Guarding The Senses
Authored by
THE SUPREME PONTIFF OF HINDUISM BHAGAWAN SRI NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM
sattvaṁ sukhe sañjayati rajaḥ karmaṇi bhārata jñānamāvṛtya tu tamaḥ pramāde sañjayatyuta
The mode of goodness conditions one to happiness. Passion conditions one to fruits of action, and veiling the knowledge, tamas binds one to carelessness.
Continuously add thoughts of completion that give power, bliss and peace.
rajas tamaś cābhibhūya sattvaṁ bhavati bhārata rajaḥ sattvaṁ tamaścaiva tamaḥ sattvaṁ rajastathā
Sometimes the mode of passion becomes prominent, defeating the mode of goodness, O son of Bhārata. And sometimes the mode of goodness defeats passion, and at other times the mode of ignorance defeats goodness and passion. In this way there is always competition for supremacy.
If we are complete about what we do, we will enjoy what we do. Whatever we do will be wonderful and successful
sarvadvāreṣu dehesmin prakāśa upajāyate jñanaṁ yadā tadā vidyād vivṛddhaṁ sattvamityuta
When the light of Self-knowledge illumines all the senses (or gates) in the body, then it should be known that goodness is predominant.
We should keep our five senses carefully guarded by illuminated knowledge. We should be conscious about what input we take in and what inputs we must avoid, so that we can reside in satva forever.
obhaḥ pravṛttirārambhaḥ karmaṇāmaśamaḥ spṛhā rajasyetāni jāyante vivṛddhe bharatarṣabha O
Bharatarṣabha, chief of the Bhārata, when there is an increase in the mode of passion, the symptoms of great attachment, uncontrollable desire, hankering, and intense endeavor develop
Ask: Do I wish to be a donkey driven by a carrot dangling in front of me all my life? When we decide, 'No, this is not what I want,' it is time to break away from rajas and move towards bliss, nityānanda.
Kṛṣṇa further explains the three modes. 'O Bhārata, sometimes the mode of goodness, satva, becomes prominent, defeating the modes of passion and ignorance, and at other times, ignorance defeats goodness and passion. In this way, there is always competition for supremacy.
All of us are not completely caught in satva or rajas or tamas. We swing between satva, rajas and tamas. Sometimes we get up in the morning and feel fresh. We feel as if all our questions are answered; we are fresh, alive and we think we have become almost enlightened! Everything goes beautifully until evening. Suddenly we become restless. The very next day, we are in tamas. We don't want to do anything. These mood swings take place continuously
Obesity and mood swings are closely related. When we allow these mood swings to happen, we torture ourselves. Sometimes we are restless, sometimes we are peaceful and sometimes we are in tamas. When we are in tamas we don't want to do anything; we want to escape from everything and run away. We are caught in these three modes of nature: sometimes in instinct, sometimes in intellect and sometimes in intelligence.
Why? This happens if we have collected too many patterns about something over many years. For example, the pattern of drinking develops if, from a young age, you were repeatedly taught not to drink and that drinking is a sin. This raises your curiosity to taste alcohol at least once. Never give a law to children. Instead give them understanding and the spirit behind the law.
If we want to bring up children blissfully, we need to bring them up without guilt. Breaking rules creates guilt. to give understanding, we need two things. First we need to be intelligent enough to understand the meaning behind the rules we are trying to enforce. Next we need patience to explain it all to them. Even though it takes more time and energy, focus on giving them understanding.
Before deciding to have children, find your root thought pattern and become complete, enlightened. That is the only qualification we need. Unless we are in the space of completion, we will not have any clarity how to guide them, and we will go on creating more confusion, guilt and incompletion in them. Till we learn the science of completion, we should not plan to have children.
Understand, without completing your root thought pattern, your DNA layers are not awakened, mitochondria cell energy is not awakened. For common human beings, two layers of DNA are awakened. If you find your root thought pattern and complete, six layers of DNA, your Kuṇḍalinī (potential energy) will be awakened in you. If six layers of DNA are awakened, your child will be an enlightened being! If you decide to have children, have the intelligence to give them the right cognition behind all that you tell them.
Never enforce rules on kids. We are suffering from rules given to us by our parents. The rules given by our parents are in our rajas and tamas layers. They lead us to restlessness and deep depression again and again. They create more and more incompletion, powerlessness for us.
Desire and guilt are two forms of the same energy. One is related to the future. The other is related to the past. Desire is related to the future. Guilt is related to the past. 'I should have done that' plays a major role in our 'I should do this.' 'I should do this' is determined by 'I should have done that.'
Guilt that is created by rules handed down to us by our elders creates hell in our life and leads us to tamas. Kṛṣṇa says we are led to antaḥ (the end). We fall into ignorance or into the end.
Kṛṣṇa says the manifestations of the modes of goodness can be experienced when all the gates of the body are illuminated by knowledge. This is the technique. The gates of the body are the gates through which we cognize: we receive knowledge or information through the eyes, ears, nose, tongue and the sense of touch or physical pleasure. These are the files through which we receive information from outside. He says that we should keep these five carefully guarded by prakāśa (illuminated knowledge). We should ensure security at these gates and knowledge is that security.
We should have knowledge about what should be taken in and what should not be taken in. Knowing this, we will reside in satva forever. We will reside in bliss forever. He says we should appoint a guard for the gates of our body. There is no security system for our body. We have security for our home. If someone breaks in, automatically the call goes to 911. We reside twenty-four hours every day in this house called our body, yet we don't have a security system!
Ramaṇa Mahaṛṣi sings in beautiful homage to the sacred Aruṇācala Hill in Tiruvannamalai in his famous song 'Aruṇācala Akśaramaṇamalai', 'When these thieves, the five senses, have entered into the house, Oh Aruṇācala, were you not at home? How did they enter?' He asks Śiva, 'When these five senses entered the house (body-mind), were you not there? Why did you let them enter?'
Kṛṣṇa says, let us have the security, the protection of knowledge at the five gates, and we will reside in continuous bliss. Completion is Bliss. This means that we should not allow the incomplete thoughts that create suffering to enter our inner space through the eyes and other senses. This means, avoid the television or media. At least do not watch programs that create violence, depression, and powerlessness in you. We should only watch programs that give joy and make us complete, blissful. When we protect our senses with satva, we will not allow negative patterns to come in.
Please do not infuse your consciousness with powerless thoughts that create suffering in you. Continuously add thoughts of completion that give power, bliss and peace. We may think this is impractical. We may think, 'How can we live in society without knowing what's going on in the world?' Be very clear, knowing what's going on in the world is a disease. Collecting information is a disease.
The other day, someone said, 'Swamiji, we should watch television to get an idea of the culture.' However these television shows are trash. They are nonsensical. The more we watch, the more negative patterns we imbibe. We simply suffer. We put ourselves into rajas and tamas again and again.
Life is much too valuable and too short to be spent worrying. Do not allow powerless thoughts that create depression, low mood and longing, into your system, especially at sandhyā time - the twilight time at which day and night meet. Our ancient masters knew that sandhyā time, when day and night meet, is a critical time. There are two sandhyās, dawn and dusk. Our masters knew that whatever thought-seeds are sown inside our being at sandhyā come out as full-blown trees. That is why the masters insisted that at sandhyā time, one should spend time in a temple, praying, listening to prayers, reading devotional material. Meditate or go to a temple and do something spiritual at this time. These spiritual ideas go inside as seeds and become a valuable complete tree in our life.
Kṛṣṇa gives one technique, one suggestion: Protect the five senses from negative ideas of powerlessness, the incompletions and infuse positive ideas of completion through the five senses. Whatever we feed upon becomes our being and we radiate that energy.
Next, Kṛṣṇa says that attachment, greed, craving, and restless actions are indications of rājasic behavior.
Instead of enjoying the path, we worry about the goal and constantly live in incompletion. We worry about when we will reach, where we will reach. In the process, we do not notice how we are traveling. We miss the beauty of the path. The goal that we are chasing will be a mirage, an illusion. As soon as we reach that goal, we will be forced to chase another goal. Acquisition becomes the goal, not enjoyment. That is why people who are successful have both passion and patience for what they do. They do not care about what happens in the end as long as what they do is from the space of completion.
If we are complete about what we do, we will enjoy what we do. Whatever we do will be wonderful and successful. We can never be happy in rajas. It drives us like a donkey until we are exhausted and we collapse with our incompletion. We need to decide whether or not this is the way we want to live. Ask: Do I wish to be a donkey driven by a carrot dangling in front of me all my life? When we decide, 'No, this is not what I want,' it is time to break away from rajas and move towards bliss, nityānanda.
Try to impress upon the students that we must try to encourage satva guna within us by being very selective about the type of sensory inputs we intake from our external world. We must reserve our twilight time in the mornings and evenings to our spiritual practices.
- ❖ What are the three Gunas? Explain what are the attributes attached to each Guna?
- ❖ What is the difference between desire and guilt?
- ❖ Why is it important to keep us in goodness or Satva guna during the twilight time in the mornings and the evenings?
MATERIALS NEEDED:
- 1. Modelling Clay, or paper and charcoal pencil.
PROCEDURE
Make a clay statue or draw a sketch that expresses the following theme "Do not see Evil! Do not talk Evil! Do not hear Evil!"
INFERENCE
We should keep our five senses carefully guarded by prakāśa (illuminated knowledge) to be in sattva forever.
MATERIALS NEEDED:
Notebook and pen.
PROCEDURE:
Make a list of any six (6) statutory laws, social etiquettes or organizational rules that you know of. What is the purpose of these laws/rules? Are these rules/laws in the form of personal rights, duties towards others or are they punishable crimes? Let us share our list with the group and let's brainstorm on what is the true spirit behind each of these laws or moral values
INFERENCE:
Never give a law to children. Instead give them understanding and the spirit behind the law. If we want to bring up children blissfully, we need to bring them up without guilt. Breaking rules creates guilt.
PROCEDURE
The topic of discussion is: Do not allow powerless thoughts that create depression, low mood and longing, into your system, especially at sandhyā time - the twilight time at which day and night meet. Our ancient masters knew that sandhyā time, when day and night meet, is a critical time. There are two sandhyās, dawn and dusk. Our masters knew that whatever thought-seeds are sown inside our being at sandhyā come out as full-blown trees. Encourage the students to discuss what they are doing at dawn and dusk, and how they can protect themselves against powerless thoughts during that time.
CONCLUSION
We should have knowledge about what should be taken in and what should not be taken in. Knowing this, we will reside in satva forever. We will reside in bliss forever. He says we should appoint a guard for the gates of our body.