Suppose a person driving on a road comes to a sign, “Road closed – take alternative route” with a pointer to that route. Those who still drive on the road marked close will be stopped by the traffic police.

Similarly, when we go through the journey of life, scripture gives certain proscriptions, especially against immoral sensual pleasures. If we still insist on doing those things, then our spiritual guides or the broader spiritual culture disapproves. If we obsess over such repeated no and resentfully think that we are being deprived of happiness, we miss the underlying scriptural yes to our quest for happiness.

Scripture informs us that we are eternal souls and that we can find lasting happiness by learning to love the all-attractive, all-loving Supreme Krishna. In that immortal love, we relish the supreme happiness. Unfortunately, the mainstream materialistic culture without and the mind within glamorize sensuality. If we let such pleasures infatuate us, then though we may enjoy a bit, we end up disappointed because our body’s capacity to enjoy sensually is limited, inescapably limited. Worse still, infatuation with such pleasures traps us in material consciousness, thereby keeping us away from the spiritual level of reality and thus deprived of the very happiness that we are seeking.

The Bhagavad-gita, while discussing sense control (02.54-72), stresses the positive – fixing the mind on Krishna (02.61). By focusing on Krishna and striving to redefine our entire life as a loving offering to him, we start relishing higher spiritual happiness and realizing how we are distracted from this happiness by obsession with sensuality. Thus, we gradually understand that in our quest for happiness, sensual pleasures comprise a no, being the wrong path. And the no to this wrong path is actually a yes – a yes to the path to the highest happiness.

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