MATERIAL DESIRES ARE THE CAUSE OF BONDAGE

By Niraj Bidawatka

The Hare Krishna maha-mantra burns up all material desires and delivers transcendental love for Krishna. It makes one blissful just like the devotees in this picture. So start chanting now …

There are two types of desires, namely material and spiritual desires. The desires that are in relation to the body are material in nature whereas those that are in relation to the soul are termed as spiritual desires.

We all desire to live comfortably and happily and to achieve this we are always planning and desiring. First we desire and then we make plans to achieve our desired objects because we think that the accomplishment of such objects will make us happy. We therefore desire to have an automobile, a luxurious house, fashionable clothes, accessories, electronic gadgets and electrical appliances hoping that such things will make life comfortable and help us in achieving happiness. Such desires are on the sensual platform. Our eyes desire to see beautiful forms and therefore the tourism and film industries are flourishing. The ears desire to hear good music and therefore we want to go to music concerts and buy electronic gadgets. The tongue wants to taste all sorts of delectable foods. The nose wants nice fragrance and therefore we yearn for the best perfumes because it will not only satisfy our sense of smell but will also attract people from the opposite sex and thus help us satisfy our sense of touch. That’s like killing two birds with one stone.

Then there are desires on the mental and the intellectual platforms whereby we want to satisfy the mind and the intelligence. All these three types of desires namely, sensual, mental and intellectual desires are material in nature because we are identifying ourselves with our body, gross and subtle. The gross body is made up of the senses, which we can see, touch and feel. The subtle body is made up of the mind, intelligence and false ego, which we cannot touch and see but nonetheless we can feel and perceive it.

All that we desire is stored up in the heart because all the desires cannot be fulfilled at once. We desire a million things at any given point of time but all of them cannot be fulfilled simultaneously. Therefore many of them are kept pending in the heart so that they may be fulfilled at a suitable time in the future, if not in this life then in the next. Krishna is very kind. He is sitting within the hearts of all living entities and is recording their various desires. He fulfills all our desires, whether licit or illicit. Since we always desire so many things, one lifetime is not enough to fulfill all of them. Therefore we keep on taking birth after birth to enjoy (or suffer) our variegated desires. This leads to a never-ending chain of karma and we cannot get out of the loop.

The Bhagavad gita states that a wise man, after repeatedly taking many births, enquires that, “I have been working very diligently to fulfill my various desires but still, I am not happy. How can I become truly happy.” Such a person then inquires about the higher nature, about God and about his cause of unhappiness. Krishna, who is sitting within the heart, sends His bonafide representative to such an inquisitive soul to impart him spiritual knowledge.

The spiritual master explains to such an inquisitive soul that he is not this body. When he understands that he is a spirit soul, a part and parcel of Krishna and that he can become truly happy only in the company of God, he desires to go back to the spiritual abode of Krishna. He learns the art of chanting Hare Krishna from the spiritual master because he acquires substantive knowledge that taking refuge of the holy name is the only means of going back home, back to Godhead. The Hare Krishna mahamantra has the potency of burning up all the stocked up material desires and infusing the spirit soul with transcendental love for Krishna. The stocked up material desires are nothing but causes of misery. Therefore one who is seeking true happiness should not desire for sensual pleasures but should instead desire for attaining the association of Krishna and His devotees because one can become truly happy only in the company of God.

[The above write-up is based on the teachings of His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the Founder-Acarya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness]