Bhagavad Gita 16.13

idam adya mayā labdham

imaṁ prāpsye manoratham

idam astīdam api me

bhaviṣyati punar dhanam

 

“This today I gained,” they proclaim,

“That desirable too I will soon claim;

This is mine, and that too will be,

More and more shall come to me.”

 

My dear Lord, by my very nature as a living being, I have the desire to grow. Yet you have also given me the intelligence to choose how I desire to grow.

O all-pervading Lord, let me not succumb to the widespread illusion in this materialistic world that growth must be external and material, measured in positions and possessions. Protect me from such a definition of ambition, for it will bind me in slavery to greed that can extend over my entire lifetime—and even over many lifetimes.

O supremely benevolent Lord, after acquiring something that greed made me believe would make me happy, I find that it provides no intrinsic happiness. The only happiness from it is extrinsic. My positions and possessions provide pleasure only to the extent that I can exhibit them before others, and only for as long as such exhibition evokes their admiration. Once either my capacity to exhibit or their tendency to admire ceases, the pleasure disappears as if it never existed. May such experiences solidify my realizations about the emptiness of mundane gains.

O merciful Lord, let the futility of material accumulation prompt me to explore the fertility of a devotional connection with you. Help me savor the moments of peace and joy that I experience in remembering you and serving you. May those slices of heaven that I glimpse in loving you redirect my heart toward you, firmly, finally, fully.

***

16.13 The demoniac person thinks: “So much wealth do I have today, and I will gain more according to my schemes. So much is mine now, and it will increase in the future, more and more…”