15.10 – Strive not to look good in the eyes of the world; strive to get good eyes to look at the world

People often worry whether they look good in the eyes of the world; they fuss about being in tune with the latest fashions.

However, the world’s eyes are ever changing. What it cheers today, it jeers tomorrow. Fashions are notoriously short-lived.

Moreover, the world has many eyes – different people consider differing, even opposing, things as good. Looking good in everyone’s eyes is impossibly frustrating.

The obsession to look good sentences us to perpetual insecurity – we never know whether the world will find us good enough or what it will demand next. Worse still, under the spell of this obsession, we drag ourselves away from ourselves. We become disconnected from our core values, our inner essence, our true identity.

Situating ourselves in our actual identity is the only way to lasting security. For that, we need to get good eyes to look at the world. These good eyes are the eyes of knowledge (jnana-chakshu) provided by Gita wisdom, eyes that show us reality as it is. The unchanging reality is that we are souls meant for an eternal life of love and joy with Krishna. This world is but one station in our multi-life journey towards Krishna. People trying to ape the latest fashions are simply deluded souls dancing to the tune of the three modes, as the Bhagavad-gita (15.10) indicates.

The eyes of knowledge revise our vision of the world: It’s not a judge we need to satisfy, but a practicing ground we need to use for reviving our real life as devoted souls. Once we start serving Krishna and get a taste for the resulting fulfillment, then the obsession to look good ends – and we become free to live for our ultimate good.

**

15.10 – The foolish cannot understand how a living entity can quit his body, nor can they understand what sort of body he enjoys under the spell of the modes of nature. But one whose eyes are trained in knowledge can see all this.