Get a Lawn that Everyone Will Desire

I received an advertisement in the mail today. Big, bold white words across a green background:
“Get a lawn that everyone will desire.”
I smiled, shook my head, and threw it away, along with the other advertisements. I knew I’d never think twice about it. I was wrong.
Many hours later, not long after having dinner with my husband, I found myself musing about the words of the advertisement. I went back to the trash can and started going through the trash. My husband glanced up from the dinner table, a questioning look on his face. My integrity intact (I promise), I finally picked out the advertisement, soggy because of the wet paper towels I had thrown out earlier. Yeah, not pretty.
Glancing over it afresh, I smiled when I thought to myself that the advertisement had been effective enough for me to pick it back up out of the trash. This does not happen often. But the thoughts it prompted me to have were ones, I proffer, worth thinking about for a few moments:
Do I need a lawn that others will desire? And if not a lawn that they will desire, then what? A car? A house? A baby? A job?
In fact, is my goal to make others desire what I have?
I realized that, no. This wasn’t what I desired, but not because I don’t care about “keeping up with the joneses” or with high school acquaintances who are lawyers with three or four kids by now. It’s because my philosophy is different, my approach is different. My husband and I practice the ancient spirituality of Bhakti Yoga. We began practicing ten years ago when we joined the Bhakti Yoga Club at the University of Virginia, where we earned our Bachelor’s degrees (and I my Master’s degree).
What we learned in the Bhakti Yoga Club, run by two disciples of A.C. Bhaktidevanta Swami Prabhupada, was perspective-changing and life-changing.
In 1968, their teacher, Bhaktivedanta Swami, came out with an English translation and commentary of the Bhagavad Gita, entitled the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, to present yoga philosophy as it is. Within the pages of the Bhagavad Gita, which is a conversation between the Supreme and Arjuna (someone like you and me), we learn the answers to life’s burning questions: Who am I? What is the purpose of life? How can I reach my full potential? What is my duty? It is the quintessential yogic text, the treatise on the soul or consciousness, and a wisdom book for the ages.
In the Gita, particularly in the second chapter, it’s noted that we are each individual souls (the atma or jiva in Sanskrit) and that we are eternal and indestructible. However, we inhabit temporary and changing material bodies (we are the soul and we have bodies, you might say), and with these bodies come desires. One of the many topics covered in the Gita happens to be the nature of desire. The Supreme, or Krishna (a non-sectarian name of God indicating the “all attractive”) speaks to Arjuna about controlling or redirecting desires early on in the Gita. What’s interesting is that the instruction that He gives Arjuna (and to us vicariously) is not to artificially suppress desires or to ignore them— but rather, to redirect them. If we give healthy, positive outlets to our desires, then we’ll be more at peace and won’t feel like we are missing out (not even on having a beautiful lawn). And just what is a healthy, positive engagement for desires?
Yoga is a word meaning “to yoke” or “to connect.” Ultimately, in all types of yoga, the original and ultimate aim is to reconnect with our spiritual source. In this way, we achieve self-realization, which is concomitant with realization of the Supreme, according to the teachings of the Gita. Krishna, the Supreme, informs Arjuna that devotional service, performing our daily duties and making them an offering to the Supreme, Who is the source of everything anyway, is purifying in the beginning and completely satisfying ultimately, because it’s the way we will achieve real and lasting peace. Devotional service is the essence of Bhakti Yoga (“Bhakti” indicates love or devotion). Otherwise, Krishna says in the Gita:
“The senses are so strong and impetuous, O Arjuna, that they forcibly carry away the mind even of a man of discrimination who is endeavoring to control them.” (Bhagavad Gita As It Is, Chapter 2, verse 60).
To actually control our senses and desires, we must direct our mind and activities toward the transcendental, toward the Supreme, toward the unchanging and eternal. This world is temporary and therefore unreliable. The focus of our lives changes from year to year, sometimes even moment to moment. Bhaktivedanta Swami notes in the purport to Chapter 2, verse 66 that “there cannot be a final goal for the mind” unless the mind is focused on the Supreme and that “disturbance is due to want of an ultimate goal.” We need a goal in life, and the Gita informs us that we’ll be happiest when we make our goal a spiritual one: finding out who we are (individual souls) and reconnecting to our source (the Supreme).
It’s not about ending desires. If we can simply change our consciousness, what we are focused on, then we can redirect our desires, activities, and our thoughts and reside them in the Supreme, imparting true meaning to our lives. What’s more, we won’t envy other people’s situations in life. We won’t be concerned about “making the grade” or “keeping up with the joneses” because we will be fulfilled in life; we will be on the path to self-realization, a path on which there is joy at every step. In other words, we will be at peace. And we won’t want others to desire our lawn either. In a spirit of goodwill, we can hope that they’ll also find lasting peace and happiness in their own situations.
About the Author
Gandharvika Keli devi dasi is a disciple of His Holiness Indradyumna Swami, who is a disciple of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. She and her husband attended the University of Virginia, where they took up their study and practice of Bhakti Yoga through a university club managed by two other disciples of A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who have been running the club for some 26 years at the university. Now, she and her husband, also a disciple of Indradyumna Swami, help out in the management of the club while also working in the local tech scene of Charlottesville as a Quality Assurance Engineer and a Web Developer, respectively.