How can we regulate material desires that are not sinful?

From Sudha Mehta Mataji:

I had a specific question to ask I find that with chanting and giving devotional service to Krsna our lower desires like eating in restaurant, going to watch Cinema, Television, gossiping etc is overcome. But Desires like buying jewellery or doing investments, travelling to holiday destinations they are not getting reduced. Of course I don’t go out of way and splurge but still the moment talks of gold, jewellery or holiday travel plans are discussed or heard mind starts jumping like monkey and is restless. Especially w.r.t to going on holiday. These desires are not sinful but still desires are desires. How to overcome them? Even while chanting they dance in front of eyes. If you can help by showing a right perspective I would be grateful.

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.

Question from Sudhamaita Mataji. I find that with chanting and giving devotional service to Krishna, our lower desires like eating in restaurant, going to watch cinema, television, gossiping etc is overcome. But desires like buying jewelry or doing investments, traveling to holy destinations are not getting reduced.

Of course I don't go out of way and splurge, but still the moment talks of gold, jewelry or holiday travel plans are discussed or heard, mind starts jumping like monkey and is restless, especially with respect to going on holiday. These desires are not sinful, but still desires are desires. How to overcome them? Even while chanting, they dance in front of eyes.

If you can help by showing a right perspective, I would be grateful. Answer, Srila Prabhupada explains based on the Vedic scriptures that in general material enjoyment is like salt in food. We cannot live entirely without material enjoyment while we are in this world, just as we cannot live without salt.

But salt should not be excessive in the food, then it will be harmful. Similarly, when material enjoyment goes beyond certain limits, then it becomes harmful for us spiritually. Now what those limits are and what the ideal quantity of salt in food is or what material enjoyment should be in our life, that will vary from person to person.

There is no absolute standard that can be universally applied for everyone. In general, our desires can be classified into pure, sinful and devotable. The sinful desires certainly have to be given and pure desires should be nourished as much as possible so that we can chant more, hear more, render services more.

Now the devotable desires, they will be on a continuum from the pure towards the impure, towards the sinful and depending on where they lie on that continuum and depending on where, how strongly we feel influenced by those desires, we will have to individually chart a course of action. Sometimes when we try to struggle too much against a particular desire in this spectrum, then that struggle distracts us from Krishna consciousness. Krishna, while describing the right balance for a yogi, uses the word yukta.

Srila Prabhupada translates yukta as regulated. So he also says yukta viharasya. Vihara is recreation.

So that also needs to be regulated just as eating, sleeping need to be regulated. So if we sleep too less, then that will affect not only our health but also our capacity for Krishna consciousness because we will not be able to get into or in a devotional frame of mind. So we need whatever the body requires.

Similarly, just as the body has certain needs, the mind also has certain needs. Now we're not talking about the mind's needs in terms of the mind's cravings for lust, anger, greed, but there are certain other things which are in the spectrum. And depending on how much the mind needs them, we have to accommodate that.

So some of the desires of the mind have to be intelligently rejected, others can be accommodated. Just as when a mother is training a child, for some things the child wants the mother to seize the flat. No.

And for some others, the mother may allow to some extent. So similarly, our intelligence can be like the mother and the mind is like the child. And we cannot just have one approach in dealing with the mind.

Certainly one strong approach is needed when the mind comes up with sinful desires. But apart from that, there have to be multiple approaches. So some desires, especially those desires that are not sinful, often the best way to get rid of them is to experience their futility for ourselves.

That means that if we just keep battling about those desires for too long, then that saps our mental energy. And then even when we are practicing Krishna consciousness, we may feel that I'm missing something, I'm missing something. And because we are not wholehearted in Krishna consciousness, we don't get the higher taste.

And because we are thinking about what we are missing, we feel deprived and the craving keeps tormenting us. On the other hand, if we engage in those activities, then in due course of time, we realize that there's nothing great about these activities. Whether it's wearing jewelry or going on a holiday or whatever.

The Sri Prabhupada writes about such activity that most of the pleasure is in the planning. That okay, I'll go here, I'll go there. But when I actually go there, to certainly the change is refreshing sometimes, but it's not as great as the mind imagines it to be.

And over a period of time, we will become disillusioned with that particular idea. So of course, this disillusionment will happen only if we are having along with it, the diligent attempt to cultivate a higher taste. When we get the higher taste, and then when we experience the lower taste, we can clearly see the lower taste to be lower.

That means that whenever we are doing devotional activities, whatever be the level of accommodation required for us, for our material desires, we need to do those devotional activities wholeheartedly. And that will give us a higher taste. And consciously or subconsciously, we will over time realize that the lower taste is really not worth all the effort.

So the important point is that we have to see what level of engagement in material life allows us to stay fixed in Krishna Consciousness, undistracted in Krishna Consciousness. So if some cravings are too strong, then accommodating them and realizing their futility is a way in which we can also get free from them. Apart from that, it is also helpful to compile certain reflections that can enable us to restrain those desires.

Because if the higher taste is not strong enough, then the lower taste, although it doesn't satisfy, still it gives a little bit of pleasure and the mind starts craving for more and more and more. And then there will be no end to it. So if we contemplate and maybe write down a personal journal or a diary, how actually whatever the mind is imagining as pleasurable, from our experiences, from our hearing of the philosophy, from our discussion with other devotees, how it's not such a great thing, then we can actually draw back on that when the mind starts troubling us.

In my article on five reasons to write in devotional service, I have talked about this in the topic of tea, therapy, that we can use the philosophy as a therapy for specific maladies that the mind is suffering from. So the desires are like maladies and writing down reflections. Okay, last time I had gone here and I had so much anticipation, but then eventually what happened was not all that great.

So something like that, some reflections like that can be drawn on to pacify and discipline the mind when it gets very restless. Another way to dovetail or spiritualize these sort of desires is to connect them with Krishna. That means if we have a desire to go to some places, earlier travel plans, we can plan to go to some holy places.

And if that can be arranged, then we also get the change that we need. Often our material life becomes very demanding and stressful. So we may need some breaks.

So if we can get spiritual breaks in terms of going to some holy places, then that is also one way in which we can accommodate that desire and the desire doesn't necessarily remain material. It also becomes spiritualized. Of course, we have to see how much we are doing spiritual activities when we go to holy places also.

Otherwise, it may just be a material indulgence. But in general, there are ways to spiritualize these activities. Similarly, jewellery.

I have known several devotees who have said that their desire for possessing jewellery, which was very strong over a period of time when they started offering jewellery to Radharani. By seeing Radharani decorated in that jewellery, they experienced a higher happiness. And over a period of time, the desire to decorate themselves with that jewellery went down.

So these are some ways, if we pray to Krishna, he will individually guide us about how we can dovetail, spiritualize, accommodate or eliminate certain material desires that may be there. But the basic principle is that we need to be able to focus on Krishna consciousness. So for that focus, we need to be diligent in our sadhana when we are doing it.

And if to be able to do that sadhana, we need to do certain other things. There's no harm in doing those things if they are not wrong, in terms of being immoral or anti-devotional. But we also try to gain realizations by which over a period of time we can give them up.

Thank you.