Sridharāya namah

“The aspirant should keep a constant vigil over his mind, which is impure due to desires and which tends to chase them. He should bring back on track the mind which has drifted towards desire. He should stop all these activities of the senses and fix the mind firmly in the heart.

In a very short time, the mind of the aspirant who, through persistent effort tries to retract it, dies down completely just like the fire which lacks fuel. The mind which is freed from the turbulences caused by lust, desires, anger and other impurities and in which all modifications have completely ceased will experience ultimate bliss. It remains permanently established in bliss and will never return to face the external world.

The householder’s stage of life is the root for righteous duties (dharma), material earnings (artha) and fulfilment of desires (kāma). The person who, without entering this stage steps directly into sanyasa ashrama and then retracts back from sanyāsa to fulfil the dharma, artha and kāma goals of life, is a beggar who has shamelessly drunk his own vomit”.

Such persons initially consider this body as a non-Self object which is subject to destruction, which ultimately gets reduced to ashes or which becomes food for insects and worms. With this idea, they suddenly obtain detachment. After sometime, the same persons begin to glorify the body. This can be compared to the temporary detachment people experience and who advice others- ‘After all this body has to die one day. Why should it be pampered? Why should we strive for its health?’ Sadly, they do not apply the same logic for their own needs and continue to pamper their body.

“The celibate (Brahmachari) who has abandoned the vow of celibacy, the householder who has abandoned his daily obligatory duties, the Vanaprastha who has abandoned penance for sensory comforts and the renunciate (sanyasi) who has been lured by sensory attractions are the most degraded among people of their respective stages of life. They are pretenders who falsely believing that they belong to a particular stage of life (ashrama) are actually trapped by illusory energy of the Lord and are confused because of it”.

Such persons are pretenders. They imitate the external activities pertaining to that particular stage of life, when the purity which exists in the people belonging to all the four stages of life does not exist in them. For example, wearing ochre robes like a Sanyasi, when the mind is filled with lust and anger. There are aged persons who declare that they are in the Vanaprastha stage of life, but they needlessly worry about their children and grieve all the time. Vanaprastha means to abandon the society and relatives completely. The celibates who proudly declare that they are following the Brahmacharya vrata stealthily get into relationships and cheat. Remember that they are pretenders. One can have feelings of compassion towards pretenders but under no circumstances should he befriend a pretender.

“The person who possesses a pure mind that has been cleansed due to right discriminatory knowledge realizes that, in reality, he is a form of the Lord. Desire to experience comforts will cease completely in such realized Jnani. He is freed totally from the risk of falling trap to the senses. The necessity of having to take up another body for any cause or for the completion of any experience no longer exists. He absolutely has no re-birth.

**Great Mahatmas declare that this body which has been created by the Supreme Lord is a chariot, the 5 senses are the 5 horses, the mind which leads all the senses is the reins, the 5 objects of senses i.e. the subtle sensory perceptions of sound, touch, form, taste and smell are the five paths on which the horses travel, the intellect (buddhi) is the charioteer and the inner mind is the long rope. **

The 10 activities of the life-force within the body, i.e. Prāna, apāna, samāna, vyāna, udāna, nāga, kurma, kṛkala, devadatta and dhananjaya, form the axis for this chariot called body. Righteousness and unrighteousness are its two wheels. The living entity who is filled with egoism in the form of I-ness is the owner of the chariot. Pranava mantra (Omkara) is the bow held by the living entity. He himself is the arrow. The Supreme Lord should be the aim.

Attachment (rāga), aversion (dweṣa), greed (lobha), sorrow, infatuation, fear, arrogance, self-respect, insult, finding faults in other people, cheating, violence, absolute jealousy, self-obsession, forgetfulness, hunger and sleep are enemies for a true spiritual aspirant. They are traits of passion (rajo guna) and ignorance (tamo guna). At certain times, some of these traits also reflect goodness.

As long as this body called chariot, which is equipped with the entourage called sense organs, is under his control, the spiritual aspirant should serve the lotus feet of Mahatmas. Sharpening the sword called discriminatory intelligence he should conquer the inner enemies. Realizing his original inner bliss, he should remain contented. Cleansing himself of all desires and with a calm mind he should no longer care for this gross body.

In case the aspirant becomes slack or forgetful, the horses known as wicked sense organs together with driver called intelligence (buddhi) make him tread the wrong path”.

Vishnave namah