15.07 – When fulfilling desires doesn’t translate into fulfillment

We all have so many desires for so many worldly things.

However, because we live in a world of finite resources and a body with limited capacities, we can’t fulfill most of our desires.  But our infatuation with such desires and our frustration at being unable to fulfill them that we become blind to a fundamental reality. The reality that fulfilling such desires doesn’t bring fulfillment.

Why? Because those desires are peripheral to our identity as immortal souls, who are eternal parts of Krishna, as the Bhagavad-gita (15.07) indicates. Parts who become whole only by connecting with him through spiritual love.

To translate fulfilled desires into fulfillment, Gita wisdom urges us to cultivate desires for Krishna. The desire to be solaced and strengthened by his healing grace. The desire to share his love with the world. The desire to do justice to the gifts he has given us. The desire to bring glory to him by our conduct and character. And, most of all, the desire to please him, just as a lover desires to please the beloved.

The wonderful thing about such devotional desires is that they don’t have to be fulfilled to grant us fulfillment. Just cultivating those desires and striving to fulfill them takes us closer to Krishna, helps us remember him more and serve him better. And that enriched Krishna consciousness in and of itself brings great fulfillment.

No doubt, the more we become truly conscious of Krishna, the more we do all our activities with greater conscientiousness, seeing them as services to him. And that increases our chances of succeeding in those activities.

Nonetheless, irrespective of whether we succeed in fulfilling specific desires or not, cultivating Krishna consciousness guarantees us success in the generic mission of our life: attaining fulfillment. Fulfillment that lasts forever.

***

The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.