The Esoteric Significance of the Kathopanishad - 5.10 : Swami Krishnananda.

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Swami Chinmayananda

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Tuesday, January 12, 2021. 11:23.AM.
Chapter-5.  Sannyasa – The Renunciation of Erroneous Notions - 10.

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Our minds are not philosophically trained. We are not acquainted with the art of thinking in terms of ultimate causes. We are accustomed to think only of immediate occurrences. We are empirically oriented and not metaphysically trained.

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Everything has to be understood in terms of ultimate causes. This understanding is called philosophical understanding. When something happens, we must find out why it has happened, and when we know the cause behind it, we must find the cause of that also, and go on finding the cause behind cause until we get at the final cause. This art, this technique, this method is called philosophy. But generally we are not used to this way of thinking. We do not want to go to the final cause of things. The mind is not used to it.

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The senses, therefore, are our own mind, the consciousness within, the energy of the whole personality gushing outside with a tremendous force with a longing to pervade a particular object or group of objects outside in space and in time. Then what is sense control? It is the blocking of the movement of this energy through the avenues outside. But how are they blocked? This is called repression, which psychology condemns. If we build a huge dam across a river in spate, what will happen to the water of the river? We know what will happen. Thus, sense control is not damming the energy of the senses, though it is the same as not allowing the energy of the senses to move outwardly in the direction of the objects. It is a utilisation of this very energy in a different manner. It is not repression, suppression, not even substitution. It is not providing us with something instead of another thing. It is an entry into a condition where the need for the energy to move outward ceases. This is possible only when there is aspiration, mumukshutva, for the liberation of consciousness from the longing to come in contact with anything whatsoever.

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Desires are controlled by a higher desire. We cannot control any desire unless it is dominated by a still higher desire. A poor man will run to receive dakshina of five rupees, but if he knows that at another place he will get a hundred rupees, he will run to that place, and will not mind losing this five rupees. The loss of five rupees is not a loss because it is covered by the hundred. Similarly, the withdrawal of the senses from desirable objects, so-called, is not a tension that we are creating in our personality. It is not a repression; it is a gaining of a larger thing.

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The practice of yoga is not a disconnection from the beloved objects of sense. If that is the case, we will be perpetually in sorrow and curse yoga. We are going to gain a larger ground. For this, a new type of education is necessary. Otherwise, why should we be prescribed this long training under a Master? Why did disciples live under Gurus for years and years in those days? Independently, the senses cannot be controlled. They will impetuously rush forward, if not today, then tomorrow. A crying child may keep quiet for a few minutes when given a toy or a little sugar candy, but its desire is not fulfilled even though its attention has been distracted.

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To be continued .....

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