During sickness, when we consult a doctor, a possible danger is misdiagnosis. The doctor may mistakenly prescribe the medicine meant for some disease other than the one we are suffering. Such a misdiagnosis can be disastrous if the prescription comprises the very thing that caused the disease. Sugar pills as misdiagnosed prescription for diabetes, for example.

Would any doctor ever misdiagnose so egregiously?

Sadly, yes. There’s a doctor who does just that – a doctor who lives in-house, in fact, in-body. That doctor is the mind. It frequently prescribes as a cure the very material indulgence that is the cause of our suffering. Addicts who are being ruined by their addiction still feel that one more puff or drink will solve their problems. They are tragic victims of the mind’s disastrous misdiagnosis.  

In fact, all of us in material existence are similarly victimized. 

We are souls who are innately joyful; ananda is intrinsic to our sat-cit-ananda constitution. However, because we have become infatuated by material things, and have forgotten our spiritual identity and activity, we can’t presently experience our natural joyfulness, so we feel dissatisfied. Yet our mind constantly prescribes more material things as the means to happiness.

Actually, devotional service to Krishna that reinstates us to the spiritual platform is the correct prescription. However, because we are still sick, we may feel dissatisfied while practicing devotional service. At such times, the mind becomes super-active at its misdiagnosis business, prompting, pushing, punching us to seek material enjoyment.

What we really need for happiness is more spiritual devotion, not more material gratification. That’s why, as the Bhagavad-gita (06.25) urges, we need to use our intelligence to disbelieve the mind and stay fixed on the spiritual platform. By such intellectual vigilance and spiritual perseverance, we will over time become fully and eternally happy.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 06 Text 25

“Gradually, step by step, one should become situated in trance by means of intelligence sustained by full conviction, and thus the mind should be fixed on the self alone and should think of nothing else.”