Let my joy be in inner connection not outer gratification
Bhagavad Gita 2.57
yaḥ sarvatrānabhisnehas
tat tat prāpya śubhāśubham
nābhinandati na dveṣṭi
tasya prajñā pratiṣṭhitā
“One who clings not to joy or despair,
Unshaken by fortune, be it foul or fair,
Who regards neither with love nor with hate,
Is firmly fixed in wisdom’s state.”
My dear Lord, please help me remember that when you urge me not to hold on, crave, or hanker for the joys of this world, it is not because you want me to live a joyless, barren existence.
Far from it—you wish to offer me a supremely joyful existence, where my joy does not depend on variable and unreliable externals.
O Lord, help me remember that your whole focus is to help me access a state of inner connection with spiritual reality, by which I, as the soul, become lovingly absorbed in You as the Whole.
That connection, once established, can be sustained forever—independent of all externals. It is this connection I seek, O Lord.
Whenever I remember the wisdom behind your words, I beg you, O Lord, to bless me so that my intelligence may remember and realize that the joy of spiritual connection is far greater than any pleasure derived from material gratification through externals.
Also bless me, O Lord, so that my mind, following the lead of my intelligence, may start desiring this inner treasure house of joy that comes through absorption in You—and may stop craving for the outer particles of pleasure that come through sensuality.
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02.57 In the material world, one who is unaffected by whatever good or evil he may obtain, neither praising it nor despising it, is firmly fixed in perfect knowledge.
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