The Power of Desire

June 8, 2026

K Siva Prasad
Filled with worldly desires, Tulsidas was desperate to meet his newlywed wife. He crossed a river at night, mistaking a corpse for a log of wood, and used a snake as a rope to scale a wall—only to be rebuked by his wife, who told him he would be far better off if he directed that same passion toward Lord Rama. She said, “If you loved the name of Sri Rama as much as you love this body of mine—made of mere flesh and bone—you would have long since steered the boat of your life across the ocean of existence.” He was transformed in that very instant and went on to become the author of the revered *Ramcharitmanas*.

Tulsidas’s story helps us better understand Sri Krishna’s advice to conquer desire by disciplining the senses (3.41). Desire has two aspects: first, the energy of courage, determination, and zeal that arises within us; and second, its direction. When this energy flows outward, it is squandered in the pursuit of sensual pleasures and material wealth. When Sri Krishna asks us to destroy desires, He does not want us to destroy this energy itself; rather, He wants us to redirect it inward, just as Tulsidas did.

This energy is essential for the daring spiritual journey—much like the immense energy required by a powerful rocket at launch to propel a satellite into orbit. Once one attains the eternal state, both energy and direction become irrelevant. Sri Krishna advises us to discipline our senses to help us redirect our energies inward. He outlines a hierarchy to assist us in this process (3.42). Since the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the mind—being the aggregate of all the senses—is superior to the senses themselves.

Yet, even the mind is limited to ‘fight-or-flight’ responses, which suffice only for an animalistic existence. However, the intellect distinguishes us from animals even more than the mind does, and is therefore superior to the mind. Sri Krishna further states that the soul is superior to the intellect (3.43) and advises us to use it to destroy the enemy in the form of desire—an adversary difficult to conquer through the mind or intellect alone