Apart or a part ? Diksha Mataji (Gita Daily)

Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 15, Text 07

Some people equate becoming spiritual with becoming unambitious. However, bhakti spirituality centers on ambitiousness, albeit of a kind different from the individualistic ambitiousness glamorized by our present culture.

Contemporary culture often defines success as an individual’s ability to carve an identity distinct from others, to stand apart from the rest of the world. Today, the major identity-defining question is: “How are you different from others?” Few things demonstrate this obsession with distinctiveness better than the patent absurdity of many of the Guinness Book Records. Records like a couple kissing for forty-six hours or a person having nails six feet long may be distinctive, but are they contributive to anything worthwhile?

Gita wisdom offersthe most contributive trajectory for our ambitiousness. The Bhagavad-gita states (15.07) that all of us are spiritual parts of the supreme whole, Krishna. Parts become largely useless when disconnected from the whole. Similarly, when we seek happiness separate from Krishna, we become frustrated. We come under the foolish fantasies and the draconian dictates of the mind and the senses — struggling to fulfill these is what we call ambitiousness. Such struggle apart from Krishna never satisfies us because everything material is temporary, whereas we long for lasting happiness.