02.44: Attachments steal our freedom of thought

The Bhagavad-gita (2.44) states that worldly attachments – especially attachments to sensual indulgence and monetary affluence – abduct our consciousness and sabotage our prospects for inner stability and serenity. Whenever we engage in any worldly activity that gives us some material pleasure, a subtle invisible rope is formed between us and the object that gives us that pleasure. Every subsequent indulgence contributes an additional strand to that rope.  As the subtle rope becomes thicker and tighter, the mental tug that it exerts on us becomes stronger and stronger. Consequently, our thoughts get dragged to and imprisoned in those sense objects, even when we are doing other activities physically and want to focus on those activities mentally. When repeated indulgence makes the rope so thick that its tug becomes perpetual and irresistible, the attachment transmogrifies into an addiction, which deprives us of our freedom of thought almost entirely.

Nonetheless, our freedom is never lost entirely or irrecoverably ; if we use whatever freedom we still have to fix our thoughts on Krishna, who is the source of the highest pleasure, then a subtle rope is formed between us and Krishna. As we repeatedly practice fixing our mind on Krishna – especially by chanting his holy names, this rope of spiritual attachment gains strength and leads us out of from the psychological prison into which we had been dragged by the rope of our material attachment.