Gita 02.60 – Endeavoring and discerning are not enough for sense control

Purushasya vipashchitah indriyani pramathini haranti prasabham manaha ye tato ki api kaunteya. While endeavouring, kaunteya, purushasya vipashchitah, that person who is vipashchita, who is discriminating, indriyani pramathini, senses are so wild, so mad, haranti prasabham manaha, they carry away the mind. So, here Krishna is continuing to answer Arjuna's question about how to control, how the enlightened person controls the senses.

And in the previous verse, he had said that without a higher taste, the senses remain wild. And Krishna explains how that happens in this verse. Now, many important points in this verse.

Firstly, secondly, this verse is not talking about ordinary materialistic person given to sense gratification. Certainly not a person who gives in to sense gratification or even to pious sense gratification. Pious sense gratification means one who does karmakanda and then in the precincts of dharma enjoys artha and kama.

So, that is also different. So, it's told over here, as a person is yetato, is endeavouring. So, this person is not thinking that now that I have done dharma, now kama is my right, is the fruit of my dharma.

No, this person wants to go beyond the reach of the senses, beyond sense gratification to spiritual pursuits. And he says, so he is yetato, he is endeavouring to control the senses. And purushasya vipashchitaha, the person is, vipashchitaha means discerning, is actually understands that there is difference between matter and spirit, there is difference between temporary and eternal happiness and I want to seek the eternal pleasure.

So, vipashchitaha. In 2.42 in the Bhagavad Gita, the word was used for the karmakandis, avipashchitaha, those who are not very discriminating, those who can't differentiate between the material and the spiritual. In contrast, this person is vipashchitaha, can differentiate between matter and spirit.

And that means this person has gone beyond karmakanda to the process of yoga and is trying to attain the spiritual by minimizing and eliminating the connection with the material. But in spite of that, indriyani pramathini, indriyani, the senses are wild, pramathini. So, the two things are talked about, about this person trying to control, one is endeavouring and the second is discerning, vipashchitaha is discerning, discriminating.

So, the word discrimination often has a negative connotation, like caste discrimination or race discrimination. So, a more appealing word in today's context is discerning. So, though the person is endeavouring and discerning.

So, endeavour is a matter of willpower, we endeavour and then discernment is a matter of intelligence. So, endeavouring and discerning, when both of these are not enough, what happens is indriyani pramathini, senses which are mad, pramatta means mad, pramathini is maddening, haranti prasabham manah, they carry away the mind, haranti. Prasabham, prasabham is wildly restless, very forceful.

Now, the senses carrying away the mind, to understand this, we can look at the chariot body metaphor, in which the senses are like the horses, the mind is like the reeds, the intelligence is the charioteer. So, yatatova and vipashchitaha would mean that the intelligence is endeavouring and the intelligence is knowing. So, the charioteer knows, this is not the path I should go, this is the path I should go.

But despite that, the horses are so strong, the senses are so strong, the chariot is meant to go on a particular road, but the horses catch sight of some fruit, some vegetable on the side of the road. Although there is a ditch in between, the horses get mad and just start veering off the road into the, through the ditch towards the vegetable and the whole chariot gets toppled over because of the forceful pull. So, like that, prasabham, forcefully the senses carry away the mind, pranti prasabham manah.

So, here what is happening? Krishna is describing how when somebody is trying to control the senses and keep the sentences, keep the senses under regulation, under discipline, the wild senses rebel and drive the person away. So, how does this happen? It happens because the senses are, two words are used over here, pramathini and prasabham. Pramathini, they are agitating, maddening and it is bad enough if somebody is a madman, but if somebody is a powerful madman, that is even more dangerous.

The madness itself brings a kind of power. If a person goes mad, then sometimes two, three, four people are required to restrain the person. But if the person is already, also formidably built, very powerful, then the combination of madness and bigness or strength and largeness, that is a deadly combination.

So, senses are mad, pramathini, and they full forcefully, prasabham manah. So, it becomes difficult, almost impossible to control oneself. And the senses drag away the mind.

Now, senses drag away the mind means, in metaphorical terms, the horses pull the reins and then the whole chariot goes in the direction where the horses are going. Instead of the chariot going in the direction where the charioteer wants the chariot to go. So, that is out of control, that is endangerous.

Now, non-metaphorically, in literal terms, senses dragging the mind away means that in 57th verse, in 58th verse, Krishna had said, talked about how one can control one's senses and draw them inwards. Just like a tortoise, it draws the limbs inside. But here, the senses drag the mind out means exactly opposite thing happens.

That instead of the senses, instead of we drawing the consciousness inwards through the senses, through the senses, we draw it inwards. Instead of that, the senses draw the consciousness outward and cause the person to act immorally, anti-devotionally and even criminally. It depends on the nature of the action performed.

So, haranti prasabham manah, forcefully they carry away the mind. And actually, there is no solution to this kind of forceful carrying away by the senses because hmm, what more can a person do? The person is said to have two qualities which are very important, yato and vipashchita. There is endeavouring and there is discerning also.

And still the person fails. This is can be quite scary. We often think that when we are not able to do some, we are not able to follow some pratah, say fast on a particular day or do something like that.

We often think that the problem is that I am not trying enough. But when one is endeavouring and still the result is not coming, it's so easy to become discouraged. So, the importance, the important thing is to recognise that the world is going to rise onwards.

It is going to move on from our present situation to the next situation. And therefore, we need to also move on. So, if we just get caught in one particular pleasure, that pleasure would be temporary.

But our bondage in that pleasure, our hope that we will get that pleasure through some other shape, some other combination in future, that hope never goes. And that's how material nature entraps us through the external forms which, due to their different appearances, make us think that, oh, I have never enjoyed it. Let me try it again and again.

But however, actually speaking, we are enjoying the same thing and are simply suffering, suffering, suffering, suffering. And only when we learn to fix the mind in Krishna, which will be talked about in the next verse, the first time in the Bhagavad Gita that will be talked about, that what the param drstva is, that higher vision, higher perception, what that is, will be hinted at in the next verse. And that will actually be the solution of Krishna's words when he says that, when the whys are attracted to me.

But you should keep in mind that actually, sorry, the whys are also attracted to sense objects, Krishna is saying over here. The whys means discerning, vipashchitaha. But if they can fix their mind on Krishna, as we will mention in the next verse, then they will be able to, their endeavouring and their discerning has to be accompanied by concentrating on Krishna.

Then their endeavours will be successful. That will be mentioned in the next verse, which we will discuss in our next session. Thank you.