Episode 67: Why Your Desires Never End?(Bhagavad Gita 6.24-27)

Welcome back to Beyond the Battlefield.

Today's teaching is subtle. It does not just tell us how to calm the mind, it tells us why the mind keeps running in the 1st place. And maybe that is the real question. Why do our desires never end? Why does achievement not satisfy us for long? Why does the mind keep asking for more? Because if we're honest, it's not just desire. It's a pattern we live every day. Let's slow this down because this is not just spiritual. This is psychological and deeply practical. Because what we usually call desire is not what it appears to be, and Krishna goes straight to that root in verse 24.

Completely renouncing all desires arising from thoughts of the world, one should restrain the senses from all sides with the mind. Krishna says all desires arise from thoughts of the world. Sankalp. That means from mental projection. Yes, this is a revolutionary insight. Krishna is not saying that the world create desire. He's saying the mind create desire by projecting meaning, fantasy, promise, identity. You do not desire the object, you desire your imagination about the object. So when I think I want something, I actually want the feeling I've attached to it.

Exactly. The object is neutral. The story is seductive. A phone is just a phone. But your mind whispers, This will make me important, respected, ahead, seen. And that inner story becomes desire. Desire is not some mysterious force. It is thought repeated, fed and charged with emotion. That means desire is not happening to me. I am unconsciously creating it. So Krishna is not telling us to fight desire. No, he is saying, understand desire so deeply that its falsehood becomes visible. If you cut the sankalp, the desire loses its root.

And Krishna is uncompromising here. Taktwa Sarvan Sheshita drop them without residue. Not reduce, not manage, not negotiate. Because negotiation keeps the illusion alive. Because even 1 subtle desire can keep the mind restless, 1 hidden ambition, 1 private craving, 1 unexamined attachment is enough to keep meditation superficial. And then Krishna says use the mind to gather the senses. The hierarchy matters. If the mind is weak, the senses rule. If the mind is clear, the senses follow. So this is not suppression.

No, this is alignment, Not violence against the senses, but freedom from being dragged by them. Slowly and steadily, with conviction in the intellect, the mind will become fixed in God alone and will think of nothing else. This verse verse 25 feels very gentle. So first Krishna removes the root and now he shows how to stabilize the mind. Yes, this is the method. It is one of the most compassionate instructions in the Gita. Krishna says slowly, slowly. Shane, Shane, this is compassion. Krishna is not commanding, He is understanding the human mind.

Meditation is not violence, and this is crucial. Modern people want instant meditation, instant silence, instant clarity. Krishna says no, do not rush the mind. It has years of conditioning, habitual restlessness, emotional memory, identity patterns. If you force it, it becomes more agitated. This is like forcing productivity, trying to push performance without inner clarity. Yes, and that's why leaders burnout, because they try to control outcomes without understanding their inner state. So meditation is not domination.

It is intelligent and winding. Krishna then says use buddhi held by Triti. What does that mean in practice? Buddhi means discriminative intelligence, the capacity to see clearly, and triti means steadiness, patience, inner holding power. So meditation does not deepen through emotional intensity, it deepens through lucid understanding and quiet perseverance. This is leadership gold. It is. Most leaders don't fail because they lack skill. They fail because they are inwardly noisy. They react too fast.

They carry too many private desires. They overthink. They seek control. They confuse urgency with clarity. Verse 24 removes distortion, verse 25 restores centre. And then Krishna gives the real anchor. Aatma Sanstham Mana Kritva established the mind in the self. Not in goals, not in people, not in outcomes. Yes, because anything outside you can shake you, but the witnessing self, the centre of awareness, the silent presence within, that does not shake. And what about Kinshi da Pi Chinta yet? This is often misunderstood.

It does not mean force yourself to think nothing. It means when the mind is rightly anchored, thought loses its compulsive movement. Silence is not manufactured. It appears when agitation is no longer fed. But Ankur Krishna seems to say these things again and again. Drop desires, gather the senses, calm the mind. Why does he keep repeating himself? Because this is not repetition, this is compassion. Krishna is not writing a book, he's speaking to Arjuna. And when truth is spoken, the speaker can see whether it has entered or not.

Arjuna looks like he's listening, but Krishna can see that he has not yet received. And this is true for all of us. We understand intellectually, but transformation does not happen. So truth has to be repeated, reframed, redelivered. There are moments in consciousness when the inner door opens. You cannot predict that moment. You cannot schedule it, you cannot command it. So Krishna keeps surrounding Arjuna with the same truth again and again and again, because who knows in which moment the word will enter?

So Krishna repeats, because the listener is not ready yet. Yes, and also because each repetition carries a new key. He never repeats mechanically. Same truth, but a new angle, a new sankhet, a new opening. And here the new key is this Parmatma ke Shivaay or kuch bhi chintan na rahe. So all the earlier instruction drop desires, withdraw, the senses steady. The mind was not the destination, no. That was preparation. The real movement is toward Satat Chintan, a continuous inner current, a silent underflow, A remembrance deeper than thought.

So if we put these two verses together, what is Krishna really doing? He is moving us from distortion to original longing. Verse 24 cuts false desire. Verse 25 calms the mind enough to reveal what is underneath, and now we reach the hidden core. We usually think Krishna is teaching, drop desires, control senses, calm the mind. But all of that is still not the final goal. The goal is parmatma ke sivai or kuch bhi chintan NAR hai. What does chintan really mean? This is the most important shift. It does not mean thinking.

You cannot think about the unknown. You can only think about what you already know. So paramatma ka chintan cannot mean intellectual thought about God. Chintan means an inner undercurrent. Take a simple example. You are thirsty, you are working, talking, doing calculations. But underneath it all, a subtle current remains. I am thirsty. Not in words, not as active thinking, but as a continuous inner pull. And parmatma ka chintan means a silent inner pull toward the Absolute. And now the Great realization.

You do not need to create this longing. It is already there. Every desire is the same longing. Misread. When you chase money, you are seeking power. When you chase position, you are seeking mastery. When you chase success, you are seeking completeness. But all of that is 1 deeper thirst moving in the wrong direction. So that's why even after achieving something still feels missing. Yes, because you do not lack desire. You misinterpret it. What is really a longing for the infinite gets translated into career, money, recognition, power.

And so the deeper thirst never ends. This is why meditation matters, and This is why leadership matters. Meditation is not escape, it is the purification of longing. Leadership is not control. It is action without inner noise. When false desires drop, decision making sharpens. When mind becomes steady, execution becomes clean. When your inner world stops begging, your outer leadership stops trembling. Can you ground this simply? You are preparing for a presentation. If the mind says, what will they think?

What if I fail? I need recognition. Then performance drops, not because of lack of skill, but because of inner noise. But if you drop projection, stay with preparation, anchor within, calm happens, and when calm happens, performance rises naturally. Desire is imagination. Drop false imagination and desire loses force. Bring the mind back slowly and patiently into the self, and then what remains is not emptiness, it is sacred longing. You do not need to search for God, you only need to recognize what you are already searching for.

So now we move to verse 26. Whenever and wherever the restless and unsteady mind wanders, one should bring it back and continually focus it on God. But Ankur, this again feels like repetition. Krishna keeps saying the same thing again and again. Why? Because we keep hearing, but we don't listen. Truth is not written, it is spoken to someone in a moment and Krishna can see that Arjuna is listening but not receiving. Encore This feels strangely familiar. It's like we all do this, don't we? Whenever we are uncomfortable, we don't say I'm afraid, we say this is not the right decision.

Exactly. And that is where the real teaching begins. Arjuna is not confused about knowledge, he's avoiding action. So Krishna repeats again and again from different angles. And this verse is not repetition, it is refinement. Because now Krishna is not just talking about control, he's revealing the nature of the mind itself. The mind is not your enemy. It is one of the most beautiful instruments you have. The mind is what allows you to interact with the world, to learn, to grow, to evolve. It is because of the mind that humans can detect change, respond to it, and create something new.

The market shifts, the environment changes, opportunities appear and the mind moves to sense, to compare, to decide. That movement is intelligence. But this same mind has a very specific design. It can only function in duality. Duality. Yes, this versus that, right versus wrong, past versus future, the mind compares. That's how it works and it operates through memory and projection. It brings the past and throws it into the future. That's why even when you are here, you are not fully here. And the most subtle thing, the mind needs problems to survive.

Needs problems. Yes, if nothing is wrong, it will create something wrong. So understand this clearly. The mind is perfect for the outer world, but completely inadequate for the inner. In meditation there is no comparison, no problem, no object. So the mind becomes restless, It starts bringing thoughts, memories, future, because without movement it cannot exist. So Krishna is not saying stop the mind, he's saying recognize its limitation and when it wanders, don't fight it, just bring it back to that which does not require the mind.

And this is where leadership transforms because most leaders are using the mind everywhere. They use it to analyze which is correct, but then they carry it into identity, fear, self doubt. And that's where distortion begins. A powerful leader knows when to use the mind and when to step beyond it. Use the mind for the world. Drop the mind to see clearly.

You analyze a business decision, data, trends, risks. That's the mind doing its job. But once clarity appears, if the mind continues, what if, What next? What will happen? You don't follow it, You return to clarity. Krishna is not asking you to control your mind, he's asking you to understand it and place it where it belongs. The mind is a brilliant tool for the world, but a barrier to the self unless you know when to put it down. In the last verse, Krishna showed us the practice. The mind wanders, and again and again we bring it back.

But what happens when that effort matures? What does the Yogi become like when the mind no longer keeps slipping away? Krishna answers that now. The Yogi whose mind has become deeply peaceful, whose Rajogun passion has quieted, who is free from impurity and who has become one with Brahman, such a being experiences the highest happiness. That sounds beautiful, but Ankur, what does this really mean? 1st we must understand this verse is not instruction, it is description. Verse 26 was effort bring the mind back again and again, but verse 27 is what begins to happen when that effort ripens.

So when Krishna says Prashanthamanasam, does he mean no thoughts at all? No, and this is very important, the goal is not to kill the mind. The goal is to be its master. A peaceful mind is not a dead mind, it is a mind that is no longer dragging you. The mind remains alive, available, useful, but no longer dominant. So peace does not mean loss of intelligence. Not at all. It means freedom from inner turbulence. And then Krishna says Akal Masham, free from impurity. What is impurity here? This is where the verse becomes very profound.

We usually think theft is sin, violence is sin, falsehood is sin. But these are only forms, not the root. It is like gold. You can make it into a necklace, a Bengal, an anklet. The forms change, but the gold remains the same. In the same way, sin has many forms, but its root is 1. So if we only recognize the form, we may miss the root. And that is why societies get confused. One age calls something sin. Another age calls the same thing virtue. One culture condemns it, another accepts it. The forms keep changing, but the root remains there.

Then what is the root? Krishna gives the answer right here. Shantharisan Krishna first says free from impurity and then immediately says whose Rajogoun has become quiet, because Rajogoun is the root energy from which impurity keeps taking new forms. Rajas is not just action, it is restless action, compulsive, becoming the fever to do, to become, to prove, to reach. And as long as that fever burns, the mind will keep creating new disturbances, new cravings, new errors. So sin is not merely moral, it is energetic.

Yes, it is the restlessness behind action. When Rajogun quiets, something very beautiful happens. You may still act, but the compulsion is gone. You may still work, but the fever is gone. You may still lead, but the inner burning is gone. That changes action itself. Completely, life moves through three forces, Sattva, rajas and Tamas. Rajas is movement, Tamas is stoppage and Sattva is the flowering that appears when these two come into right balance. So this is not about destroying movement. No, and it is not about falling into dullness either.

If there is only rajas, you remain restless. If there is only tamas, you become dull, heavy, unaware. But when rajas and tamas come into balance, something higher flowers. That flowering. Is satva, A flowering, like a flower opening. And Krishna is saying when that flowering happens, the Yogi receives the highest joy. What kind of happiness is this? Not pleasure, not thrill, not excitement. This is not the happiness of getting what you wanted. This is the happiness that appears when nothing inside is fighting anymore.

No friction, no fever, no becoming, no inner split. That is why Krishna calls it Sukhmuttamam, the highest happiness. So this joy is not added, it is revealed. Yes, it was hidden by disturbance. What does this mean for leadership? It means the deepest problem in leadership is not lack of skill, it is inner imbalance. Most leaders act from rajas, from pressure, from urgency, from the need to prove. And because of that, even success exhausts them, even achievement disturbs them. Even action becomes noisy.

But the leader of verse 27 is not inactive. That is important. They are wise and active. They still act. They still decide, they still build, but without the fever of becoming. So this is not passive spirituality. No, this is action without inner agitation. So verse 27 is not merely saying a peaceful person becomes happy. It is saying, when the restless root inside quiets, when Raja settles, when sattva flowers, then the highest joy arrives naturally. Maybe the problem is not desire. Maybe the problem is we never question where it is coming from.

We chase objects, but we are actually chasing a story inside our own mind, and until that story is seen clearly, the chase never ends. Krishna is not asking us to suppress desire, He is asking us to see it. Because once you see it, it begins to lose its power. And maybe that is where real freedom begins. If this conversation made you pause, reflect, or question something within yourself, then share this episode with someone who might be caught in the same cycle. And if you're finding value in these teachings, follow, subscribe, and stay with us on this journey beyond the battlefield.

You can also write to us at Beyond the Battlefield at Outlook dot in. And don't forget to explore the GPT companion link in the description. It will help you go deeper into these teachings at your own pace. Until next time, watch your mind, because your deepest battles are not outside, they are within.

Tonight's Episode