Best Use of Self Dependence

There are two maxims to be adopted in life:
(1) Correct use of self dependence.
(2) To keep away from dependence.

You have freedom to speak, whether sweet, bitter, truth or a lie. Speaking sweet is good and bitter is bad use. You also have freedom of thought. You can think about sense-enjoyments, about friends and foes and you can also think about the Atman and Brahman too. You have physical strength. You can misuse it for harassing others and you can also use it for the well-being of others, for the happiness of others ‘Bahujanhithaya – Bahujansukhaya’, or for self-defense. You are free to use your physical strength, faculty of speech and abilities that you have earned, in doing good to others, in meditation and in attaining knowledge; and you can also spend them in sinful acts driven by hatred and envy towards others. If you refrain from misusing your faculties, good use will follow, or if you make only good use of them, misuse will be avoided.

No one likes being dependent, we are always seeking freedom, yet all sense-pleasures entail dependence. For sensual pleasure, you depend upon your spouse. Similarly for all other sense-pleasures, you depend upon objects of sense pleasure. The dependent pleasures impair physical strength, intelligence, radiance, health and merits. The independent pleasures promote physical strength, intelligence, radiance and health. Self-Bliss is independent. You don’t have to be subservient to your wife or son for Self-bliss and you don’t have to depend on your father either. You can avail of Self-Bliss, meditate on your Real Self, and love your Real Self without any dependence on anybody or anything. For bodily love however, you need another body, and that body or your own body is vulnerable to disease and certain to die. Then there is the possibility of altercations and conflicts and you have to depart at the time of death. The joy from physical relationships is dependent. Do not opt for dependence. You will get rid of the allurement of dependent joy when you enter the realm of independent joy.

Some scholars hold the view that God has made the senses extroverted, therefore they are naturally attracted to external phenomena. But the experience of saints says that the senses are neither extroverted not introverted. If you move towards freedom and want to become introvert, the senses turn inward; and if you want to be dependent on others seeking dependent pleasures, the senses become extrovert. You seek pleasure is eating, seeing or touching same thing… there is nothing wrong with eating, seeing, etc. do so but only for sustenance, just like medicine, it should only be resorted to get rid of an undesirable condition. You have freedom to eat, but don’t make your stomach a storehouse. Similarly you have freedom to see; but use it for seeing worthwhile things and not obscenity and vulgarity. If you have the freedom to think do not nurture thoughts that will make you dependent on others. You are endowed with the sense of smell. It is up to you whether you smell scents and get aroused or you inhale the fragrance of flowers and incense offered to the Lord. The Lord says ‘I am the pure odour (the subtle principle of odour) in the earth…’


Punyo Gandhah Prithviyah cha….
(The Gita 7.9)

Make good use, not bad use of your relations. Good use of marital relationship is to encourage each other to spirituality, to nurture each other by observing brahmacharya and living a life of self-restraint and to beget lustrous children. Excessive sexual indulgence for the sake of carnal pleasure while preventing pregnancy by adopting various means is bad use of the relationship. It is also harmful to health.

Whether you put you possessions and your wealth to good use or bad use, you are free to decide. If you opt for Self-Bliss that is not dependent on anything or anybody, you will become free and independent in other matters too. And if you hanker after sense-pleasures and carnal pleasures which are dependent on others, you will become dependent in other matters as well. Please become free and independent. Your powers and the wealth which you have gained will increase and enhance all the more if you make good use of them. And if they are misused, they will bring misery. To misuse is to sow the seeds of misery. How simple and how easy! But the habit of improper use is very old. It makes the good use look difficult and therefore sadhana is required for that.

If you make good use of the freedom you have gained, you will become liberated and great. You will get the power to trample death. The shackles of birth and death will be broken forever and you will attain realization of the Supreme Self.