Therefore Rūpa Gosvāmī says, anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam (Brs. 1.1.11). You have to make zero all material desires. Anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam means zero. So zero, that is Buddhist philosophy to make zero, śūnyavādī, to make everything void. No. That cannot be. I cannot make my desires zero. That is not possible because I am living being. I may select what kind of desires I will have. That is intelligence. But desirelessness is not possible. Therefore the next item is that anyābhilāṣitā-śūnyam (CC Madhya 19.167). You make your material desires zero, void. "Then? What shall I do next? Shall I become void and finish?" No. Then your real life begins. What is that? Anābhilāṣitā-śūnyam jñāna-karmādy-anāvṛtam, ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanam. Ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanam. We have desires, many types of desires, jñāna and karma. Karma platform is foolishness. Just like everywhere they are very busy, karmī, but they do not know what is the aim of life. That is called karma, acting something and suffering again. This is called karma. And jñāna means one who understands that, by analysis, that "These wrappers, material wrappers, these fifteen, five, five, five—five sense organs, five object of sense enjoyment—in this way twenty-four wrappers, so how I am to get out of these wrappings?" That is intelligence. That is jñānī. But a jñānī does not know that "I get out from this entanglement. Then where I stay?" That they do not know. So that information is given by Kṛṣṇa, that "Give up this, and take up Me," negative and positive, both. Sarva-dharmān parityajya: (BG 18.66) "Give up this nonsense desires." Then? What to do? Now, mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja: "Come to Me, under Me." This is required. Ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānu. Mām ekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja. That is not varietyless, that "I surrender unto You; then business finished." No. Śaraṇaṁ vraja means ānukūlyena kṛṣṇānuśīlanam: (CC Madhya 19.167) what Kṛṣṇa says, you do that. Just like Arjuna. Arjuna was not willing to fight, but when he listened Bhagavad-gītā from Kṛṣṇa, then he agreed to fight.
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.