Gita 16.12 Sensual desires are ropes of enslavement not roads to enjoyment

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. Bhagavad Gita, 16.12 आशापाशिषतैर्पद्धः कामक्रोदपरविणह इहन्ते कामभोकार्थम अन्यायेनर्थसंचयं आशापाशिषतैर्पद्धः Our desire become like nooses, like shackles that bind us and we have not just one or two but hundreds of desires and they all bind us in their own ways. शतैर्पद्धः कामक्रोदपरविणह As the desires grow stronger and stronger, Krishna is describing here the demoniac nature and this nature is present in all of us to smaller or greater degrees.
And when we become bound as then कामक्रोदपरविणह परविणह means to be dedicated to sold out to do whatever they tell us the state of pure devotees is that they are नारायणपरविणह But we sadhakas become कामक्रोदपरविणह In fact, the more we indulge in desires the stronger they become and thus at one level काम the craving is irresistible just as when we are pulled by a rope that is tied around us we just can’t resist the pulling of the rope but at the same time क्रोध क्रोध means frustration, anger when our desires cannot be fulfilled then we just get enraged so at one level we are dragged by our desires more and more forcefully to do certain things and at another level those very desires knock us down and they it’s like say if we have a rope that is pulling us forcefully towards a wall and we can’t scale the wall the more we are pulled towards the wall that means that much we just bang our head against the wall and we become bound so that is the tragic predicament of those who are bound by their lower desires that on one side the desires can’t be resisted on other side we can’t live without satisfying those desires at the same time we can’t satisfy those desires at one level we want to give it up at another level we don’t want to give it up and this conflict is what troubles us, torments us so kama leads to krodha now desire is fulfilled there is some satisfaction but soon the desire burns all the more the craving increases even more and with the increased craving again when we strive for satisfaction then there is even greater agitation so krodha keeps coming again and again and so gratification leads to frustration and dedication to the to the increasing levels of forces of forces that pull us towards gratification and frustration towards infatuation, we get more and more infatuated and we get more and more frustrated because the gratification doesn’t live up to our expectation the gratification comes and the gratification goes after some time so we need to move beyond the gratification we need to actually move towards purification and finding spiritual satisfaction but unfortunately kama krodha parayanaha when one becomes sold out to kama and krodha and the result is for fulfilling the cravings arising from the senses what do you do that with anyaya with great we give up justice, we give up morality we give up civility because once the desire once desires start overpowering us then all that we see is how I can fulfill this desire and in a sense desire sharpens our vision and shortens our vision desire sharpens our vision in the sense that we see the desirable object in great clarity and our vision gets shortened about everything else so we just can’t see anything else now at one level we could call this focus but this is unhealthy and that’s why it’s called not focus but it’s called obsession and so if a person is, if an athlete is sprinting across a athletic field to reach the target finishing line then for the athlete to focus on the finishing line and not to see anything else is good but if a child sees say a toy fallen in the middle of a road and the child rushes straight to the road without thinking about anything else then that lack of awareness of the situation is dangerous it is disastrous the child needs to see where which vehicle is coming from and how can one go safely to the middle so of course when you talk about athlete’s one-pointedness the athlete has to run straight towards the towards the finishing line but even then the athlete has to be aware of other things also say which athlete is moving how fast where the path is turning where maybe if it’s a cross country road then where the road is slippery where I need to go slower, where I can go faster so the focus is not blindness to other things focus is actually awareness of that which is one’s purpose but when the purpose itself is hazardous so for example if a man gets obsessed with a woman and then he wants to enjoy her somehow or the other and he gets blinded to morality to civility, to humanity, to law and pursues her like mad then that is horrible so somebody gets obsessed with money and that person again blinds oneself to morality and starts plundering others becoming desensitized to the pain of others that is disastrous, horrendous and this horrendousness will be depicted in the next three verses 13 to 15 where what injustice one performs because of one’s obsession with desires is talked about but here the key thing is that we become bound this bondage is the key thing which we need to understand addicts are actually slaves and alcoholics are just pulled and pulled forcefully towards a bottle of alcohol we may not have addictions which are that damaging but we all have our compulsions and to the extent we start seeing our desires not as means to fulfillment but as ropes to enslavement to that extent we will get the impetus to fight against them and gradually become free from them