Suppose a person feels pain due to serious disease denies the problem. Such a denial gives the disease a free run to spread till finally the pain becomes intolerable and undeniable.

All of us are afflicted by the disease of material existence (bhava-roga), a disease that causes us eternal blissful souls to undergo the miseries of birth, old age, disease and death. These miseries comprise the symptoms of the disease. They are meant to serve as reminders that prompt us to seek a cure, as the Bhagavad-gita (13.09) indicates by declaring that contemplation on these miseries is a characteristic of true knowledge.

Unfortunately, we frequently deny the problem. As these miseries are pervasive, we can’t deny their presence, but we do deny the possibility of these miseries befalling us anytime soon.

However, the onslaught of these miseries is not just a possibility but a certainty that can come upon us at any moment.

Is admitting this reality a program of passive pessimism?

Not at all, insists Gita wisdom. In fact, it is the beginning of the most intelligent activism – devotional activism.

Because material existence is a curable disease. We can by the therapeutic process of bhakti-yoga redirect our desires from the temporary to the eternal, from worldly things to Krishna. This redirection shifts the focus of our thoughts to Krishna, thereby giving us access to devotional happiness. This inner fulfillment enables us to tolerate life’s inevitable miseries whenever they befall us. And ultimately it takes us entirely beyond material existence to Krishna’s world of eternal ecstasy.

If we don’t meditate on the miseries of material existence, then our hunger for pleasure forces us to charge forward on the road of materialism, thereby increasing our worldly desires and aggravating the disease.

Why deny and multiply a problem that can be treated and transcended?

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 13, Text 09

"… Renunciation of the objects of sense gratification; absence of false ego, the perception of the evil of birth, death, old age and disease; … [ – all these I declare to be knowledge]"