As TV is popular nowadays, many people equate enjoyment with watching TV. Guzzling down hi-techimages of one’s favorite TV program all daylong is their version of paradise.

When such people come across Gita wisdom and hear that the spiritual world is a place of eternal happiness, they expect life there to be something like an eternity of daytime television. Then they hear the specifics of the activities in the spiritual world: how Vrindavan is a pastoral paradise, how God as Krishna is a cowherd boy, and how everyone there is engaged lovingly in serving Krishna. Due to their preconceptions about enjoyment, they question: “How can anyone be happy doing such simple things? Surely we need something more hi-tech.”

This question originates in a misunderstanding about the nature of happiness. What brings satisfaction to the heart is not the technological sophistication of an activity, but the loving reciprocation underlying that activity. As there is no such loving reciprocation underlying TV watching, it provides no satisfaction – just a little fleeting titillation.  To keep feeling titillated, people are driven constantly towards more hi-techimagery.

The activities in the spiritual world may be simple, but as they comprise reciprocations of love with Krishna, they fully satisfy the heart. The Bhagavad-gita shows how love can make a simple activity like hearing supremely fulfilling when Arjuna expresses (10.18) his loving desire to hear Krishna’s glories ceaselessly. Because all the residents of the spiritual world are filled with a similar love for Krishna, they are fully satisfied serving him by doing whatever pleases him. Of course, Krishna can and does occasionally perform miracles that supersede TV’s best special effects. But through the overall simple setting of his supreme abode, he graphically illustrates the simple truth: when we have love and service for him, we don’t need anything else for happiness.

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 10 Text 18

“O Janardana, again please describe in detail the mystic power of Your opulences. I am never satiated in hearing about You, for the more I hear the more I want to taste the nectar of Your words.”