Self-Control

A swami is one who can control the senses. Generally we are all servants of our senses. Our eyes will make us turn from something horrible to look at something beautiful. Our nose will make us avoid stench and sprinkle ourselves with perfumes and lotions. Our ears will make us avoid unpleasant sounds and buy phonographs and go to concerts to hear the music we like. Our hands and sense of touch will make us buy expensive clothing to cover our bodies and make us hunt for sexual partners. And our tongue will make us go to the grocery store to buy expensive foods and make us go to restaurants to partake of the concoctions of special chefs. And our mind will make us buy intoxicants so we can get dizzy, have hallucinations, and feel "happy" for a moment. And all of these senses combined make us work very, very hard throughout our lives to serve them nicely. Then when we are under their control and serving them very nicely, they suddenly all leave us at death. "An intelligent person does not take part in the sources of misery, which are due to contact with the material senses. O son of Kunti, such pleasures have a beginning and an end, and so the wise man does not delight in them." (Gita, 5.22) So the senses are hard ungrateful masters who are never satisfied. They drag the self into the darkest regions of the universe and make him endure all kinds of ignominies.

The attraction the senses have for their objects is called lust. And in the Third Chapter of Bhagavad-gita Lord Krishna tells Arjuna, "It is lust only which is born of contact with the material mode of passion and later transformed into wrath; and which is the all-devouring, sinful enemy of this world," (Gita, 3.37) that turns one from the Divine. "As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, similarly, the living entity is covered by different degrees of this lust. Thus, a man's pure consciousness is covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which veils the real knowledge of the living entity and bewilders him. Therefore, O Arjuna, best of the Bharatas, in the very beginning curb the great symbol of sin [lust] by regulating the senses, and slay this destroyer of knowledge and self-realization." (Gita, 3.38-41) Throughout the Gita, self-control is of central importance, and Krishna emphasizes that the man who is in communion with Him can control himself. As long as one is under the control of the material senses there is no question of mukti or liberation. And of all the senses the mind is the strongest, for it controls the other senses. After Lord Krishna gives instructions in Samkhya yoga in Chapter Six of the Gita, Arjuna says that this yoga appears impractical and unendurable to him because the mind is restless and unsteady. "The mind is restless, turbulent, obstinate and very strong, O Krishna, and to subdue it is, it seems to me, more difficult than controlling the wind." (Gita, 6.34) The Lord admits that it is very difficult to curb the restless mind but, "It is possible by constant practice and by detachment." (Gita, 6.35) He then tells Arjuna that "one who strives by right means to control the mind is assured of success." (Gita, 6.36) The mind is central to the control of other senses. "One should engage oneself in the practice of yoga with undeviating determination and faith. One should abandon without exception all material desires born of ego and thus control all the senses on all sides by the mind." (Gita, 6.24)

It is not possible to control the senses by denying them absolutely. Activity is the symptom of the living entity. Lord Krishna says that one cannot remain inactive for even a moment. Therefore the senses must be engaged. In the Bhagavad-gita Lord Krishna enumerates ways whereby the mind and senses can be engaged in self realization and thus controlled. There is the very difficult path of meditation, Samkhya yoga, according to which one must select a seat in complete solitude, sit erect and cross-legged, refrain completely from all sex life, stare at the tip of his nose, regulate his breathing, shut out all external objects and go into a trance meditating on the Super Soul within. This was recommended for the previous age and is practically impossible now. It is certainly impractical for Westerners whose legs ache after about fifteen minutes of lotus posture, what to speak of days. Another method for controlling the senses is Karma yoga, which is the process of engaging the senses in action and work in a spirit of detachment and renunciation. And a third method is Jnana yoga, by which the senses are engaged in the study of scripture. All of these culminate in Bhakti yoga, which is the highest, easiest and most profitable method for this or any age. In Bhakti yoga, the senses are controlled by total devotion to the Supreme. One classic example of total devotion was Maharaj Amburish who adopted all the processes of devotional service and attained perfect success. It was he who engaged his mind on the Lotus Feet of the Lord, his voice in describing the spiritual worlds, his hands in cleansing the temple of the Lord, his ears in submissively hearing the words of Lord Sri Krishna, his eyes in visualizing the Deities of the Lord, his body in touching the bodies of the devotees, his nostrils in smelling the flowers offered to the Lord, his tongue in tasting the food offered to the Lord, his legs in visiting the temple of the Lord, and all the energy of his life in executing the services of the Lord without in the least desiring his own sense gratification. All of these enabled him to be completely successful in controlling the senses. It should be noted that he did not control his senses by trying to negate them, by trying to meditate on the void or even by practicing austerities. For, after all, he was speaking and working, associating with others, eating, traveling about, smelling flowers. He led a life of full engagement. Yet his senses were perfectly controlled because they were absorbed in the service of Krishna. So it is not that we have to deny our senses. In fact, this is not possible. But we must engage our senses positively, following in the footsteps of Maharaj Amburish. One who can control his senses in such a way is called a swami, for the senses are actually acting under his order. "Before giving up this present body, if one is able to tolerate the urges of the material senses and check the force of desire and anger, he is a yogi and is happy in this world." (Gita, 5.23)

It is also said that next to the mind the most difficult sense organ to control is the tongue, for when one can control the tongue, he can control all the other senses. And if he cannot control the tongue, all the other senses run riot. The tongue is controlled by chanting Hare Krishna and eating prasadam, spiritual food. The business of the tongue is to vibrate the transcendental sounds and to taste the transcendental food. In this way, it will be restricted from idle talk, meat-eating, smoking, etc.

We are not stones but men, and our senses are superior to dull matter. Lord Krishna says, "Mind is higher than the senses; intelligence is still higher than the mind; and he, the soul, is even higher than intelligence. Thus knowing oneself to be transcendental to the material senses, mind and intelligence, one should control the lower self by the higher self and thus by spiritual strength conquer this insatiable enemy known as lust." (Gita, 3.42-43) The material senses which belong to the lower self are actually reflections of the transcendental senses which belong to the higher self. The process of total devotional engagement of the senses as practiced by Maharaj Amburish transcendentalizes our senses. "For one who has conquered his mind, it is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his very mind will be the greatest enemy." (Gita, 6.6)