18.67: What are our thoughts giving us: frustration or jubilation?
Most of our thoughts run along the default rails of eating, mating, sleeping and defending. While these activities may be necessary bodily functions, our thoughts about them – especially about eating and mating – consume far more of our mental energy than bodily functions require or deserve. We can engage physically in these activities for only a small part of our life, but we let them possess us mentally for a large part of our life. And all the extra time and thought that we allow them only backfires on us, causing us agitation and frustration. We become agitated by the thought: “When will I get it?” And we become frustrated by the thought: “Why didn’t I get it? I got it, but why was it not good enough? And why did it have to end so soon?”
Gita wisdom informs us that our mental energy deserves far better returns than the impoverishing returns of agitation and frustration. If we offer our mental energy to Krishna by consciously choosing him as our default object of thought, we can get the enriching returns of pacification and jubilation.
- Pacification: When we think about Krishna, we invoke his personal and powerful presence. This presence manifests as the mysterious peace that pervades our heart as we think of Krishna steadily.
- Jubilation: When we gradually infuse our Krishna-thoughts with devotion, Krishna reciprocates by revealing his glory and beauty, a revelation that surcharges our heart with joy. This jubilant state of heart was achieved by Sanjay (18.76) through hearing, repeating and especially contemplating the message of the Gita.
That inner life of jubilation beckons all of us if we train and guide our thoughts along the rails laid out by the Gita to the destination of Krishna.