Controlling desires and senses!
Q : Gurumaa you always remind us about controlling thirst of our senses. But instead of controlling, isn't it to be fulfilled than to control. Please guide me if desires are not to be fulfilled then how to control them?
Alka Sharma
Answer
There are three levels in which we can live our life. You just see in which level you wish to stay.
Level one is the animal state, level two is the human state and level three is divine state.
In first level there is no need to control the urge of your senses, your carnal desires, and desires of your other senses. They are to be fulfilled and should be fulfilled and as no animal thinks about it. Have you ever seen a dog and a bitch having sex right on the streets? They are not bothered about so many people moving around them. Whenever it is their mating time in the year they just have sex.
People who see this feel very odd. It seems very animalist. Indeed it is but not for dogs. If animal is hungry he will look for food and would eat wherever he finds it. If animal wishes to sleep he sleeps, he wishes to wake up, he wakes up. So there is no control, no suppression, and no repression. He just fulfils his desires as long as he is getting the things.
Second stage is of humans. We consider human as evolved from an animal. But even humans have animal instincts. Those humans who behave like an animal are in the category of animals only. Kabir, Guru Nanak, Sahajobai, Dadu, Farid and so many other mystics and saints have said that those who act and react according to their instincts are animals. They might look like human beings, like man or woman, but they are not. They are still living in the animal state with human body.
In this human state, there is another category where one learns to behave properly with mastering his/her senses. He/she learns to behave not on impulse but by rational thinking. So if a man or woman wish to have sex they won’t be doing it right on the road. Although in Hippy culture and in western countries there had been many instances where the man and woman found having sex in public places. But even these countries have laws prohibiting sex in public. These people thus were imprisoned for indecent exposure, for nakedness and behaving in unsocial way.
There are many men and women who will never ever behave in such an anarchic manner. Those individuals have understood that eating is just a necessity. They have also understood that what food is to be eaten. Before eating they think about how the food is made, how it is presented and how it should be eaten. This rule in their life applies to all the senses and sensory pleasures. They live their life with rational thinking.
The last stage is the divine stage. In this stage individuals go beyond their body, mind and senses and have understood that it is the nature of body, it is the nature of senses and it is nature of the mind to think, to act, to get satisfaction through ‘bhoga’ (sensory pleasures).
It is not that people in this stage don’t eat. They would definitely eat, may be they are married too. But in all activities such individual knows that the body is just a shell, mind is just a wave and senses are just the windows to establish a contact with outer world. The divine being is the one who has understood that these senses and this seen world can’t give the ultimate truth.
But as the body is there, it will have its needs that need to be fulfilled. So ‘Gyani’ (enlightened) too eats food but he knows that this food is for ‘annmay kosh’ (material body), and it isn’t for me, the real self. His body mind and senses function like a normal person only but there is no ‘I’ consciousness in body, mind and senses.
So these are the three stages in brief. You see where you are and you can make a choice where you wish to stay. Whether in that animal instinctive behavior while in the human form or you wish to transcend to the divine stage.
You have asked me if not to fulfil the sensory pleasures, then how to control senses. Word ‘control’ is very inappropriate word and it has nothing to do with spirituality. We can understand and we can manage our senses and mind but where is the need to control? This mind and senses are just the extension of our real self.
So how can ‘you’ control this extension? For example, the extension of mind is body and there are some voluntary actions happening in the body and there are some involuntary actions happening in the body. You can control the voluntary ones but what about the involuntary ones. You have to accept that the whole mechanism of body and mind works in assistance to one another and we have to see that what we want to do of our life and how we want to live our life.
Gurumaa
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