02.61 – Are we winning the misery championship with our eyes?

The qualifying rounds: Our contemporary culture assaults our eyes with visually alluring images of objects that promise worldly pleasure. When we become inflamed by the desire for those objects and undergo the misery of slogging to get those objects, we win the qualifying rounds of the misery championship.

The initial rounds: The images are doctored professionally so that they look much better than the real objects. So, when we visually consume those objects by possessing and enjoying them, our experience never lives up to the hype. By experiencing the misery of our frustrated expectations, we win the initials rounds.

The later rounds: The sheer number of worldly objects that tempt our eyes is so great that we can never consume all of them. That’s why no matter how many objects we consume, many more objects keep tormenting us visually. When we experience the misery of perpetual torment, we win the rounds that lead to the finals.

The final: The pleasure from visual consumption of worldly forms is fleeting but intoxicating. Becoming addicted to that intoxicating pleasure, we see as sources of pleasure the very objects that are sources of our misery. When we dedicate our life to courting and embracing misery as if it were pleasure, we win the final of the misery championship and get the privilege of drinking from the cup of visual misery for the rest of our life.

Gita wisdom liberates us from this miserable game by revealing misery-free ways of visual enjoyment. We are souls, who can feast visually on the beautiful form of Krishna and thereby get ever-increasing spiritual happiness. When we relish that devotional fulfillment, the Bhagavad-gita (2.61) indicates, we are no longer seduced by pleasures that end in miseries.