Bhagavad Gita 12.9

atha cittaṁ samādhātuṁ

na śaknoṣi mayi sthiram

abhyāsa-yogena tato

mām icchāptuṁ dhanañjaya

 

If you can’t be absorbed steadily,

Then just focus on me patiently;

Practice this with a loving plea,

And attain the desire for me.

 

My dear Lord, many of my problems arise from my uncontrollable and uncountable desires for worldly things. Such desires are consuming and confounding. Before i indulge them, they consume me so completely that i can neither reject nor neglect them. And after i indulge them, they confound me, because all i end up with is a flickering pleasure followed by an even more consuming craving. I beg your mercy to see clearly and unsentimentally that such desires are nothing but trouble.

O all-attractive Lord, as i learn to renounce worldly desires, protect me from the opposite extreme of renouncing desire altogether. You have given me the power of desire so that i can desire you and be drawn ever closer to you. Desire for you is a treasure, a transformative resource, an empowering blessing. Such desire absorbs me in you, and that absorption is my greatest protection from worldly temptation. Indeed, the purpose of my devotional practices is to fuel and fan my desire for you. Thus the desire that now flickers like a candle can, in time, blaze into a flame that illuminates my inner and outer life. Ultimately it will lead me to union with you, the greatest treasure in all existence.

Bless me, my beloved Lord, with the conviction to regulate and release the worldly desires that are trouble, and to cultivate and cherish the desire for you that is a treasure.

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12.09 My dear Arjuna, O winner of wealth, if you cannot fix your mind upon Me without deviation, then follow the regulative principles of bhakti-yoga. In this way develop a desire to attain Me.