Question: What causes us to feel mentally tired even when we are not

physically tired? How can we increase our mental energy?

Answer:

Short answer:

We feel mentally tired because we let stray desires prey parasitically on

our mental energy. To increase our mental energy, we need to become
more selective about our desires.

Long answer:

(This answer draws extensively from three Gita-daily articles; those

readers who have read those articles can skip the corresponding sections
and focus on the overall integrated thought-flow here)

Many of us sometimes feel fed up of the way things are going in our life.
This mental exhaustion with life makes some of us seek relief in illusion
through time-wasting entertainment at best and self-defeating addiction at
worst. What causes this mental tiredness? It is caused by the many
superfluous desires that we unwittingly welcome in our minds. The
Bhagavad-gita (16.21–22) indicates that these distracting desires which
prevent us from acting in our best interests fall in three broad categories:
lust, anger and greed.

Lust and greed often fuel our desires for the many worldly objects that
enter our vision and imagination, be they glamorous forms or trendy
products. These desires are innumerable and endless, and most of them are
practically unfulfillable. Consequently, a conscious or subconscious
irritation builds up within us. When this irritation becomes intolerable, it
makes us vulnerable to anger, which perverts us into becoming sulky
(mentally angry) or snappy (verbally angry) or even beastly (physically
angry). In this way, lust, greed and anger cumulatively divert our mental
focus away from the main goals of our life – both material and spiritual.
This inattentiveness makes us falter and blunder while pursuing those
goals, and we start getting exhausted and exasperated at how nothing
seems to be working in our lives.

Thus, our mental exhaustion originates not in the external difficulties that
life brings our way, but in the internal diversions that prevent us from
treading our way effectively. These diversions of lust, greed and anger are
thus like mental parasites that live on and live off our mind’s energies.
That’s why Gita wisdom urges us to proactively immunize ourselves from
these dangerous parasites by Krishna consciousness, and thereby keep
ourselves mentally energized and focused on our worthwhile aspirations.

At this point, some of us may feel, “Not so fast! Even if I can’t fulfill all
the desires that come in my mind, I can fulfill at least some of them. After
all, fulfilling material desires is the way to happiness. Why should material
desires be compared to parasites?”

{ Conquering Lust }

Making our intelligence FIT

Material desires are compared to parasites because they almost always

have a subversive effect on us. When they divert us from our life’s goals,
they are the sources of distraction, as explained above. But when they
themselves become our life’s goals, they have an even more deleterious
effect: they become the sources of frustration. This is the surprising and
challenging assertion of the Bhagavad-gita (5.22), which states that
material pleasures – the goals of material desires – lead to not happiness,
but misery.

Let’s analyze how material pleasures lead to misery using the acronym
FIT (Futility, Insubstantiality, Temporality) that encompasses the three
possible results when we seek material pleasures:

1. Futility: We desire to enjoy, but the opportunity never turns up. E.g. we
long for our favorite delicacy in an upcoming feast, but the menu doesn’t
include that delicacy.
 2. Insubstantiality: We get the opportunity to enjoy, but the enjoyment turns
out to be an anti-climax. E.g. the menu includes our cherished delicacy, but
it is poorly cooked and is a far cry from our expectation.
3. Temporality: We enjoy the pleasure, but it ends too soon either due to
limited availability externally or limited capacity internally, leaving us
tormented by the craving for more. E.g. the delicacy tastes good, but our
enjoyment ends too early either because the servings of the delicacy are
limited or because the capacity of our stomach is limited.

Thus in all possible eventualities, the quest for material pleasures leads us
to frustration – sooner or later. Just as parasites always harm the organisms
that host them, material desires inevitably harm us when we host them in
our minds. An organism that wishes to stay healthy and fit will keep the
parasites out. Similarly, the same Gita verse (5.22) states that those who
are intelligent understand the falsity of material pleasures and so choose to
never delight in them, thus keeping the parasitic material desires out of
their minds.

If we are unable to perceive the falsity of material pleasures, this inability

is a symptom that our intelligence has been weakened and sickened by the
parasitic material desires. Due to its diseased condition, our intelligence is
no longer able to perceive the true nature of material pleasures. Just as
appropriate regular bodily exercise helps to restore our bodily health,
appropriate regular intellectual exercise helps to restore our intellectual
health. The appropriate intellectual exercise is unsentimental
contemplation on the falsity of material pleasures using scripture-based
analysis like the one above.

Sustained intellectual exercise of contemplating on the FIT nature of

material pleasures will gradually make our intelligence fit and enable us to
realize that material desires are truly parasitic in nature. This realization
will inspire us get rid of these parasites, that is, to seek pleasures beyond
the material.

Unfortunately, getting rid of these parasitic desires is not so easy. Just as

parasites hold on to the host even when the host tries to get rid of them,
material desires hold on to our minds even when we try to get rid of them
A game that we can’t win and can’t quit

The Bhagavad-gita points to this iron hold of material desires on us when

it states (3.36) that they impel us to self-defeating activities as if by force.
This domineering force that material desires often exert on us is due to
their two deadly characteristics: insatiability and irresistibility. These two
characteristics of material desires foil the two ways by which most people
try to deal with them: indulgence or resistance. To understand this modus
operandi of material desires, let’s compare engaging with material desires
with playing a game.

Insatiability: When we indulge in material desires, we are, analogically

speaking, trying to win the game. However, by indulgence, material
desires become not pacified, but aggravated; not silenced, but incited; not
satisfied, but stimulated – like a fire that is fed with fuel (Gita 3.39).
Consequently, the craving becomes stronger, not weaker, and forces us to
repeatedly, even perpetually, keep indulging in those desires. Thus,
analogically speaking, as these desires are insatiable, we just can’t win the
game by indulgence.

Irresistibility: When we get fed up with the futile attempt to indulge in

these desires and decide to say no to them, we are, analogically speaking,
trying to quit the game. However, no matter how much we try to resist
material desires, they keep rising up from within or rushing in from
without in our mind regularly and relentlessly, and make resistance
practically impossible. Analogically speaking, as these desires are
irresistible, we just can’t quit the game by resistance.

Fortunately, there is a way out of this lose-lose situation. Though we can

neither win nor quit, we don’t have to keep getting pound. We have a third
alternative: switch to playing a different game altogether. Gita wisdom
recommends a third way beyond indulgence and resistance: transcendence.

The Gita (2.61) indicates that if we fix our minds on Krishna, then we can
gradually experience spiritual happiness in remembering him and fill our
heart with devotional desires to love and serve him. Consequently,
material desires find themselves crowded out of the playing arena of our
mind – and we find ourselves freed from their torturous infection.

Not only do we need to get rid of the parasitic desires that already exist in
our mind, but we also need to protect ourselves from the fresh desires that
may seek to enter there. Just as intelligent people treat parasites with
caution and suspicion, and are alert to keep them out of their bodies, we
need to treat the parasitic desires with caution and suspicion, and be alert
to prevent them from entering our minds. This alertness requires a radical
shift in our perception of the sources of these desires: worldly temptations.

Response to Temptation: Welcome Tune or Alarm Bell?  

The Bhagavad-gita (3.41) warns us to recognize temptation – carnal

temptation in specific and material temptation in general – as a symbol of
sin (papamanam) and fight it off as soon as it makes its seductive and
deceptive appearance.

The Gita (3.43) further urges us to use our intelligence to see the true
colors of temptation and thereby reject it. When we are intellectually inert,
the arrival of temptation sets off a welcome tune in our consciousness; our
lethargic intelligence has no strength or spunk to unmask the treacherous
façade of temptation. Consequently, we get helplessly, even eagerly,
carried away by the doomed hope that indulging in the temptation will
make us happy. In other word, we welcome the parasites, mistaking them
to be benevolent.

But when we are intellectually alert, the arrival of the same temptation
triggers an alarm bell in our consciousness; our robust intelligence swings
into action to pound out the temptation, knowing well that it is a
forerunner of emotional distraction that can snowball into spiritual
destruction. Consequently, we gird ourselves for an inner battle that leads
to a gradual but inevitable triumph if we seek shelter and strength in the
remembrance of Krishna.
Of course, if the arrival of temptation leads to no response – neither a
welcome tune nor an alarm bell, then that absence of response indicates,
not that we have transcended temptation, but that our intelligence has
fallen asleep due to a cocksure complacency that can be suicidal.
Therefore, the non-triggering of an alarm bell should itself trigger an alarm
bell and galvanize us to arouse and activate our intelligence, and seek
refuge in Krishna consciousness.

Just as freeing the body from parasites requires a systematic and

appropriate treatment plan, fighting the mind from parasitic material
desires requires a systematic and appropriate spiritual treatment plan. In
fact, the Bhagavad-gita (6.36) states that without such a plan, the
attainment of self-mastery is almost impossible, whereas with such a plan,
it is eminently possible. Let’s now look at what all such a plan involves.

The way to say “No” is to say “Yes”

Many of us, even after recognizing the need to curb material desires, often
remain mentally preoccupied with the temptations that we have to evade
and avoid. This negative or defensive attitude in dealing with the parasitic
desires makes the fight more difficult than it needs to be.

In order to stay away from temptations, many of us use our:

1. Moral conscience that tells us it is the right thing to do and

2. Philosophical conviction that tells us it is the beneficial thing to do.

This moral and philosophical discernment is necessary; without it, self-

restraint often becomes an exercise in meaningless and purposeless self-
torture. However, discernment is necessary, but not sufficient. With
discernment, we recognize self-restraint to be right and beneficial, but
don’t experience it to be joyful.  That’s why the Bhagavad-gita (2.60)
states that even a person of discernment endeavoring for self-restraint is
overpowered by temptations.
The next verse (2.61) urges us to complement discernment with
engagement. When we engage ourselves in service to Krishna – especially
when we engage our minds in the service of remembering him, then
spiritual happiness doesn’t remain an abstract conception or a hazy dream;
it becomes a concrete reality and a living experience. The Bhagavad-gita
(2.62-63) describes how giving our attention to an object stimulates our
desires and actions for attaining that object. This universal psychological
principle of “whatever catches our attention catches us” normally binds us
when we contemplate on the material objects depicted in billboard and
commercials. But this same principle can also free us if we intelligently re-
direct our attention towards Krishna. Krishna makes himself available and
attractive to us by appearing in various ways: his enchanting deities, his
soothing holy names, his magnetizing kirtans, his marvelous pastimes, his
compassionate devotees or his fulfilling service. These are, in a sense,
Krishna’s commercials and billboards. If we strive to consciously give our
attention to the aspect of Krishna that attracts our heart, we will soon
pleasantly discover that Krishna has caught our attention and thereby
caught us. And Krishna’s catching us is supremely auspicious, for he frees
us from the tiresome parasitic material desires and bestows upon us the
supreme happiness of an eternal spiritual loving relationship with him.

Moreover, service to Krishna is not restricted to activities that are

externally, directly connected to Krishna. Even our worldly
responsibilities can become a service to Krishna if we keep him in our
hearts and strive to do those responsibilities as devotional offerings to him.
Thus, giving up material desires doesn’t necessitate giving up all material
activities or responsibilities. What is parasitic and needs to be given up is
the false hope that material things can make us happy because the only
thing that can make us truly happy is our loving relationship with Krishna.

But once we have make reviving that relationship with Krishna as the
central driving purpose of our life, then we can orient and harmonize our
worldly activities and responsibilities with that purpose. When we start
using our devotional creativity to discover in every situation, every event,
every activity, every interaction the hidden opportunity to serve Krishna
and then say “Yes” to that opportunity, the resulting devotional connection
with Krishna through internal remembrance and external service gives us
profound spiritual fulfillment. Once we start tasting and valuing this
fulfillment, then temptations become exposed as sources of distraction –
not gratification. At that stage, saying “No” to them is not just right and
beneficial, but also joyful.

Thus, the best way to say “No” to parasitic material desires is to say “Yes”
to Krishna.

Conclusion:

We discussed how material desires are like parasites in four ways:

1. They harm us as would parasites by de-energizing us through distraction and

by frustrating us through misdirection towards a non-existent pleasure
2. They stay entrenched in our minds as would parasites in a host organism
3. They need to be seen as potential threats for our minds as parasites would be
for our bodies
4. They require a systematic authorized treatment for removal as would
parasites.

When we thus realize material desires to be parasitic and strive to free

ourselves from them, then we will save our mental energy from being
dissipated by stray material desires. We will find our stock of available
mental energy enormously increased and mental tiredness will become a
thing of the past. We will surprise ourselves with our remarkably high
mental energy levels and will be able to achieve much more both
materially and spiritually. Materially, we will be able to fulfill our worldly
responsibilities with greater competence and diligence; it is a delicious
irony that curbing our material desires makes us more effective and
productive materially. And, more importantly, spiritually, we will be able
to cultivate and cherish spiritual happiness in this very life and at the end
of our life we will be able return back to Krishna for a life of eternal love
and happiness.