“If I start practicing spiritual life with all its rules, no enjoyment will be left in my life.” Such apprehensions often check potential spiritual seekers.

However, authentic spiritual life doesn’t deprive us of enjoyment; it offers us the greatest enjoyment, in fact, the only enjoyment that there really is. Let’s see how.

We are all souls whose deepest need is love. As we are eternal, the only love that can truly satisfy us is love for an eternal object. All other loves may give some joy, but being temporary they will become sources of misery when time terminates our connection with them.

Gita wisdom urges us to direct all our love towards Krishna, for he possesses in full and forever all the attractive qualities that attract us to various worldly things. In fact, the attractiveness of worldly things comes from Krishna, because they reflect a spark of his unlimited attractiveness, as the Bhagavad-gita (10.41) reveals. So whatever pleasure those things give us ultimately comes from Krishna because whatever makes those things lovable and enjoyable comes from him. However, because worldly things possess his attractiveness only fractionally, the joy they give is fleeting.

Pertinently, the Bhagavad-gita (05.29) states that those who understand Krishna to be the enjoyer of everything attain supreme peace. Understanding Krishna to be the enjoyer implies living for his enjoyment, doing all our activities for his pleasure. This happens when we learn to love Krishna, for love means living for the pleasure of the beloved. And the purer our love for Krishna, the more we live only for his pleasure, eventually accepting that he is the only enjoyer. And this acceptance and the attendant undiverted love enable us to relish the supremely pleasurable relationship, a relationship that will never be lost but will continue forever.  

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 05 Text 29

“A person in full consciousness of Me, knowing Me to be the ultimate beneficiary of all sacrifices and austerities, the Supreme Lord of all planets and demigods, and the benefactor and well-wisher of all living entities, attains peace from the pangs of material miseries.”