Bhagavad Gita · Chapter 7: Knowledge and Realization

Bhagavad Gita 7.11

balaṃ balavatāṃ cāhaṃ kāmarāgavivarjitam | dharmāviruddho bhūteṣu kāmo'smi bharatarṣabha ||

I am the strength of the strong, free from desire and passion. And in all beings I am the desire that does not go against dharma, best of the Bharatas.

Modern context

Two qualifications make this verse precise. The divine is strength, but strength free from craving and passion: the steady strength that protects, not the strength that grabs. And the divine is desire, but desire that does not go against dharma. In chapter 3 desire was called the enemy. Here a kind of desire is called sacred. The difference is whether it is in harmony with what is right. The wish to love, to build a family, to do good work, held within right limits, is not something to suppress. It is part of the divine at work.