Of Gold And Women
16.21 There are three gates leading to this hell: lust, anger and greed.
As they lead to the degradation of the soul, these three are to be abandoned.
16.22 Those who have escaped these three gates of hell, O son of Kunti, behave in a manner beneficial to the (evolution of the) soul, and thus (gradually) attain the supreme destination.
16.23 But he who discards scriptural injunctions and acts according to his base impulses attains neither perfection, nor happiness, nor the supreme destination.
16.24 By the regulations of the scriptures, one should understand what is duty and what is not duty. After being versed in scriptural injunctions, one should act accordingly.
Krishna ends the chapter with this advice: Shed anger, greed and lust and we will be saved. He calls them gates to hell.
These are the qualities of the blocked mūlādhāra cakra. These are attributes that bind us to 'me' and 'mine'. We mistakenly believe that these qualities are essential for our life on this planet. Nothing can be more wrong.
As long as we are bound by anger, lust and greed, what He calls the three gateways to hell, we are in bondage; we are in suffering. We do not need to die and be escorted to someplace called hell. We live in it day after day and suffer.
Kāma, krodha and lobha: lust, anger and greed - when we shed these we are liberated. Ramakrishna says again and again, drop kāñcana and kāminī, gold and women, greed and lust, and we will be liberated. Lust for women, and greed for old, these two desires more than anything else, cause all our sufferings.
You And Me
Krodha, anger, arises out of the suffering. We feel thwarted and we feel angry. The cycle goes on. When these three combine, they create moha, or delusion. There is nothing real about kāñcana - gold and kāminī - woman, because these are impermanent; they cannot give abiding joy. We may feel the pleasure for a while. After that, we will take them for granted. We will be like that king in the story I told earlier, whose possessions had to be robbed before he could come out of his depression.
Management of these emotions is addressed in detail in our Life Bliss Program. We explain the origin of these emotions and how to control them. We teach meditation techniques that liberate us from the harmful expressions of these emotions.
At one level these emotions are desires. Anger, greed and lust are expressions related to desires. Desires are energy. Lust is what drives us into reproduction and it is essential for the survival of species. Greed is the extreme expression of our survival needs. Anger is often the driving force to get things done. They achieve positive results, too.
However, Krishna refers to the expression of these emotions in the context of self-gratification. He refers to the gratification of base impulses. The baseness of the impulse is related to the intention. As long as these are expressed with the attitude of 'me,' they are base and demonic impulses. There are no redeeming features.
Lust can be transformed when it is expressed in an unselfish and unattached way. Lust will then totally disappear. Compassion and caring will be in its place. Every woman, including his own wife, was 'mother' to Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, enlightened master from Bharat. That was the extent of his purity and devotion. Of course, such people are exceptions.
People ask me, 'Swamiji, man has evolved from mammals. Mammals are polygamous by nature. How can we expect human beings to be monogamous?'
Please understand that animals mate to procreate, never for entertainment. Only humans engage in sex for entertainment. That is why there is so much pornography. Animals mate purely for reproduction and the survival of their species. So it makes no difference whether they mate with one or many. They also mate at certain times, unlike humans. Animal lust is pure. There is no fantasy involved when animals mate. No animal fantasizes about another animal when it is mating.
Human beings indulge in sexual fantasies. Their lust is impure. It is corrupted because lust is not used for what it is intended. It is used for everything except reproduction. How many couples indulge in sex with no thought except that of their mate?
In the Shiva Sutras, Shiva tells Devi that in every couple's bed there are four people. In addition to the man and the woman, there is the man's fantasy of his woman and the woman's fantasy of her man. It is an orgy, not a relationship.
Human beings have the consciousness to rise from polygamous instincts to monogamous intelligence. That is the whole basis of societal regulations. We may look at it as a constraint, but it is a discipline that prevents abuse of one human being by another. Why else is there a need to marry? You can always live like animals and do what you please, if you can.
We can't. Our intellect will not allow us. Our mind will create a thousand fantasies. It will create desire first and then guilt. So we swing from desire to guilt, guilt to anger, anger to depression and so on. It will become a vicious cycle.
Living like an animal is not an option for a human being. Ascent is the natural law, not descent. We need to rise in awareness, not descend into ignorance. That is why, if we are aware, we move from the polygamous instinct to monogamous intelligence. In fact, if we are truly intelligent, our intuition takes us beyond monogamy into aloneness.
Aloneness need not be running off into a forest to meditate. We can be alone in the midst of a family. Being alone is to move to our core. Aloneness is our real nature as a human being. Then we move into that attitude of 'you' instead of focusing on 'me.'
Lust is one aspect of the broad spectrum of desires. Unending desire is greed. When a desire is truly fulfilled, it leaves us. Karma is unfulfilled desires that goad us into action. We can never fulfill our desires because many of these desires are not truly ours. We borrow these desires from other people. We need a bigger house, fancier car or younger wife because our friend, neighbor or cousin has one.
Even if we acquire one, the satisfaction will be temporary. We will meet another friend, neighbor or cousin who has a bigger house, better car or more beautiful wife. So it goes on. It goes on without end. There is never contentment. Each desire is the seed of suffering. That is why Krishna calls it a gateway to hell. But how do we get rid of these desires?
This is what we teach at our second level Life Bliss Program, the Nithyananda Spurana Program or NSP. We help identify true desires, the prārabdha karma, with which we are born into this world. These are our true needs, not borrowed wants. We have the energy to fulfill them and discard them. Our karma dissolves.
The NSP course leaves us free of negativities. People who attend this program say that they cannot hate or even dislike anyone. The 'I' blossoms into 'you' effortlessly.
At this stage, we shed anger as well. Anger and guilt are byproducts of desires. What we cannot acquire makes us angry. Anger produces guilt. Being angry towards a person is fruitless. Much of the negativity expressed towards others comes back to us. It depletes our energy. Anger or even guilt is also often an expression of one's inability to do something. It is a self-centered emotion born of one's weakness.
Suppression of anger does not help. It can actually lead to chronic diseases like cancer. When we learn to turn the emotion of anger towards an issue instead of a person, it becomes energy instead of a disability. Anger needs to be transformed into the positive energy of action.
What Krishna asks us to do is to transform negative emotions like lust, greed and anger into positive energies. He tells us that these are gateways to hell so long as we use them from the attitude of 'me.' When we transform these emotions into energy, by shifting to the attitude of 'you,' these same emotions become gateways to heaven.