Suppose a person with artistic talent craves and slaves to become an engineer. But if they just don’t get mathematics or physics and somehow struggle through their studies and manage to become a third-grade engineer. All long, they berate themselves for being so poor at engineering while remaining blind to their artistic gifts.

If we have bought in to a materialistic worldview, then our sense of self-worth will largely be determined by whatever is glamorized in the contemporary materialistic culture. If we have those glamorized attributes, we feel inflated; otherwise, we feel deflated. By thus obsessing over what we don’t have, we miss out on what we do have – and we all do have some talents.

The journey to self-actualization, to actualizing our talents by transforming them into achievements, begins with self-acceptance, accepting ourselves for what we are, with our unique set of strengths and limitations. Such self-acceptance becomes easier when we cultivate spiritual self-understanding. Gita wisdom explains that we are at our core spiritual beings, eternal parts of the supreme spiritual being, Krishna. He loves us always and invites us to love him from whatever condition we are in at present.

The Bhagavad-gita (18.46) states that the Lord who sources and pervades everything can be worshiped through our work. That is, whatever be our natural set of talents and interests, we can engage them in a mood of devotional service.

By the practice of direct bhakti-yoga activities, we feel connected with Krishna internally and gain our sense of self-worth and security from that divine connection. Thus becoming less depended on the world’s approval, we can look beyond the talents glamorized in the social mirror and discern the talents that we do have, develop them, thereby making contribution externally and finding satisfaction internally.

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