Bhagavad Gita 15.11

yatanto yoginaś cainaṁ

paśyanty ātmany avasthitam

yatanto ’py akṛtātmāno

nainaṁ paśyanty acetasaḥ

 

Striving yogis seek and see,

The Self within, in clarity;

Yet striving minds untrained, impure,

See not the Self—its light secure.

 

My dear Lord, I am drawn not only to pleasure but also to meaning. In a world that reduces my life to insignificance and my efforts to irrelevance, I am constantly haunted by the specter of meaninglessness.

O supreme shelter of all meaning, you have placed within me, as an innate feature of my very soul, a faculty that is like a meaning-making machine. That faculty seeks meaning in various things in the world, based on the conditioning of my body-mind machine. Drawn and directed by both my temperament and my talent, I seek to carve out meaning in my life and gradually to carve out a life of meaning amid the world’s confusion, chaos, and carnage.

O supreme guide, you provide me the wisdom-lens to see beyond mere material phenomena to the divine plan that shapes all events externally and experiences internally. When I become sheltered in you, I am able to connect whatever meaning I find in this world with you, the source and shelter of all meaning. Indeed, you enable me to see my ability, creativity, and individuality all as ultimately coming from you and prompting me toward you, thus enveloping my fragile mortal existence within a larger progressive plan toward enduring meaning.

O indwelling divinity, just as Arjuna found meaning by using his archery in your service, may I find you through whatever brings meaning to my life.

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15.11 The endeavoring transcendentalists who are situated in self-realization can see all this clearly. But those whose minds are not developed and who are not situated in self-realization cannot see what is taking place, though they may try.