When we are sick and are taking some treatment, we may doubt whether it will work. But if we come to know that it is administered by an expert doctor who has cured thousands, we will take it confidently.

Gita wisdom can infuse our practice of bhakti-yoga with similar confidence. The Bhagavad-gita explains that our desires are presently diseased: though we are eternal spiritual beings, we crave temporary material things. Bhakti-yoga redirects our desires from the world to our all-attractive Lord, Krishna.

However, while practicing bhakti, our impure desires may distract us from Krishna. And just as even the most potent treatment can’t work if the medicine is not taken, bhakti can’t work if we don’t apply its essential principle: fixing our consciousness on Krishna. Seeing it not working, we may become disheartened, fearing that our impurities are too many and too mighty to be overcome.

Actually however, any contact with Krishna is purifying. Even if our desires distract us from Krishna, we can refocus on him as soon as the force of those distracting desires wanes. And even that intermittent contact will gradually purify us.

To encourage ourselves, we can remind ourselves that Krishna is all-pure and has the capacity to purify everyone. No one is so impure that they can’t be purified by Krishna. After all, he is infinite and we are infinitesimal. So, his capacity to purify is much greater than our impurities. The Bhagavad-gita (04.10) assures that many people in the past have been purified by focusing their consciousness on Krishna. Echoing this assurance, the Gita (09.32) declares that bhakti can elevate even those who are conventionally considered degraded.

By shifting our focus from our impurity to Krishna’s potency, we can whole-heartedly embrace the bhakti cure, and it will work for sure.

Think it over:

  • What is our disease?
  • While practicing bhakti, what may discourage us?
  • How can we overcome such discouragement?

 

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