Be special above the ordinary, not among the ordinary

We all want to be special. Materialistic culture directs our longing for specialness towards material things. It makes us believe that we will stand out if we have special worldly possessions such as smarter phones, faster cars or bigger houses. Yet that is what everyone desires. So buying into this definition of specialness makes us not special, but just another one among the ordinary.

Someone may object, “But only a few get those things – that makes them special.”

Does it really?

Bhakti doesn’t ask us to reject the material talents and resources that make us special; it asks us to reject only the materialism that limits the scope of that specialness to material pursuits alone.

Winners in the rat race still remain rats. Even if we become special materially, we still remain at the same material level of consciousness as everyone else. So, we remain vulnerable to their machinations for taking over the trophies of our specialness. And even if we gallantly guard those trophies lifelong, we can’t guard them against time. Death takes us empty-handed to another body, where materialism sends us on another doomed search for specialness.

The Bhagavad-gita (02.69) shows a different way when it metaphorically conveys the drastic difference between materialists and spiritualists. It urges us to redirect our quest for specialness to the spiritual level, to the all-attractive, all-loving Supreme Person, Krishna. Each of us has a special, indeed unique, relationship with him, a relationship that we can develop by practicing bhakti-yoga.

Bhakti doesn’t ask us to reject the material talents and resources that make us special; it asks us to reject only the materialism that limits the scope of that specialness to material pursuits alone. By lovingly serving Krishna with our specialties, we raise our consciousness above the material level, thereby transcending the innate insecurity and ultimate futility of all material accomplishments. Bhakti redefines our longing for specialness as a pathway to the eternal, for attaining an imperishable relationship with Krishna – an attainment that makes us eternally special.

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