Empower those who are protecting us, not those who are attacking us
So, that's a sobering point. We need to empower our guards, to know our themes. Suppose, we had a very big house, with a lot of valuables in it.
We had guards to protect us. And if we as children, strive to empower the guards, we would provide them the weapons. So, similarly, in our day-to-day life, we need to move forwards, towards empowering our intelligence, which is like our guard.
And we need to disempower our mind, especially when it is filled with lower desires, that are often disastrous, for our long-term well-being. If we don't have this discretion, then we will end up cheating ourselves, hurting ourselves. We need to give weapons, to those who are attacking us, and those who are protecting us.
We need to be strong and independent, depending on what the intention of the attacker is. Similarly, within us is our mind, and our intelligence. The intelligence is like our protector.
And the mind is like the force, the mind is also inside us, and it's our mind, but presently, the mind is taken over by lower desires. And because of that, it often comes up with ideas for impulsive execution, which can drive us crazy, and that we can make overcome. We can find ourselves overwhelmed, by our lower desires, at any rate.
In order to resist this, protect ourselves from this possibility, we need to be empowering our intelligence. So by studying scripture, by understanding and assimilating and generalizing scriptural knowledge. But instead, if we end up not accommodating, end up exposing ourselves to sensual stimuli, which actually are very gross, which are very sensuous, and which are difficult to deal with, which aggravate our mind, which make us mad.
So, the mind is often the reservoir of lower desires, and if we expose ourselves to stimuli, and strengthen those lower desires, then soon we will end up slaughtered. If we wish to protect ourselves, we need to strengthen our intelligence, not our mind. That means, we need to expose ourselves to more and more scriptural wisdom, by which we will be able to resist whatever lower desires come within us.
So, it's not a matter of willpower, it's a matter of willpower coupled with practical power. A soldier will be determined to fight against an enemy, but if the soldier is not provided food, then the soldier just can't fight. Similarly, if we don't provide ourselves nourishment, in terms of intellectual strengthening, by reading, studying, internalizing scripture, even if we have the intention to live a principled life, to mould our life spiritually, that willpower will not be enough.
It's like, we have defenders who want to protect us, but they have not been equipped. They don't have strength, they don't have weapons, and on the other hand, the aggressors have the best weapons, the state-of-the-art weapons. And then, they just overpower the aggressor.
The culture, anyway in today's world, empowers the mind, because there is so much explicit sensual stimuli that comes upon, comes around us, that we are exposed to, and this triggers strong material desires within us, and it's very difficult to avoid the stimuli, because we need to minimize our exposure to stimuli. But we can't go around the world with closed eyes. But to function in this world, functioning means that we have to do whatever is necessary.
So therefore, what can we do when exposure to sensual stimuli is just unavoidable? We have to protect ourselves. By empowering that which will protect us, our intelligence, we'll see long term. We'll see beyond the impulses that the mind is forced to make.
And we need to nourish that intelligence. To nourish that intelligence means strengthening our devotional practices. To the extent we make our devotional practices strong and steady, to that extent, we will be able to combat our lower desires.
To the extent we don't make those devotional practices strong, to the extent we'll be overpowered. So, in our day-to-day course, sometimes we just vividly say, oh, I don't have the power, I'm so weak-minded. Actually, we're not weak-minded at all.
Our mind is too strong. And we need to strengthen our intelligence. So the more we empower our offenders, the less we empower our offenders.