06.24 – Let’s guard our consciousness the way we guard our homes
We guard our homes against trespassers, often warding them off with the notice, “Trespassers will be prosecuted.”
Gita wisdom urges us to guard our consciousness with a similar possessiveness. The Bhagavad-gita (06.24) recommends that we determinedly protect our consciousness from worldly desires. Just as our home surrounds us, so does our consciousness. Just as people may intrude into our house, desires may intrude into our consciousness. Just as such intruding people need to be screened and shown the door when necessary, so too with intruding desires.
Guarding our consciousness is much tougher than guarding our home because:
- The intruders are far more: The media and the culture are constantly trying to press desires into our consciousness – “Eat this; wear this; own this.” Unlike intruders who may break into our homes occasionally, such desires intrude into our consciousness scores of time daily.
- The intruders are much more deceptive: Intruding desires sweet-talk us with promises of enjoyment. So thorough is their deception that instead of showing them the door, we often welcome them right into our heart.
- We are much less vigilant: We don’t realize that intruders breaking into our consciousness can cause as much, even more, trouble than intruders breaking into our home. Intruding desires can take us hostage and make us act according to their spell till we somehow break free. When we will be able to break free and how much damage may happen before that is anyone’s guess; under their spell, we may do things that cause lifelong regrets and heartbreaks. Better to be safe than sorry.
By meditating that our consciousness is a sacred space meant for the glorification of Krishna, we can spiritualize our mentality for possessiveness and firmly drive out trespassing anti-devotional desires from our consciousness.
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One should engage oneself in the practice of yoga with determination and faith and not be deviated from the path. One should abandon, without exception, all material desires born of mental speculation and thus control all the senses on all sides by the mind.