Bhagavad Gita 14.19

nānyaṁ guṇebhyaḥ kartāraṁ

yadā draṣṭānupaśyati

guṇebhyaś ca paraṁ vetti

mad-bhāvaṁ so ’dhigacchati

 

When one sees modes as all that act,

In every deed, in every fact;

And knows the Self beyond their play,

That one attains my state that way.

 

My dear Lord, the power of desire is your most precious gift to me, for it enables me to desire to love you and thereby enter into the ecstatic and everlasting bond of love that is the pinnacle of existence’s purposes. Yet that same power of desire often gets misdirected—sometimes comically, sometimes chaotically, sometimes even catastrophically.

O omnipotent Lord, help me remember that the many desires that crowd my mind and cloud my intelligence are nothing more than the inducements of the modes. Underneath them all is my core self—the soul—for whom most of the desires induced by the modes are irrelevant.

O merciful Lord, may the innate power of desire within my soul become activated and directed toward you, the worthiest object of love. Only when I desire you does this power of desire empower me to face, without being fazed, the many temptations and tribulations typical of life in this material world. Without that desire for you, my power of desire is misappropriated by the modes, which make me believe that the dictations of the modes, be they for some quick pleasure or some quick relief, are my aspirations—when in fact they are far from them—indeed opposite to them.

O benevolent Lord, free my desire from the spell of the modes so that I may freely desire to come under the spell of your endless and endlessly enchanting love.

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14.19 When one properly sees that in all activities no other performer is at work than these modes of nature and he knows the Supreme Lord, who is transcendental to all these modes, he attains My spiritual nature.