16.17: All bluff, no stuff – “Isn’t that enough?”

The Bhagavad-gita (16.17) describes the godless to be self-complacent and impudent, throwing morality and spirituality to the winds while pursuing self-centered pleasures. They create a aggressive façade of being confident and dominant.

Those of us who are striving to lead a godly life may sometimes get enamored by the seeming self-assuredness of such ungodly people. When such timidness threatens us, we can gain strength by knowing that the godless, despite their aggressive posturing, are doing nothing new. They are playing the oldest game that there is to play:  playing god. And they will meet, sooner or later, the same old result that all such game-players have met: frustration, devastation and destruction. Even while maintaining their façade of self-assuredness, they are tormented by the innumerable desires that dominate them and are throttled by the insurmountable reversals that buffet them.

When we see with the eyes of the Gita, then we will recognize that behind all their bluff, there is no stuff and we will naturally feel, “Isn’t that enough?” Rather than feeling trepidation, we will feel compassion. Gita wisdom will ensure that our determination to turn our back on the game of playing god will not be weakened, but strenghtened – as will be our prayers that they too quit the doomed game and return to reality.