How do we know which desires are healthy and which unhealthy?

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unshakable peace. Thank you. So, how do we know which desires are healthy and which are unhealthy? Yeah.
Broadly speaking, we can classify our desires. Firstly, as I said, healthy and unhealthy. So, those desires which harm us, which harm others, they are definitely unhealthy desires.
So, the Bhagavad Gita talks about three gates to hell. Kama, krodha, lobha. Lust, anger and greed.
Trimitam narkasetam dwaram nashinam atmanah. Kama, krodha, lobha, sasmadetatrayam tijitam. In 16.21, Krishna said these are three gates to hell.
They destroy us spiritually and therefore, we should abstain from them. So, the desires which originate from these, so lust, anger, greed, these are forces within us and they can express themselves as a variety of desires. So, when the desires that originate from these, they are often unhealthy.
And we need to be careful about it. So, extending this, there is also envy. Kama, krodha, lobha, moha, madhya, matsarya.
These six are considered inner enemies. The desires which originate from them, they are definitely unhealthy. Now, apart from that, within the non-unhealthy desires, we can have any desires.
So, how do we choose? It is based on a proper understanding of what is most important in our life. So, sometimes the good, in itself, is not bad. But the good can become the enemy of the best.
Sometimes, I think there’s nothing wrong in it. Let me do it. But when we do it, it takes a lot of our time.
It takes a lot of our energy. And then, do we really enjoy it? Okay! I didn’t find it all that great. I went to this trip, I went here, I went there.
So, it’s not that we have to, by itself, reject it. But it’s just that if we have an understanding of the ultimate purpose of our life, then we can place the various desires that we have in that context. Say, if I’m going from here back to the place where I’m staying now, then I’ll go straight.
But if I’m just going for a sightseeing route, I’ll go here, I’ll go there. Okay! This looks interesting. That looks interesting.
That looks interesting. If I have no goal, then I might just go here, go there, go there, go there. Many places.
But if I have a goal, I’ll stay focused. So now, what is the ultimate goal of our life? So, the Bhagavata explains that ultimately, we are spiritual beings and we are here for our spiritual evolution. You know, we are at our core eternal spiritual beings and we can find happiness only in eternal spiritual love.
You can have many loving relationships in this world. But all these relationships are temporary. We have an eternal relationship with God.
God is known by different names in different traditions. He is known in Bhagavad Gita by the name Krishna. And when we have a loving relationship with God, we at our core as spiritual beings are eternal.
God is eternal. And the bond of love between us, which is called as Bhakti, that is also eternal. So, the ultimate purpose of life is to grow in that eternal loving relationship with God.
And whatever we do in this world is also meant to be done in a mood of service to God and to all living beings. We are the children of God in a mood of service to God. So, that way if we see growing spiritually doesn’t just mean renouncing the world.
It means engaging in the world in the mood of service to God. So, if we have this spiritual growth as life’s ultimate purpose and if we have a mood of devotional contribution through our talents, through our vocation, through our activities in this world, while we function in this world, that will give us a grid, a framework within which to place our various desires. And then we can decide, okay, this is a desire which is worth pursuing.
This is a desire which is going to take too much time. I don’t want to get involved in this. So, like that, by being clear about the ultimate goal of our life and evaluating our various desires in terms of that ultimate goal, then we can choose among our non-unhealthy desires and ensure that we invest our time and energy in our most important desires.
Does it answer your question? Yes.