​When intellectual level is higher than sensual, why are intellectual devotees still attracted to sensual pleasure?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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so if we are intellectual and attracted to intellectual things why then are we still attracted to sensual things also isn’t the intellectual level higher than sensual answer the two are not exclusive although sometimes we say there is physical, mental, intellectual egoistic and spiritual we give a hierarchy of pleasures but it is not that we are situated at only one level of pleasure we have examples Stephen Hawking is considered one of the most brilliant scientists and he is physically very challenged but still he had an affair with his nurse and he got a child through that nurse also and Einstein he was married but he had a long affair with his cousin so basically it is not necessary that people who are intellectual will not be sensual sensual desires come as spikes and when they come they can drag intellectuals down also so the intellect alone is no guard against sensuality intellect alone they can sometimes if they get intellectually absorbed in something they can even forget food and sleep but when the desire they are not intellectually absorbed like that 24 hours and often for them they don’t also have any very well developed moral sense which makes them feel that this is wrong so in that sense the intellect alone without some higher taste without some higher sense of morality that may not necessarily protect one from the senses. Now for us as sadhakas we do have that moral sense, we know certain things are wrong or undesirable and we also have a higher purpose so the chances of the intelligence of protecting us from the senses is higher but still the intelligence alone is not enough what we need in 2.60 Krishna says that that even people who are vipashchita, who are discerning discerning means actually they have intelligence to discern so even they also are carried away by the senses so we need not just intelligence but we need intelligence that is fixed in Krishna and that intelligence fixed in Krishna will raise us above the senses so we should not think of the intellectual capacity as necessarily a higher level of consciousness. It is a higher pleasure, intellectual pleasure but it is not a protector from lower pleasure in that sense because quite often the lower pleasure is a forceful bodily drive so we can see our intellectual capacity as simply a skill for serving Krishna and it is a valuable skill and it can give us a lot of even respect in society if we are preaching nicely but still among the various opulences beauty, strength, fame wealth, knowledge renunciation this beauty, strength, fame, wealth these are not very easily thought of as signs of spiritual advancement just because somebody is wealthy we won’t think that they are spiritually advanced but if somebody is learned or somebody is renounced then it is easy to think that they are spiritually advanced and that can happen to us also so we shouldn’t think that just because I am an intellectual so I am higher than sensual rather my intellectuality is a facility that I can use for rising above the sensual level and to the extent I use the intelligence for a higher purpose and keep it consistently focused on the higher purpose then I will be able to overcome the senses so it is not that just because we are intellectual we will not have battle with the senses our battle with the senses may not be as gross as some at lower levels of consciousness we will also have a battle so for analytical purposes we may analyze the pleasure into various levels but in terms of practical the intellectual is not a protector from the sensual we may be intellectual and sensual pleasure also it is only when the intellectual is used in the devotional then we rise above the sensual