Articles for Saadhana

We are still on the qualifications or qualities of a seeker of supreme truth.

Yesterday I spoke about śamaḥ, the art, the process and the pursuit of dealing with desires and avoiding them, forestalling them, eliminating them.

Now the next one, in the series of six is called damaḥ. One is śamaḥ, another is damaḥ. Śamaḥ is an internal practice. It relates only to your mind and the tool employed for dealing with the mind is the intelligence. So it is an exclusively inner pursuit. Now the second one is damaḥ. What does it mean: - sensory regulation, sensory moderation and sensory refinement.

We have got five knowledge organs and five action organs – jñānendriyas and karmendriyas.

The jñānendriyas are used to glimpse, perceive and understand the objects. As soon as you glimpse or perceive the objects – that glimpsing itself is when the mind takes an imprint of the object by itself in itself, to remain in itself. It becomes a memory, a store of the mind. When the mind makes such an imprint, it not merely makes an imprint, it also responds to and reacts to the imprint. This response and reaction are natural, irresistible, spontaneous and even ceaseless. That is where we develop our likes and dislikes, desire, hatred, fear and their permutations and combinations. So the senses come only as a media, as a medium.

What wants to see is the mind. What sees is the mind. What takes an imprint is the mind. And what employs or uses the imprint is again the mind. Unfortunately we feel, in the whole process, the senses are more dominant than the mind. It is actually a kind of a delusion or a sudden understanding of the whole process. This suddenness, we should always safeguard against.

Let us make use of the mind and intelligence to observe, to understand, to evaluate and assess matters properly. If you assess it as I explain to you and 'B' and the others had to agree – what is that? Desire is sprouting in the mind and that desire is what makes the mind itself employ the senses and perform an action. And it is in the same mind the action concludes and terminates. So, in reality, it is all a mind’s handiwork or a witchcraft. But in this witchcraft, you will find, the mind wants to experience. That experience is brought about by the instrumentality of the senses.

We have five senses. So whenever we perceive objects with the senses, we also want to interact with them in the way of an enjoyment or indulgence or otherwise. Every sense has got objects in this world and upon every object, there is a cap of attraction and repulsion. Krishna puts it in a very nice manner.

इन्द्रियस्येन्द्रियस्यार्थे रागद्वेषौ व्यवस्थितौ ।

तयोर्न वशमागच्छेत्तौ ह्यस्य परिपन्थिनौ ।।

indriyasyendriyasyārthe rāga-dveṣau vyavasthitau |
tayor-na vaśam-āgacchet tau hy-asya paripanthinau ||

(Bhagavad Gita 3.34)

Upon every sensory object, two are always capped, रागद्वेषौ , rāgadveṣau – attraction and repulsion.

तयोः वशं न आगच्छेत्, tayoḥ vaśam na āgacchet – Do not come under their sway. Whose sway? Attraction and repulsion, their sway. Upon every sensory object are attraction and repulsion. Do not come under their sway. Why?

तौ ह्यस्य परिपन्थिनौ, tau hyasya paripanthinau - They are the stark enemies in your path of life.

I don’t know whether you understand it. This is a very great summary and analysis of human life.

What a great daughter was Janaki, Sita, and what a great wife she was! When Rama decided to go to the forest for fourteen years, she instantly said, “There is no Rama without Sita and there is no Sita without Rama. If forest is your wont, that is my choice and delight,” she said. “Without you, the golden palace of Ayodhya will be a cremation ground and with you, the forest will be Ayodhya for me.” Such a great fidelity, exclusiveness and resoluteness she had! But alas!

In the fourteenth year, when Sri Rama wanted to have a little austere sojourn for a year, before returning back to palace, Sita made a garden around the hermitage. One day suddenly, a golden dear came, and started looking at her and waving its tail. Sita started lingeringly looking on, looking on. Who knows what exchanged between the eyes of the deer and those of Sita? She fell in love with it. Everybody knows that golden deer can never be true, but Sita did not mind to think about it, even when Lakshmana reminded that it is a witchcraft, a māya of rakshasas. So she asked Rama to bring the deer for her. “Bring it! Bring it alive. If not, at least bring the skin. When we go back, both of us can sit together on the skin in our garden.”

Rama was setting out, that is when Lakshmana intercepted with a timely reminder. Then Rama said, “If it is a witchcraft, I will punish the rakshasa, otherwise Janaki never asks me for anything, I will go and get hold of him.” Within fifteen minutes, wonderful Janaki became a slave of Ravana. What was the reason?

Indriyasya indriyasya arthe rāgadveṣau vyavasthitau. And this rāga for the deer made Sita utter words to Lakshmana, which no woman on earth should have said and she was also repentant. So from rāga arises dveṣa. When attraction is hindered, it gives rise to repulsion, hatred. So don’t come under their sway! So there is something called sensory regulation and sensory moderation. It is not like dealing with the desires which are subtle and inner and related only to the mind. So this damaḥ is a second of the six requisites of a seeker.

In Bhagavad Gita, you will find, sensory control has been given a very special treatment. Every śāstra must have an apūrvatā, an exclusiveness of its own and for the Bhagavad Gita, sensory control or sensory regulation is the very special exclusive subject it deals with. It also provides something called samatva. That is also exclusive, but more important is the sensory control.

We have five senses. Each of them is independently powerful. So Sri Krishna says in the second chapter, I will take that verse during the course of the discussion;

यततो ह्यपि कौन्तेय पुरुषस्य विपश्चितः ।

इन्द्रियाणि प्रमाथीनि हरन्ति प्रसभं मनः ।।

yatato hyapi kaunteya puruṣasya vipaścitaḥ |

indriyāṇi pramāthīni haranti prasabhaṁ manaḥ ||

(Bhagavad Gita 2.60)

My dear souls, why don’t you understand this very, very clearly! Every one of you is carrying a mind and that mind is absolutely different from the senses. Senses are biological, made of matter and energy. Mind is supra-material and supra-energial. That is far more powerful, potent, sublime! In spite of it, because of the relationship with the body, this mind is pulled and pushed by the senses.

यततो ह्यपि कौन्तेय पुरुषस्य विपश्चितः, yatato hyapi kaunteya puruṣasya vipaścitaḥ - Even when a seeker is very discreet and discriminating and he is given to sādhanā, striving...

इन्द्रियाणि प्रमाथीनि , indriyāṇi pramāthīni – the senses are very powerful and turbulent!

हरन्ति प्रसभं मनः , haranti prasabhaṁ manaḥ – they forcefully draw and dislodge the mind! Are you hearing? Your senses are capable of dislodging the mind from its present position, as it happened in the case of Sita! It is a transaction that takes place between your body and the senses, but the consequences can be very widespread and colossal.

yatato hyapi kaunteya puruṣasya vipaścitaḥ |

indriyāṇi pramāthīni haranti prasabhaṁ manaḥ||

Another verse he says, what does he say?

इन्द्रियाणां हि चरतां यन्मनोऽनुविधीयते ।
तदस्य हरति प्रज्ञां वायुर्नावमिवाम्भसि ।।

indriyāṇāṁ hi caratāṁ yan-mano'nuvidhīyate |

tadasya harati prajñāṁ vāyur-nāvam-ivāmbhasi ||

(Bhagavad Gita 2.67)

How the senses, or one sense even is able to draw irresistibly the mind and what kind of a danger or calamity can result, is best illustrated by Krishna by saying,

इन्द्रियाणि हि चरतां , indriyāṇāṁ hi caratāṁ - of the five sensory organs, which are always open and constantly interacting with the surroundings, objects;

यन्मनोSनुविधीयते , yan-mano'nuvidhīyate - even if a single sensory organ the mind follows, not necessary that all of them. In the case of the golden deer, it was sight. In something else, it can be music, it can be a smell. So, of all the moving and interacting senses, even if one the mind follows;