06.20-23: Going Beyond the Reach of Misery

All of us strive to achieve something worthwhile and wonderful in life, yet whatever we gain materially leaves us prone to the twin miseries of hankering and lamenting: hankering because, no matter what we gain, the feeling that there’s something more to be gained keeps dogging us, and lamenting because the upheavals of life inevitably take away whatever we have gained.
In the Bhagavad-gita (6.20-23), Lord Krishna describes the achievement that takes us beyond the reach of these two miseries: the state of divine trance. When we achieve a steady, intense, loving and ecstatic connection with the Supreme, that connection frees us from both hankering and lamenting: hankering because it completely satisfies our heart, and lamenting because it being intrinsic to us can never be disrupted by any material upheaval.