How can we learn to desire the Right thing?

In this Bhakti, there are no desires from the beloved. See these desires that we make I want this! I want this! I want this! These desires will never have any end. We think O God! you know I don't have any other desire but this one desire if you can please fulfill these, after that I will never ask for anything. That fellow who is thinking in this manner is very simple, because the moment desire is fulfilled it will lead to greed. That desire will come back with redoubled intensity. This is the material world people always know I have this deficiency; I have this deficiency. I have got this problem; I am going to problem to problem. So if we ask God there will be no end we will keep on asking. So what happens in these asking? My desire is fulfilled Shree Krishna is very good, not fulfilled he is not good, he is alright. I have been harmed, Shree Krishna, there is no goodness in him. He is very hard hearted.

Our love for him will oscillate like this. Like it does in the world. My husband is very good very bad. My wife is very good very bad. These drama goes on 10 times in a day. The same thing we will do towards God and Guru also. If our formula is that they should fulfill my desire. Now the thing is that these desires we are making are on the wrong platform. There are on this platform of ignorance that I am the body. So because we are thinking I am the body, for the happiness of the body we will going to make desires. Now we have to decide I am not the body, I am the soul. So if I am the soul then what should I desire you should still not desire because desire is against the nature of love. 

This love is that in which the only desire to give and give. In other words, it's not for our happiness, it is for the happiness of beloved. You desire to make Shree Krishna Happy. In other words, you desire to please him, to give him happiness and when you give him happiness he is not a miser, he will multiply it many fold and will give to back and that happiness that you get in giving to him that is the happiness of divine love which is the sweetest of all which is so sweet that Brahmaji to become a blade of Grass in the land Vrindavan to relish that and Udhavji become really a blade of grass. It means you learn to desire the right thing. 

• If God have given you a wonderful voice, desire to glorify him with your musical abilities. 
• If god has given you a good literary skill, then desire to write something in his glorification. 
• If god has given you a business acumen, then desire to earn and glorify the lord with your wealth. 

In other words, whatever God has given you, you desire to glorify him with that. So when we desire to serve him with everything our desires become perfectly oriented and we experience the highest bliss which is the bliss of the soul. 

Hear this lecture on SoundCloud by Swami Mukundananda

Since my childhood whenever I imagine about Lord Krishna, the form of the Lord that I saw on the TV serial Mahabharat comes to my mind. When I see Mahabharat's Lord Krishna I feel as if He is my Beloved Lord Himself and not any character played by the actor. But all my friends and relatives warn me that I am doing a sin worshiping an actor in the costume of Lord Krishna. Please help me, Swamiji. Shall I meditate on the Lord's form as portrayed by the actor?

     For Roop Dhyan, the form of God that you meditate upon can either be made by the mind, according to your liking, or you can take the help of a deity or picture of God, and meditate upon it. Now your question is that instead of the deity etc., you wish to meditate upon the form of an actor who played the role of Shree Krishna in the famous Mahabharat TV Serial.

    This is not wrong. If you attach the mind to that form with the sentiments that this is the Supreme Lord Shree Krishna, you will get the benefit of your Sentiments. This is like when one worships a stone deity with sentiments that is Lord Krishna, one gets the benefit of engaging in devotion to God. The Lord is seated in your heart and notes and rewards the Divine sentiments. Similarly, if you worship the form of a TV actor with the sentiments that it is the Supreme Lord, you will get Divine results.

    However, it is usually not recommended that you meditate upon a living material personality. Tomorrow if you hear about his faults, you will not be able to retain your Divine sentiments. Hence it is suggested that either you imagine the form of God with your mind itself, or else take the support of a deity or a picture, where there is no scope for seeing faults.


-Excerpted from Spiritual Dialectics by Swami Mukundananda