You Don’t Actually Know What You Want: The Soul’s Hidden Hunger
We think we know what we want. A certain kind of love. A particular reaction. An outcome that will finally scratch the itch. But when we get it, something inside still squirms. The satisfaction is short-lived, or worse—it turns into a subtle kind of repulsion.
It’s almost funny—if it weren’t so deeply painful and revealing.
Take intimacy, for example. Sometimes I find myself yearning for my wife to want to be close to me, to desire me. But when she does, a strange inversion happens—I find myself wanting something else entirely. I want to do something spiritual instead. I want silence, prayer, service. And when she doesn’t want intimacy, I’m back to wanting her to want it. There’s this phantom chase that never quite lands.
A friend told me something similar. He was kind to someone, expecting a kind response. When they finally returned the affection, he found himself recoiling, feeling used. Yet in the same breath, he confesses his aching loneliness and craving for community. It’s like we’re all hungry, but we’ve forgotten what for. We feed the mouth, but the stomach is somewhere else.
This contradiction isn’t a glitch in our psychology—it’s a clue. A signal that we’re misidentifying the object of our longing.
The Bhagavad-gītā nails this in one powerful verse:
“mad-bhaktim labhate parām”
After many births and deaths, he who is actually in knowledge surrenders unto Me, knowing Me to be the cause of all causes and all that is. Such a great soul is very rare.
— Bhagavad-gītā 7.19
In other words, all roads eventually lead back to Kṛṣṇa. We try the detours of romance, sex, friendship, status, impact—but none of them land right. Because the original hunger isn’t for those things. It’s for connection with the Supreme.
Śrīla Prabhupāda puts it clearly in his commentary: “A person in full Kṛṣṇa consciousness is satisfied because he knows that his position in relationship with Kṛṣṇa is assured.”
We’re souls, not bodies. Our needs are not material—though they often masquerade as such. The need for intimacy is real, but its truest form is the soul’s need to be embraced by God. The need to be seen, held, desired—that’s a spiritual need. Only Kṛṣṇa sees us like that. Only He desires us purely, without agenda or limitation.
Even our romantic or social desires, when you scratch the surface, are symptoms of this deeper thirst.
That’s why our feelings are so slippery. That’s why getting what we want doesn’t deliver peace. We’re not craving sex or kindness or approval—we’re craving the infinite. We want someone to see us in our entirety and not blink. We want someone to be utterly safe, utterly soft, and utterly strong. Someone who holds us without trying to fix us and loves us without getting bored.
That Someone is not from this world.
“The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.”
— Bhagavad-gītā 15.7
No wonder we’re restless.
Until we reconnect with the source—Kṛṣṇa—we’ll continue to want things that we don’t want. We’ll continue to be bewildered by our own desires. We’ll feel cheated by our own victories.
And that’s okay.
Because even that bewilderment can become a doorway to devotion. When you finally realize, “I don’t know what I want,” that can be the moment you stop pretending to be God. That can be the moment you fold your hands and ask, “Kṛṣṇa, what do I actually want?”
And if you listen closely, you might hear the answer:
You want Me. You always have.
Reflection Prompt:
Ask yourself—not intellectually but from the heart: What is the deepest, truest thing I want? Then ask: Can anything in this world actually give me that? Let the answers humble you. And from that humility, begin your bhakti.