Karma Yoga
Chapter 3, Verse 39
āvṛtaṁ jñānam etena
jñānino nitya vairiṇā
kāma-rūpeṇa kaunteya
duṣpūreṇānalena ca
Wisdom is obscured by this constant enemy of the wise, O Arjuna, which is as insatiable as fire
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Here Krishna says, “The fire of desire is insatiable; it grows more and more.” As long as man continues enjoying the objects of this world, his appetite for enjoyment also grows like fire. It becomes greedy! It will never be satisfied! Even after passing a long life of intense enjoyment, desire is never satisfied. Desire is like ghee. If you pour ghee into a fire, the fire burns more and more. Such is the state of a mind which is full of desire. The enemy, in the form of desire, will never allow discrimination, dispassion, or true Love to awaken. When one doesn’t have discrimination, one gets attached to the objects of the senses and can’t know the real Truth. If the mind is rooted in negative qualities, it is very difficult. A sadhak, a devotee, should focus the mind on the Divine, focus on their spiritual progress.
The “enemy of the wise”; a wise person, one who has knowledge, one who has bhakti, should avoid having desires. Desire is the enemy of all beings and drags everyone into degradation.
Kāma-rūpeṇa means the enjoyments of the world, the desires of the outside. Whoever looks upon vices and so on, is knocking at the door to Hell. But the blessed one desires God, longs for God. Here Krishna says that there are two forms of desire. The desire of the mind drags one completely to the outside. The other desire, the longing of the heart, is the gateway to Heaven. When you train yourself to transform the desires of the mind through meditation, and perform your duty, and accept the Will of God, then these desires, which can’t be killed, are transformed from rajasic to sattvic in nature. Don’t go into the game of desires. Let’s say you feel anger: in place of acting on that anger, in place of putting fuel into that fire, try to control yourself. The anger will leave you and transform itself.
These desires can’t be killed, because it is you who create them; the mind is the cause of them. But they can be transformed. If one is on the spiritual path, through spiritual practices, through sadhana, these desires can be transformed for one’s spiritual progress. When you dwell in the world, you have desires for many things, for many pleasures of the outside world. You want to become rich, you want to have a beautiful car, you want to have a beautiful house, you want to have many things which, in reality, are dragging you down! But when you become spiritual, God becomes the Ultimate desire. All the other enjoyments are transformed. This doesn’t mean that you should not have a house; you’ll have it! But you are not a slave to it. You’ll not have this impulse, this deep attachment to hold onto it.
Krishna says, “Oh Arjuna, be aware, avoid this, don’t feed this thought!” In daily life, a certain thought might arise in your mind: you know that this thought is not right, but you go into it and you make yourself miserable! You say, “I can’t practice my sadhana. Atma Kriya Yoga is too much! I can’t meditate. I can’t do my japa!” You put up this big barrier, this big wall that you can’t do it. Then you go into that weakness and believe that you can’t change. When you have a certain thing in your mind that you don’t like and you go into it, it affects you: because you are spiritual, it will make you feel bad! How many times have you had a certain feeling inside of you – you don’t want this feeling, but you entertain it in your mind, and it is dancing left and right? “Swaha! Swaha!” You are doing a yagna (fire ritual)! You are pouring ghee onto the fire of the yagna, onto the fire of these desires. Then, you feel miserable, you feel pain. You feel angry, not towards the outside, but you feel angry towards yourself, because you know that this desire came from you.
Here Krishna says, “Do not entertain that, you have to be watchful!” You have to be careful – at the beginning itself – not to go into it. Because once you go into it, it will make you dance left and right. As it is dancing in your mind, it will also dance on the outside.
Bhagavad Gita
