Guarding the Senses🔗

14.9 The mode of goodness conditions one to happiness,

Passion conditions him to fruits of action, and ignorance to madness.

14.10 Sometimes the mode of passion becomes prominent, defeating the mode of goodness, O son of Bharata.

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.

14.11 When the light of Self-knowledge illuminates all the senses (or gates) in the body,

Then it should be known that goodness is predominant.

14.12 O chief of Bharata, when there is an increase in the mode of passion, the symptoms of great attachment, uncontrollable desire, hankering, and intense endeavor develop.

Krishna further explains the three modes.

‘O Bharata, 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. We go from this end to that end, and from that end to this end.

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; we want to dump everything and run away. We are caught in these three modes of nature: sometimes in instinct, sometimes in intellect and sometimes in intelligence.

Why? Why do we have mood swings?

This happens if we have collected too many saṁskāras about something over many years. For example, we have many engrams about drinking, if from a young age, we were repeatedly taught not to drink and that drinking is a sin. This raises our curiosity and we are tempted 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. Following rules without understanding them leads to breaking the rules. Breaking rules creates guilt. Guilt is the worst imaginable sin. 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.

Never give rules if you want people to follow them! If we give a rule, they will do the opposite of the rule. Furthermore, we can’t even predict that they will do the exact opposite. Even though it requires time and energy, take time and raise children with understanding.

People complain to me, ‘Swamiji, in these modern times, there is no time. My daughter goes to school. I have a job. How do we find time to make her understand?’ I say, ‘Why did you give birth to your child if you don’t have time to bring her up? You should have become a sanyāsi like me! You should have decided earlier in life.’

A mother brought her child to me and said, ‘Swamiji, please advise him. Please ask him to obey me.’

I was not keen on giving that advice because I myself didn’t listen to or obey my mother when I was young! How could I give that advice? But I could not say that to the woman. So I decided to make her happy by advising her son.

She continued, ‘Swamiji, you must advise him.’

I tried to escape two or three times, but to no avail. Finally I called the boy and gently said, ‘Why don’t you obey your mother? I am also obeying her right now! Why don’t you listen to what she says?’

You will be surprised to hear the boy’s reply. He explained, ‘Swamiji, she is not happy. If I listen to her advice I will become like her. Why are you asking me to listen to her?’

I was taken aback. He was speaking the truth.

I somehow convinced him and sent him away; however, I was not convinced. He said the truth. If the mother was unhappy how could the son follow her advice?

In the near future, children will sue parents if they don’t bring them up properly. They have already started doing it. Kids who are depressed or in prison claim their problems are due to their parents raising them improperly. Instead of bringing them up, they brought them down.

Before deciding to have children, become enlightened. That is the only qualification we need. Unless we are clear as to how to guide them, we should not plan to have children. The world is populated enough. We have brought many billions of people to planet earth. If we can’t provide food, medicine and shelter to those already here, why bring in more people? Where is the place? Where are the resources?

If you decide to have children, have the intelligence to give them the understanding behind all that you tell them. Whatever you give in the form of understanding gets recorded in the satva layer. This understanding becomes intelligence. Whatever you give as a rule and command sits in the rajas and tamas layers. Even if it is good advice, don’t give it as a rule. If good advice is given as a rule, it creates an aversion in them.

When parents bring their kids to me, they force them to touch my feet. I say, ‘Never do that. This is your greed.’ These parents think that they and their children get punya or good credits by touching my feet. They impose this idea on their kids, an idea based on their greed.

By forcing the kids, they make the kids hate me. Some parents push their kids' heads down to my feet, as if they will receive positive current from my feet! I ask these parents not to force them. Namaskār (joining your hands in respect) is more than enough. By forcing them, they make the kids hate me. The next time these kids see the orange robe, they will grumble, 'Oh, now we must do that exercise.'

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 trouble 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. Krishna says we are led to antaha (the end). We fall into ignorance or into the end.

Krishna 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 receive knowledge or information: 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. Every neighborhood posts notices saying, 'This neighborhood is being watched by this detective or security system.' In the USA, there are many security systems for a home where people spend only ten or twelve hours per day inside their homes. People spend a maximum of twelve hours at their home and they spend the remaining twelve hours outside the home. We reside twenty-four hours every day in this house called our body, yet we don't have a security system!

Ramana Maharshi sings in beautiful homage to the sacred Arunachala Hill in Tiruvannamalai in his famous song ‘Arunachala Aksharamanamalai’, ‘When these thieves, the five senses, have entered into the house, Oh Arunachala, were you not at home? How did they enter?’ He asks Shiva, ‘When these five senses entered the house (body-mind), were you not there? Why did you let them enter?’

Krishna says, let us have the security, the protection of knowledge at the five gates, and we will reside in continuous bliss.

This means that we should not allow thoughts that create suffering to enter our mind through the eyes and other senses. This means, avoid the television. At least do not watch programs that create depression. We should only watch programs that give joy and make us blissful. We should never watch anything that makes us cunning, that gives us suffering or makes us feel violent.

When we protect our senses with satva, we will not allow negative engrams to come in. People immediately ask me, ‘If we don’t know what is happening in society, how can we live?’

Don’t worry about those things. Any important or urgent news will reach us through somebody in some way. We are not living on an island. Moreover, by gaining knowledge of criminal activities through media, there is nothing much we can do. Newspapers carry the same news everyday. Most of it is about murder, rape, theft, and accidents. The only difference is in the city or country where it takes place. Instead of reading the news everyday, we can predict what is going to happen and where! Why do we want to read and verify this? Only the place and numbers vary anyway.

What difference will it make to our life? If the people who handle the situation know about it, that is enough. When we imbibe continuous information of this kind, we create engrams. We create fear strokes and suffering. If we continuously read about kidnapping, if our husband or kid is late by a few minutes, we start worrying. We become restless. If something wrong really happens, we will suffer only on the day when it happens. However, when we create engrams that generate anxiety, we suffer everyday. Can we stop it from happening, and if we can, how?

If we can stop it, no problem; then it is intelligence. Whatever can stop this worry from materializing is intelligence. But most of the time we collect these engrams that we can neither stop nor do anything with. We simply suffer. We put ourselves into rajas and tamas again and again.

Please do not infuse your consciousness with thoughts that create suffering in you. Continuously add thoughts that give 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 negativity we imbibe.

Watching television shows creates engrams in our unconscious mind about the standard of life. I tried watching television but could not watch for more than five minutes. I said, ‘Enough, otherwise I will lose my enlightenment! Traditionally we believe enlightenment cannot be taken away, but now I think the television can take it away! Enough.’ Ramakrishna says beautifully that we belch the smell of that which we eat. What we take in via the television is a form of food for the senses. If we continuously see and listen to these negative things, we belch all that negativity into our lives. We set unreasonable standards for ourselves based on what input goes inside us.

Life is much too valuable and too short to be spent worrying. Do not allow 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 or meditating. These spiritual ideas go inside as seeds and become a valuable tree in our life.

These days, we watch television at sandhyā time. We put all the trash inside like in a trashcan and the next day we get the smell of it. Never put negative saṁskāras inside you especially at this time.

Protect your senses twenty-four hours a day. If you cannot, protect yourself at least during sandhyā time. Sandhyā is the one and half hours of clairvoyance when day and night meet. In India it is 6:00 – 7:30 in the morning and evening, at sunrise and sunset. This period varies from country to country. During sandhyā we should not allow negative engrams to enter our being. Whatever enters our being during sandhyā exists or radiates throughout our life. Krishna gives this one advice, this one technique because this is the way we can turn it around. Using this technique we transform and the cognitive shift can happen.

As of now, cognition happens in our mind based upon our negative engrams. If we change the input, if we move our mental setup into a different energy zone or vibration, the cognitive shift happens. We process data with positive engrams, with a positive base.

Krishna gives one technique, one suggestion: Protect the five senses from negative ideas and infuse positive ideas through the five senses. Whatever we feed upon becomes our being and we radiate that energy. Spend sandhyā time in a good way. Meditate at home during this time. If you don't meditate, go to a temple or church and do something spiritual at this time. Recite a verse, say prayers or do some good work instead of wasting time and adding negative engrams. The more negative engrams we put inside, the more we move towards depression.

The more money we deposit into the bank, the higher our bank balance. The more negative engrams we have, the more our depression. Our masters knew where man would collect positive engrams and where man would collect negative engrams. They created many spaces where man could collect positive engrams and protect himself. Please understand this one suggestion from Krishna and save the body with pure satvic security, and experience bliss.

Krishna explained earlier that when one is aware, one is in satva. Now He explains what happens to someone in rajas.

Krishna says that attachment, greed, craving and restless action are indications of rajasic behavior. This fits most people, but it fits most aptly anyone in business or a corporate career.

Greed is the corporate creed. Every employee will be told that the sky is the limit, even if they spend their entire life behind one small table in a dark and dingy room. They may not even have a window to look out at the sky. People who recruit and train employees use motivation as their only tool. What is motivation?

The whole idea of motivating someone is ill-motivated. To motivate someone, we must hold a carrot in front of him or her. Then the carrot becomes the goal. If we are donkeys, we follow the carrot. If we have any intelligence, we will realize that the carrot will always be dangled in front of us just out of reach!

Even if the carrot is within reach and is eaten by the donkey, will it be satisfied by one carrot? Never. It will ask for more carrots. That is why the man who drives the donkey is clever enough to keep it out of reach.

The donkey runs after the carrot in restless action. It cannot stay still. The carrot is so near and yet so far. So how can it stay still? This is the story of the corporate people. Business people complain, 'Swamiji, business is so tough. No one is honest these days. Everyone is a cheat. I cannot trust anyone. I am experiencing financial losses. I do not know how long I can afford to continue. Please advise me.'

They are smart. They do not say, 'Please help me.' They say, 'Please advise me.' Then I am caught! If I advise them to do something, they can hold me responsible later. They can come back and say, 'Swamiji, you told me to do that. It did not work. Now please help me out.'

I tell them, 'If business is difficult, and you cannot trust anybody and you are making no money, what is the point? Stop doing business. Close your business. Relax.'

They explode, 'Oh my God, Swamiji, how can you say that? What will I do then? How will I live?'

On the one hand, they say that they are losing money. On the other hand, when I tell them how to stop the losses, they ask how they will live! What kind of a drama is this? We may laugh, yet each of us is in this kind of a drama, a psychodrama of our own making.

We are like a wind-up toy. We have been fully wound and each time the spring relaxes, something inside winds us up again. We are like that battery bunny in television advertisements. We move continuously. We cannot rest. We think this movement is the purpose of our life.

Our life has no purpose. There is no goal to life. Living itself is the path and the goal. If we are aware, in satva, we enjoy the path; we enjoy the journey. We do not care where we are going, so long as the path is enjoyable. So long as we enjoy the path, it is the right path and our destination will be right.

But instead of enjoying the path, we worry about the goal. 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.

When we torture ourselves with worrying about quarterly results, how can we enjoy work? If we do not enjoy work and work becomes a chore and a torture, how can we perform? How can results be achieved?

On the other hand, whatever needs to happen will happen if we stop worrying about the carrot or the goal, and enjoy what we do. When we enjoy our path, we will enjoy our work. Whatever destination we reach will be the right destination.

That is why people who are successful are passionate about what they do. They do not care what happens in the end as long as what they do is enjoyable. If we are passionate about what we do, we will enjoy what we do. Whatever we do will be wonderful and successful.

However, as long as we struggle, we suffer even if we make money. 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. We will not have a minute to pause, to rest and enjoy what we have achieved. Acquisition becomes the goal, not enjoyment.

We can never be happy in rajas. It drives us like a donkey until we are exhausted and we collapse. 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.

Q: Swamiji, how can society exist without rules? There will be anarchy. If everyone does what he or she feels like, how can others survive?

This is the argument society uses in order to make rules. Who is an anarchist? A person who does not abide by rules laid down by society is an anarchist. One who opposes the blind rules that are laid down with no effort in communicating their understanding is an anarchist.

All great spiritual masters have been anarchists. They never accepted the rules of society. They broke away from their conditioning and efforts to condition them. The expression of their liberation was to help others reach that experience. Yet when these masters left their bodies, the experience behind these expressions was eventually forgotten and the expressions became dogma. Society and religion used them as dogma to make rules and regulations.

Anarchy is an expression of freedom. It is living in and with Nature. We think it means the end of the world. Why?

Rules and regulations create bondage. They create restrictions based on fear or greed. One way or another, they bind you. These rules and regulations are employed by society and institutions created by society to control you, to keep you in line.

There are two ways to maintain harmony and peace. One is to create awareness and make everyone feel that they are part of a whole. The other way is to create rules and regulations for proper behavior and establish a system of punishments and rewards based on fear and greed to persuade them to fall in line.

The vedic era and truly civilized cultures followed the first path of creating awareness, that of satva. Over time we lost patience to instill that awareness into people. Society fast-forwarded into rajas, into aggression. It created rules and regulations and commandments. We descended further into collective tamas, the collective unconscious. Even rules and regulations do not work anymore.

We forgot the reasons behind the rules and regulations. The spirit was lost. Only the blind implementation of the structure remains. What remains is fear and greed, and therefore guilt and suffering. We need to break away from this bondage and move into freedom.

This is why awareness needs to happen. With awareness you do not need rules and regulations. You do not need to be controlled. You are free. And that is what society fears. Society fears that you will no longer fear. That is the only hold society has on you. If you want to be part of society as it is set up now, you will have fear. When you decide to break free out of awareness, you are in eternal bliss, nityānanda.