In today’s scenario with so much emphasis on enjoying worldly pleasures, if some Buddha. or Patanjali, or Krishna. or Jesus cautions against, nobody is going to listen. Most people consider that such advices are meant for people who have renounced the world.
We saw Buddha’s reasoning behind his advice in an earlier post. I have also elaborated on it in my book “Buddha’s Soul”. Jesus’ views on self discipline is evident in many of the posts I made earlier on Bible. In my book “How and Why of Yoga and Meditation”, I tried to give neuroscience based reasoning for Yama and Niyama advocated by Patanjali.
In this post, I will touch upon Krishna’s line of reasoning as described in the Bhagavad Geetha.
Krishna says
"When someone keeps thinking about objects of pleasure, he gradually develops interest in them. This interest leads to desire to enjoy those pleasures.
But these pleasures are such that one never gets fully satiated by them and one continues to be wanting for more. But there is a limit. Either he himself cannot get it as much as he wants or someone else may hinder his enjoyment. That makes him irritable and angry.
Continued state of irritability and stress leads one to become confused about right and wrong. He loses discretion. In that state of confusion, all sane advice by well wishers and his own past experience, tend to be forgotten.
The person gets into a state of delusion. And this delusion destroys his intellect. Once the person loses control over his intellect, it is as good as he has destroyed himself!”
Krishna seems to paint quite a gloomy picture.
Most of us cannot totally keep away from worldly pleasures. Probably, none wants to be a Yogi. But with some introspection, we can see some truth in what Krishna says.
We see in our own lives as well as in the lives of people around us, the perils of going after sense pleasures. So, if not completely avoid, we should try to abstain from overindulgence to the extent possible.
Play to listen to original verses
Based on verses 2.62 and 2.63, of Bhagavad Geetha, one of the most quoted and widely translated of the ancient Indian scriptures, believed to have been composed by Vyasa as part of the great Indian Epic Mahabharata, 5000 years ago. The interpretation of the verses and audio recital are by Dr.King (Copyright © 2018 Dr. King)
No comments:
Post a Comment