‘All vratas are accomplished by eliminating desire and one attains the merits of bathing in all the places of pilgrimage by removing anger.’
No living being (jiva) wants to suffer or be caught in the cycle of birth and death. No one wants to continue entering into the wombs of mothers. Yet, why does man suffer unwillingly as if he were constrained by force? Nobody wants to live under the influence of lust and anger. Nobody wants to thicken the web of karma around himself. Then why does he fall prey to them? Arjuna once put this questions to Lord Sri Krishna. The Lord replied.
‘It is desire, it is anger born of the quality of Rajas, all-sinful and all-devouring; know this as the foe here (in this world).’
Desire is born of rajoguna and it destroys man’s God-given discriminative insight. What is God-given discriminative insight? Man has the natural faculty to discriminate between truth and untruth, eternal and transient, immutable and mutable… In short, man has the discriminative insight to know what is supremely auspicious for him and also what leads to misery. But this discriminative insight is veiled by the influence of rajoguna and man starts desiring, ‘I should get this I should do that…. I will be happy if I acquire this much….’
‘I shall go there.. I shall eat this and that….’ By creating such circumstances, the jiva wishes to become happy. This is because the knowledge of their bliss personified Self is veiled. ‘Sattvaguna gives rise to the illumination of Knowledge’. The more one is under the influence of rajoguna, the more one’s personal anxiety increases. Nothing is achieved in the end.
Desires are very base. We are Atman, the abode of eternal peace, the very personifications of the Supreme Brahman, but desires have driven us to a low state. The more the desires and the more intense the desires, the more sullied our intellect becomes.
We want to enjoy pleasures and hold on to worldly possessions forever. We have the desire to earn and amass wealth, but when it is finally earned, what happens? If we diminish. With a reduction in desires we shall live comfortably with whatever fate hands us. However, by continuously being in a state of want, if we get what we want, we become attached to it and are scared of losing it. In addition, if our desires are not fulfilled we become angry. In this manner, one turns away from inner peace, from one’s true nature. Man becomes depraved.
Fulfillment of a desire requires exertion and as soon as the desire is fulfilled, another will raise its head. But no exertion is required in renouncing desire; it requires only discriminative insight.
‘What I myself plan rarely happens. What God plans, happens. Whatever God plans, He executes. I remain free from all worries.’
Practice and perfects this for just 72 hours. You have staked your whole life but you gained nothing. On the contrary, you’ve had to toil hard and what was the result? You received an education; you educated your children and made efforts in diverse directions. Ultimately, what did you gain from all this? Nothing…. If you make a deeper assessment, you have achieved nothing worthwhile. My dear! For the next three days be desire that crops up in my heart. If he (God) gives rain, thank Him; if the Sun shines instead, Think Him. I will renounce all my desires for there days and merge them with God’s Will.”
Do it for just three days and that is enough. Be a puppet in the Lord’s hands for three days. You will reach the threshold of divinity. You will become a great soul.
Even if you don’t want it, what is destined will happens. But things that happen against your desire only entail undue exertion on your part. A rich man had a few cows. The cowherd went away because of some personal reason and asked his son to work in his absence. One day the son was trying to lead a calf into the cowshed but the calf would not budge. The body dragged it by the rope, pushed it from behind, beat it with a stick, but the calf stubbornly refused to move.
Now, the calf has to go into the shed anyway. However, it resists and is being beaten and dragged, it resists and is being beaten and dragged. The cowherd returned in the meanwhile and said to his son, “You have no sense. You are an M.A but nevertheless a fool. Is this the way to lead the calf into the shed?”
The boy said, “It won’t come into the shed. What can I do?”
The cowherd set the calf free. He went into the shed and dangled some green grass so that the calf could see it. The calf came running into the shed.
Similarly, let your mind taste a bit of divine nectar and it will willingly turn inward. It will come home spontaneously. Without coming inwards, without the inward journey, the mind cannot get peace. There can be no happiness without peace, nor is there any possibility of leading a fulfilling life without true happiness. True happiness and a fulfilling life are not different from each other. In fact, we have committed a great blunder. We consider circumstance to be life. Circumstances are not life. What is nectar? If we put poison into nectar, it will also become nectar. That is the test of nectar. Similarly, the test of real life is that in the event of death coming in contact with it, it should get transformed into life as well. Life is always changeless; only circumstances change. The good and bad deeds carried out by the gross body, good and evil thoughts contemplated by the subtle body, i.e. the inner being, and the state of peace experienced by the causal body are characteristics of the body and maya, (the Cosmic delusion). We think they are in us and don’t exert ourselves to search for our real Self. The result is that we keep toiling throughout life and finally meet a miserable death, only strengthening our miserable death, only strengthening our karmic bondage instead of reducing it.
No living being (jiva) wants to suffer or be caught in the cycle of birth and death. No one wants to continue entering into the wombs of mothers. Yet, why does man suffer unwillingly as if he were constrained by force? Nobody wants to live under the influence of lust and anger. Nobody wants to thicken the web of karma around himself. Then why does he fall prey to them? Arjuna once put this questions to Lord Sri Krishna. The Lord replied.
‘It is desire, it is anger born of the quality of Rajas, all-sinful and all-devouring; know this as the foe here (in this world).’
Desire is born of rajoguna and it destroys man’s God-given discriminative insight. What is God-given discriminative insight? Man has the natural faculty to discriminate between truth and untruth, eternal and transient, immutable and mutable… In short, man has the discriminative insight to know what is supremely auspicious for him and also what leads to misery. But this discriminative insight is veiled by the influence of rajoguna and man starts desiring, ‘I should get this I should do that…. I will be happy if I acquire this much….’
‘I shall go there.. I shall eat this and that….’ By creating such circumstances, the jiva wishes to become happy. This is because the knowledge of their bliss personified Self is veiled. ‘Sattvaguna gives rise to the illumination of Knowledge’. The more one is under the influence of rajoguna, the more one’s personal anxiety increases. Nothing is achieved in the end.
Desires are very base. We are Atman, the abode of eternal peace, the very personifications of the Supreme Brahman, but desires have driven us to a low state. The more the desires and the more intense the desires, the more sullied our intellect becomes.
We want to enjoy pleasures and hold on to worldly possessions forever. We have the desire to earn and amass wealth, but when it is finally earned, what happens? If we diminish. With a reduction in desires we shall live comfortably with whatever fate hands us. However, by continuously being in a state of want, if we get what we want, we become attached to it and are scared of losing it. In addition, if our desires are not fulfilled we become angry. In this manner, one turns away from inner peace, from one’s true nature. Man becomes depraved.
Fulfillment of a desire requires exertion and as soon as the desire is fulfilled, another will raise its head. But no exertion is required in renouncing desire; it requires only discriminative insight.
‘What I myself plan rarely happens. What God plans, happens. Whatever God plans, He executes. I remain free from all worries.’
Practice and perfects this for just 72 hours. You have staked your whole life but you gained nothing. On the contrary, you’ve had to toil hard and what was the result? You received an education; you educated your children and made efforts in diverse directions. Ultimately, what did you gain from all this? Nothing…. If you make a deeper assessment, you have achieved nothing worthwhile. My dear! For the next three days be desire that crops up in my heart. If he (God) gives rain, thank Him; if the Sun shines instead, Think Him. I will renounce all my desires for there days and merge them with God’s Will.”
Do it for just three days and that is enough. Be a puppet in the Lord’s hands for three days. You will reach the threshold of divinity. You will become a great soul.
Even if you don’t want it, what is destined will happens. But things that happen against your desire only entail undue exertion on your part. A rich man had a few cows. The cowherd went away because of some personal reason and asked his son to work in his absence. One day the son was trying to lead a calf into the cowshed but the calf would not budge. The body dragged it by the rope, pushed it from behind, beat it with a stick, but the calf stubbornly refused to move.
Now, the calf has to go into the shed anyway. However, it resists and is being beaten and dragged, it resists and is being beaten and dragged. The cowherd returned in the meanwhile and said to his son, “You have no sense. You are an M.A but nevertheless a fool. Is this the way to lead the calf into the shed?”
The boy said, “It won’t come into the shed. What can I do?”
The cowherd set the calf free. He went into the shed and dangled some green grass so that the calf could see it. The calf came running into the shed.
Similarly, let your mind taste a bit of divine nectar and it will willingly turn inward. It will come home spontaneously. Without coming inwards, without the inward journey, the mind cannot get peace. There can be no happiness without peace, nor is there any possibility of leading a fulfilling life without true happiness. True happiness and a fulfilling life are not different from each other. In fact, we have committed a great blunder. We consider circumstance to be life. Circumstances are not life. What is nectar? If we put poison into nectar, it will also become nectar. That is the test of nectar. Similarly, the test of real life is that in the event of death coming in contact with it, it should get transformed into life as well. Life is always changeless; only circumstances change. The good and bad deeds carried out by the gross body, good and evil thoughts contemplated by the subtle body, i.e. the inner being, and the state of peace experienced by the causal body are characteristics of the body and maya, (the Cosmic delusion). We think they are in us and don’t exert ourselves to search for our real Self. The result is that we keep toiling throughout life and finally meet a miserable death, only strengthening our miserable death, only strengthening our karmic bondage instead of reducing it.
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