can see in the TV, in the ads, in the billboards the best cars that the wealthiest people have and that fuels my desire, my greed all the more. So greed is triggered by perception and it is fueled by contemplation.
It is triggered and we see certain objects, perceive them, then that is triggered and then when a fire is lit, at that time how much the fire will grow will depend on how much fuel we can find. So for the fire of desire, perception is the trigger and contemplation is the fuel. And of course incineration of intelligence is the destination.
Now this applies for any desire and it applies also for greed. So lobha leads to pravrtti. Pravrtti is activity.
One works and arambha is actually great endeavour. One works effortfully. Karmanam, one engages in activity with great effort, laboured effort.
Ashamahasproha and one has insatiable desire. So actually this is a sequence which is what is particularly straining and entangling. We all have desires.
Say for example, if we desire a better house, then that is lobha. Or if you want to use a more non-judgmental word, that is just desire we have. And from lobha comes pravrtti.
According to our inclination, we will work. We may be software engineers, we may be business people, we may be accountants or whatever. And then by that, arambha karmanam, we do endeavour and we work.
Then we earn something and we fulfil the desire. But materialism is our defining ideology and greed is our driving desire. Then what we end up with is ashamahasproha, insatiable desire.
So no matter what we achieve, how much we achieve, we always feel dissatisfied. We always feel as if we don’t have enough. We always feel as if we need more and we don’t have that more.
Thus we end up feeling frustrated, dissatisfied. So desire is normally there but ashamahasproha, insatiable desire. Now, all desires are at one level insatiable but not necessarily or universally.
If I am feeling, say, cold, I turn on a fan. It’s a desire to have the fan but that’s done. It gets over.
It’s not that immediately I’ll desire an AC and I’ll desire the noiseless AC and I’ll desire a hundred other things. Because even the desire to get relief from things being uncomfortably warm can be developed in unlimited ways. So it depends on how much is our perception.
So if something is simply a functional desire, we do it and it’s over. But when something is a driving desire, then that can become endless. So if my goal is that I need a house to stay and I have some functional needs, then we may well be able to get a house that fulfills our functional desires.
But if we consider most of the prominent desires that we have, the desires for sensual pleasure are not necessarily functional desires. The desire for eating is not just a functional desire to get food as fuel for the body. That desire is also a pleasure-seeking desire.
And when our desires are pleasure-seeking and when we do not have a spiritual conception of life, when we have only a materialistic conception of life, then those desires become insatiable. So Krishna says that, अशमहस्पुहा, insatiable desire, that is the characteristic of the prominence of the mode of passion. यस्य एतानि जायन्ते When the mode of goodness becomes prominent, जायन्ते, this is what appears.
विव्रुध्धे When the mode of passion becomes विव्रुध्धे, विव्रुध्धे means aged or mature, विव्रुध्धे means prominent. So all these appear जायन्ते when रचा becomes विव्रुध्धे. Krishna concludes that Bharata Rishabha is speaking to Arjuna who is a hero in the Bharata dynasty.
So we all will have desires for things in this world also, because while we live in this world we have to function here. But when they become our driving desires, when we equate the satisfaction of desires with our satisfaction, then the desires become insatiable. And that is what the mode of passion does.
The mode of passion makes us so captivated by the promise, by the lure that this will make you happy, this alone will make you happy, and without this you cannot be happy. That we just put aside everything else and start craving and slaving for the fulfillment of that desire. And even if we fulfill it at one level, the gratification that we get from it doesn’t live up to our anticipation and thus we crave more for it, and more, and more, and thus we become bound.
As Krishna has stated in 14.6 as well as 9, that in the mode of passion we get bound back to karma, to working more and more because of karma. So karma kindles karma, that when we have strong desire, then that impels us to do activities, due to activities to fulfill that desire. And thus we become bound.
So whenever we are driven by desires that are non-functional, that are making us run around with the promise of pleasure, and instant irresistible pleasure, which we feel we should get immediately, then we can know that the mode of passion has become prominent within us.