18.58: Our fear of insignificance traps us in insignificance

The Bhagavad-gita (18.58) urges us to harmonize our desires with Krishna’s desires and to put aside all other desires, recognizing them to be what they are: the false ego’s allurements. However, when we identify too strongly with our false ego, then we mistake its desires to be our own desires. This misidentification may make casting those desires aside seem like giving up our own individuality, like making ourselves insignificant.

But actually this fear of insignificance is what traps us in insignificance. If we unsentimentally contemplate on the false ego’s desires, we will realize that the fulfillment of those desires will yield insignificant results; at best we might get some fleeting, unfulfilling pleasure that will keep us bound to the insignificant material existence like zillions of other living entities. As long as we stay wedded to those desires, we seal our pact with insignificance.

If we can somehow endure the feelings of insignificance induced while casting aside the false ego’s desires and accept Krishna’s desires as our own, then his mercy empowers us to pass over all obstacles and render significant service that pleases him, benefits the world and delivers us to his own abode, where we delight forever in a life of ultimate significance: the life of everlasting love.