Bhagavad Gita 5.21

bāhya-sparśeṣv asaktātmā

vindaty ātmani yat sukham

sa brahma-yoga-yuktātmā

sukham akṣayam aśnute

 

“Toward external sensations, be indifferent,

In relishing inner joy, become proficient.

With soul trained in divine absorption,

Relish a bliss beyond time’s destruction.”

 

O Lord, help me to see that spiritual happiness is not something so mysterious and incomprehensible as to be utterly out of my reach. It seems that way to me because at present my material tendencies are super-strong and my spiritual tendency is super-weak.

You, my Lord, assure me that I can come to you through a simple two-step process, wherein I turn away from the world and turn toward you. Each minute, each hour, each day, each week, each month, and each year, as I persist in desisting from external material sensations, that mundane tendency weakens and dies. And when I persist in pursuing the spiritual, that divine tendency awakens and strengthens.

Please, O Lord, help me see each moment as an opportunity to take a small step. Help me, my Lord, to not devalue the steps I am taking right now by dwelling on how small they seem. Help me to value them by focusing on how they are moving me in the right direction.

It is wonderful, my dear Lord, that such small steps, taken over time, will bless me with the joy of a happiness that is beyond time—beyond the power of time to deplete.

When I, as the eternal soul, link with you, the eternal whole, in a bond of eternal love, then, my Lord, that joy will be—by your mercy—mine, forever and ever.

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05.21 Such a liberated person is not attracted to material sense pleasure but is always in trance, enjoying the pleasure within. In this way the self-realized person enjoys unlimited happiness, for he concentrates on the Supreme.