So our first business is that if we want to stop this repetition of birth and death—and sometimes we are very happy, sometimes we are very unhappy, sometimes we are in fearfulness, sometimes in so many other calamities—then our first business is that we shall stop all these material desires. Anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam (Brs. 1.1.11). To stop means. . . The desire cannot be stopped. Because we are living entities, life, we are not dead stone, that desires will be stopped. No. Desires are to be purified. Sarvopādhi-vinirmuktaṁ tat-paratvena nirmalam (CC Madhya 19.170). Desires to purified. Everyone is working under some impure consciousness, just like nationalism: "I am American," "I am Indian," "I am Englishman," "I am German." This desire is polluted, because I am spirit soul, part and parcel of Kṛṣṇa. What is the benefit, my identifying with America or India or. . .? This is called purification of the desire. Everyone is working under national, and they are fighting with one another because the desire is impure.
So the problem, the whole problem of the material world, can be solved only when we purify our desires. Anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyaṁ jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam, ānukūlyena kṛṣṇā. Ānukūla, what Kṛṣṇa says. Kṛṣṇa is not dead. Therefore ānukūlyena. What Kṛṣṇa says, we have to do that. Kṛṣṇa says to Arjuna to fight. So we have to meet the situation as Kṛṣṇa desired by. Sometimes He may say, "You sit down." So we have to carry out only. The Kṛṣṇa is not dead. He can give us varieties of order, and our position is that we shall simply carry out the order. That is life. Otherwise we are under the clutches of māyā, or material nature. Prakteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ (BG 3.27). We are thinking that "I am the lord of everything." That is not the fact. The fact is that we have to work under somebody. That is our real position. Jīvera 'svarūpa' haya nitya kṛṣṇa dāsa (CC Madhya 20.108-109). We are worker. We are not enjoyer. But unfortunately we are trying to take the position of enjoyer. That is māyā. That is māyā. And if we agree to work under the direction of Kṛṣṇa, then our original life is revived. That is wanted.