The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity 12-5: Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday 13, January 2025, 19:40.
Books: Bhagavad Gita
The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity 12-5:
An Exposition of the First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita
Discourse 12: Control of the Senses -5.
Swami Krishnananda.

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So, our instincts need not necessarily be visible to us. In our conscious life we may not know that they exist at all. I am very fine. What is wrong with me? But the disturbances in the mind, that which we call the tossing of the mind, the inability to concentrate, a feeling of fatigue even in sitting for a while calmly in meditation and an inward restlessness that one feels are outer indications of an inward presence of these potential instincts which are irrational. These prevent us from putting this knowledge into practice.

But there is a way out. All problems are meant to be solved. Every difficulty has to be overcome. This is the picture I have presented before you of things as they are. But things have to be something else. The way out is to put forth effort in the right direction, in the right manner, with the guidance of people who have trodden the path. Gradually these irrationalities, these impulses, have to be subdued. Just as restive horses which will not easily bend and will not listen have to be controlled slowly by operating the reins in the required manner, the higher should control the lower.

Now, when we say that the higher should control the lower, it need not necessarily mean that that we should go to the highest place of support at once. The immediately higher position can be a support. The mind is superior to the sense organs. The mind is filled with instincts, no doubt, yet it is the reservoir of the force which is supplied to the senses for their actions. So you can diminish the supply of power to the senses by blocking the avenues of this supply, which is what we call austerity, tapas, and a life of discipline, abstemious living in a controlled atmosphere. Sadhana, as it is called, is one way of subduing these otherwise very strong impulses.

One has to live an austere life. Do not be too indulgent. Do not pamper your sense organs; do not feed your body beyond the limit. Even animals in a circus are very carefully managed. They are fed to the extent it is necessary; neither are they allowed to die, nor are they allowed to be ferocious. After all, the sense organs are operations within you. You cannot kill them in the name of austerity, but you also cannot allow them to be ferocious and go out of your hand. That state should not take place. The Arab has to control the camel, and the camel should not kick the Arab out of the tent.

So, yoga, according to the Bhagavadgita, is not killing the senses. It is also not indulging in the senses. It is harmony that the Bhagavadgita teaches. You are not over-friendly with your sensory irrational instincts, nor are you inimical to them. You are a good teacher, a schoolmaster, as it were, a medical man, a psychologist who is not angry with the patient but understands the condition of the patient.

So here you have to be very cautious in applying a harmonious yardstick of measuring the present condition of your irrational behaviour, potential or otherwise, and your higher reason has to be applied even to subjugate the mind which supplies the energy to the senses. The manas is superior to the indriyas, or the senses, and the buddhi is superior to the manas.

How are you going to use the rationality in you? You know how you can live a life of reason. Your friendship with people, the company that you keep, the books that you read, the atmosphere in which you live, will also tell you the kind of rationality that is permitted in your daily behaviour. Who are your friends? Make a list of all these people. What kind of people are they? Sanga, company is a very important determining factor in our behaviour, conduct and inner operations. While satsanga is good, dissanga is not good. While we condition the behaviour of other people by the emanation of forces from us, we also may be conditioned by such emanations from other people. Hence it is said that your company should always be good. Always keep company of people who are helpful to you spiritually, at least rationally.

Do not be friendly with irrational minds who are instinct-ridden and brute in behaviour, who are physically oriented rather than rationally oriented. And study elevating literature which will rouse up the higher potentiality in you. Do not read trash, rubbish, journals, magazines, etc., which will distract your attention and make you earth-earthly, more and more bound. And, finally, inwardly offer prayers to the Almighty Himself, like the prayer that is given to us in the Gayatri mantra: May my intellect be directed properly. You summon the rays; you will draw sustenance from the higher powers. Finally, the great God of the universe is with you. Believe in this, and His support is always with you. “You shall succeed, my dear friend Arjuna. Don't cry,” says Bhagavan Sri Krishna to Arjuna, and to every one of us.

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Next
Discourse 13: The Supremely Friendly Power:
Continues

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