Suppose we are shown a movie in which events are utterly unconnected; characters pop in and out with no logic; and the story moves without any theme, direction or conclusion. We would soon get exasperated: “What’s the point of all this? Why should I waste my time watching such a movie?”

Rarely do we realize that a materialistic worldview forces us to not just watch but live such a pointless movie. Materialism makes us believe that we are nothing but chemicals that have somehow come alive. The delicate chemical balance that comprises us can be destroyed forever at any moment by just one bug or one bang. Thus, our present existence is reduced to a chancy chaos within two infinities of non-existence: the past and the future.

The Bhagavad-gita (16.08) depicts the beliefs of such godless materialists: God or any transcendental reality is non-existent – selfish desire is existence’s only motivating force. And even that desire is doomed to frustration by inexorable death. Given such gloomy implications, materialism reduces our life to a disrelation of unrelated events.

Rescuing us from such a morass of meaninglessness, Gita wisdom debunks materialism by spotlighting life’s spiritual side. It explains that our search for meaning comes from something beyond matter – our spiritual essence. And only at that trans-material level of reality is meaning truly found.

The ephemerality and misery of life in this world is meant ultimately to impel us to raise our consciousness to the spiritual level. At that level, we as indestructible souls can relish love eternal with the all-attractive Absolute Truth, Krishna. When we learn to love him by practicing bhakti-yoga, we can persevere and grow even through life’s greatest reversals, knowing that his immortal love will endure and will ultimately elevate us beyond this mortal world’s vagaries.

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