How can we control sense gratification?

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any other questions? How to control sense gratification? Krishna talks about this in primarily three verses in fifth chapter he says 5.21 he says so he says the external objects of pleasure that are there, one becomes detached from them and turns inwards he says and when we do that that person will experience unlimited happiness so basically if we think about only in terms of giving up worldly pleasures or controlling sense gratification that is our focus, we will never be able to give it up, because we are by nature pleasure seeking and if you are told give up pleasure, we will feverishly resist it like a person is starving and they have just some almost rotting food some dry loaves of bread which are already rotting, but that’s all that they have and somebody says put it away they will not be able to give it up they will fight with their life to keep it somebody tells them here is a feast you take this feast and put it aside then they will give it up so like that in principle our focus should not be on giving up bhakti is not about giving up bhakti is about taking up you know we take up the process that connects us with Krishna we take up the activities that fill our heart with Krishna and when we do that then by that gradually the desires for worldly pleasure that are crowding our heart, they will get crowded out so we should never make the focus of our bhakti controlling our senses we should make the focus of our bhakti connecting with Krishna that’s why in principle I understand external pleasures I have to give up, so that I can turn inwards and experience Krishna there is unlimited happiness over there, but the primary focus is on connecting with Krishna worldly desires cannot be driven out of our consciousness but they can be crowded out that means it’s like if I have a glass over here, a glass of water and if I want to if the glass is empty and I say I want to make a I want to remove all the air from here it’s a very difficult task, I might get some vacuum generator and pull out all the air but still a little space is left somewhere the air will rush back but if I fill the glass with water the air will come out automatically so like that if we try to create a vacuum in our consciousness, no, I will not do this I will not do this, I will not do this, it’s not going to work we may not be able to do it for some time, but afterwards again we will relapse so our focus should always be on connecting with Krishna so vindati atmaniyat sukham we try to take up more and more activities in bhakti, which give us higher happiness now, once we start practicing bhakti then we will experience that oh, I do experience some higher happiness but still the worldly desires lure us so at that time Krishna says we have to use our intelligence yehi samsparsh jabhoga dukkha yona yevate, adhyantavanta kaunteya na teshu ramate budha in 5.22, next verse Krishna says that budha, the wise person the wise person understands that ok, the external pleasures are there samsparsh jabhoga, there is pleasure but what is the nature of this pleasure? dukkha yona yevate yoni means womb so dukkha yona yevate means, he says worldly pleasures are the womb of misery that means when there is a child in the womb initially the child is not seen but the child keeps growing, keeps growing and eventually they will be delivered so even if there is no sense of immediate misery over there, but it is the womb of misery from there misery is going to come and somebody may adhyantavanta kaunteya the fundamental misery is that it is temporary we want pleasure to last but whatever enjoyment we have it is temporary in this world we get some pleasure but afterwards it gets over and then when it gets over again we have to slave to get it again so the pursuit of worldly pleasure if we are buddha, if we are intelligent then we will see it like somebody works 25 years to get an engineering degree and then they think I will work as an engineer but they are told after 25 years you get the degree and the degree will be valid only for one year so what is the use of it? so like that if we consider for getting worldly pleasure the amount of effort that we put in and the amount of pleasure that we actually get you know we crave and slave crave us, imagine with the mind and slave us, we work with the body we crave and slave for years to get some pleasure and we actually get that pleasure it just lasts for a few moments whether it be the pleasure of attractive partner whether the pleasure of achieving something very big, whether it is gaining a big house or whatever it is that pleasure just lasts for a few moments and after that it is gone so a wise person a buddha understands that this pleasure is not worth the effort Jiva Goswami actually explains in the Sandarbhas that for a pure devotee for a siddha it is their priti that keeps them in bhakti they have love for Krishna that’s why they practice bhakti but for us sadhakas it is our buddhi that keeps us in bhakti and we have to have our intelligence aware that ok why am I doing this so as long as we are intellectually aware of the nature of different pleasures we will not let ourselves get caught by the promises of worldly pleasures so now this is with the intelligence but then Arjuna has a question next even if I understand with the intelligence that there is that this pleasure will lead to misery but still the desires keep coming so what do I do? then Krishna answers in the next verse so he says if it is possible for you Arjuna to tolerate till the moment of death what should you tolerate? the urges that are born of desire and anger the word yukta is a variant of the word yoga that means yukta means you will be situated in yoga and if you tolerate you will be situated in yoga and the result will be that person will become happy so basically Krishna says tolerate the desires tolerate the desires means that temptations will come we don’t have to welcome temptations will come just like if I decide that there are so many people advertising so many things I am fed up I am not going to purchase anything from the advertisers I may decide that I won’t purchase from the advertisers but that does not mean the advertisers are going to stop advertising what I will have to do is I stop looking at the advertisements similarly we can compare our mind to to illusion’s internal advertising agent the mind will keep promoting come on eat this, come on watch this, touch this, buy this but then when we are spiritually aware the proposal may come but I don’t accept the proposal, tolerate so tolerance means that we don’t let these desires distract us from our purpose so when we do that when we do that such a person will be connected in yoga and eventually that person will become happy so broadly speaking we focus on the practice of bhakti when we are distracted on the practice of bhakti by worldly desires we first use our intelligence to know that this is not worth the effort, this will only lead to misery and even if that even after intellectually analyzing still the desires keep coming, then we tolerate just because the desire has come inside me does not mean I have to act on the desire it’s like sometimes yesterday I gave a full class on this topic of look at the mind before you look with the mind look at the mind means what suppose somebody sends us a whatsapp message now if there are some people who just keep sending a lot of messages and in the messages they are giving links read this, watch this then now usually when somebody sends a link like that now we don’t immediately click on the link and watch it we look at who has sent this and then if this person often tends to send spam mails then we don’t click it so before we look at the message we look at the sender we think about the sender, so like that similarly look at the mind before you look with the mind the mind is saying think of this, do this, enjoy this we instead of doing that activity we think is this really necessary, I have done this before does this really give any pleasure simply gets me into trouble, why do I need to do this so so basically focusing on connecting with Krishna then using our intelligence and then using our tolerance so first is that we have to focus on Krishna if we are not focused on Krishna then trying to be sense controlled it will simply seem like deprivation it will simply seem like torture so if you focus on connecting with Krishna then even if we fail sometimes our purpose is not that I have to become perfectly sense controlled our purpose is primarily to become connected with Krishna so even if I sometimes fall from my senses it doesn’t matter I get up and start practicing bhakti again and gradually I keep practicing bhakti I will become purified, so we may fall down but we shouldn’t fall away fall down means I practice some standards I fall from those standards but fall away means I give up the practice of bhakti so we should never give that up senses may drag us down but again we rise and keep moving onwards and over a period of time by connection of Krishna we will become purified and then we will be able to resist the allure of the senses does that answer the question