Of Gold And Women (16.21-16.24)🔗

Kṛṣṇa ends the chapter with these words: Shed anger, greed and lust and we will be saved. These qualities bind us to 'me' and 'mine'. As long as we are bound by anger, lust and greed, kāmaḥ krodhas tathā lobhas, what He calls the three gateways to hell, tri-vidhaṁ narakasyedaṁ (16.21), we are in suffering. When we shed these, we are liberated. When these three combine, they create moha, or delusion.

At one level these emotions are desires. Desires are energy. Each de- sire is the seed of suffering. That is why Kṛṣṇa calls it a gateway to hell. But how do we get rid of these desires?

What Kṛṣṇa asks us to do is to complete these negative emotions and transform them into positive energies. These are gateways to hell so long as we use them from the root cognition of 'me.' When we do completion and transform these emotions into energy, creating the space of 'you', these same emotions become gateways to heaven, gateway to bliss.