Bhagavad Gita 2.55

śrī-bhagavān uvāca

prajahāti yadā kāmān

sarvān pārtha mano-gatān

ātma-ny-evātmanā tuṣṭaḥ

sthita-prajñas tadocyate

 

“When all desires, the heart lets go,

No worldly craving left to grow,

Rejoicing within, serene and satisfied,

The steady sage is by wisdom fortified.”

 

My dear Lord, for many lifetimes, I have been chasing external objects, believing that the next thing to come into my vision will bring me happiness. Yet, countless  such pursuits in the past have turned out to be unproductive and even counterproductive. Please, O Lord, I beg you—give me the conviction to turn away from the world and, more importantly, to turn away from the desires that make me turn toward the world. 

Even though I do not experience much pleasure within right now, bless me, O Lord, with the conviction to at least give the inner quest a sincere try. Grant me, O Lord, the intelligence and perseverance by which I can keep digging within—through the layers of impressions beneath which my soul and its potential to purely and fully love you are buried.

Sustain me, O Lord, during this interim period when I must let go of the promise of outer pleasure and hold on to your promise of inner pleasure—even when I may not yet be experiencing any pleasure, but only the austerity of being in a no-man’s land.

Hold my hand, O Lord, and more importantly, hold my heart, so that I can keep moving through this desert to the oasis that you have waiting for me in the innermost core of my being.

***

02,55 The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: O Pārtha, when a man gives up all varieties of desire for sense gratification, which arise from mental concoction, and when his mind, thus purified, finds satisfaction in the self alone, then he is said to be in pure transcendental consciousness.