The Bhagavad-gita (02.64) indicates that harmonizing our life with scriptural regulations is the way to happiness. Some of us may feel that regulating ourselves will take away our freedom to enjoy life. Gita wisdom responds by gently pointing out that we have already been deprived of a far more fundamental freedom: the freedom to choose our definition of enjoyment.

Our culture steals this freedom so stealthily and insidiously that most of us don’t even realize that we have been robbed. The pressure of conforming to prevailing cultural norms is so overwhelming that we just accept that the materialistic, often hedonistic, pleasures popular today comprise the actual definition of enjoyment.

But is this definition of enjoyment correct? If it were, then why do we encounter contrary facts like the following?

1. The champions of such enjoyment are themselves plagued with sufferings that range from depression to suicidal urges.
2. Our own experiences of these enjoyments have always been an anti-climax: we have not got even a small fraction of the hyped pleasure.

Such calm contemplation will help us see the truth that the definition of happiness imposed on us is false.

By following the Gita’s regulations, we reclaim our freedom to choose our own definition of enjoyment. More importantly, we also gain the willpower to choose the definition that is in harmony with the reality of who we are: spiritual beings meant to rejoice eternally by loving and serving Krishna. This factual definition places us on the highway to the supreme happiness of everlasting divine love.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 02 Text 64

“But a person free from all attachment and aversion and able to control his senses through regulative principles of freedom can obtain the complete mercy of the Lord.”