In contemporary culture, the advertising industry offers us visual confirmation of an important teaching of the Bhagavad-gita repeatedly, even constantly.

The Gita (02.62)(02.63) describes how giving our attention to any object stimulates irrational desires that impel us to self-defeating behavior. These verses outline a universal psychological principle that can be neatly summed in the phrase “whatever catches our attention catches us.” This principle is exploited to the hilt by the advertising industry through its ubiquitous billboards and commercials. It depicts sense objects in provocative poses to catch our attention and thereby incite us to impoverishing shopping splurges and injurious indulgences.

But this same principle can also free us if we intelligently redirect our attention towards Krishna, who makes himself available and attractive to us by appearing in various ways: his enchanting deities, his soothing holy names, his electrifying kirtans, his magnetizing pastimes, his loving devotees or his fulfilling service. These are, in a sense, Krishna’s commercials and billboards. When we use these manifestations of Krishna to engage our minds in the service of remembering him, then spiritual happiness won’t remain an abstract conception or a utopian aspiration; it will become a concrete reality and a living experience. If we strive to consciously give our attention to the aspect of Krishna that attracts our heart, we will soon pleasantly discover that he has caught our attention and thereby caught us. And Krishna’s catching us is supremely auspicious. When he fills our heart with memories of him and love for him, material desires get crowded out of there, and we become freed forever from their torturous infection. 

Bhagavad Gita Chapter 02, Text 62

“While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises.”