Suppose we are driving along a road, and we find that it ends in a ditch. We would immediately look for a way to avoid that ditch. The road that ends in a ditch needs to be ditched.

When we live materialistically, seeking worldly pleasures, we are driving on a road that ends in death. However, because so many people go along that road – and go along so confidently – that we presume it must be the right road.

Guarding us from such uncritical gullibility, the Bhagavad-gita (13.09) urges us to unsentimentally note that the path of materialism ends in old age, disease, death, and then rebirth. Thus, we stay fallen in the ditch of material existence.

How do we ditch the road that ends in this ditch? By redirecting our consciousness from the world to our Lord and source, Krishna. Such redirection centers on hearing spiritual wisdom (13.26). Such hearing ensures that even if we don’t give up material life, we do give up the material conception of life. By hearing, we understand that we at our core are spiritual beings meant to do our various roles and responsibilities in a mood of service to Krishna. While thus practicing bhakti-yoga, we may externally go along the same road as earlier, but internally, our consciousness will rise spiritually. Eventually, though our body will perish, we as souls will be released from it to be with our Lord. Indeed, Krishna himself comes to deliver those devoted to him (12.06-07), just as a helicopter may swoop down to rescue the driver from a car poised to fall into a ditch.

To show Krishna that we want to be thus rescued, we need to practice bhakti-yoga so diligently that before our death arrives, our love for this world is superseded by our love for Krishna.


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