Isn’t it easier and safer to experience material enjoyment and then renounce it?

From: TUSHAR VORA

I have seen many times, that after experiencing sense gratification, you eventually get fed up of it and then it is easier to renounce. Isn’t this a smart way to renounce than abruptly renouncing the world as brahmacari’s do since they will always have something lurking in their mind, a desire to enjoy sense gratification since they have never experienced it? Don’t you think it is easier to renounce a material desire after experiencing the futility of it by practical experience, since that will leave no doubt in the mind or leave no desire in the mind about experiencing it?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Jai Question by Tushar Vora I have seen many times that after experiencing sense gratification you eventually get fed up of it and then it is easier to renounce isn’t this a smart way to renounce than abruptly renouncing the world as brahmacharis do since they will always have something lurking in their mind a desire to enjoy sense gratification since they have never experienced it don’t you think it is easier to renounce a material desire after experiencing the futility of it by practical experience since that will leave no doubt in the mind or leave no desire in the mind about experiencing it answer theoretically it sounds good the idea that we should experience the futility of material enjoyment to be able to renounce it but practically speaking the realization of the futility of material enjoyment that comes by experience is never long lasting because our perceptions are determined by the modes that we cultivate so yes if we engage in sense gratification at the end of it we will feel frustrated but because we have engaged in sense gratification we have connected and attached ourselves to the mode of passion and the characteristic of the mode of passion is that it binds us to more and more desires lobha pravartirarambha karmana ma shimha spruha vajasthi etani jayante vivruddhe kurunandana krishna explains that ashamaha spruha uncontrollable desire is the result of engagement in the mode of passion so krishna also gives the example of the spurena anayana cha it is like a fire when you put fuel in it the fire doesn’t get extinguished the fire blazes forward much more yes if a big log of wood is put and fuel is put in it temporarily the fire seems to subside so like that when we engage in sense gratification temporarily the desire goes down but after sometime the desire comes up again and it comes up stronger because just like the sudden placement of a log of wood in a fire may cause the fire to temporarily go down but once the wood catches fire the fire will go up even faster and bigger and the simple way to understand this is that we see practically all materialistic people are engaged in sense gratification and how many of them have become truly detached and have become spiritual by engaging in sense gratification so just like humiliation is not humility frustration is not detachment humiliation means I have a big ego but somehow circumstances crush my ego whereas humility means that I give up my ego I wrote a Gita daily article about how humiliation is false ego frustrated and humility is false ego rejected so similarly in humiliation a person has a desire to be proud but circumstances or the person’s own inadequacies don’t allow him to be proud and that causes him humiliation similarly frustration and detachment are two entirely different things when we have the desire to enjoy but we are unable to enjoy or we find that the enjoyment is disappointing that leads to frustration so frustration basically means a desire unfulfilled whereas detachment means desire rejected so for us to make advancement in spiritual life the foundation is not frustration the foundation is detachment frustration may cause us to become a little bit interested in spiritual life for some time but the nature of the mind is that it will again go back to material desires and therefore even the Vedic system of grahastha ashram is not a license for free and unrestricted sense gratification with the hope that that sort of unregulated sense gratification will lead to detachment, no even in grahastha ashram what leads to detachment is the practice of dharma it is the chanting of the holy names, it is the hearing of the philosophy, it is the spiritual knowledge and the spiritual experience that makes one convinced that there is something higher in spiritual life so in material life even materialistic people say a boy and a girl have a so called love affair and then they try to get engaged and get married and within a few months they are throwing instead of living happily they are throwing the things of the home at each other so now have they become frustrated or have they become detached, they simply become frustrated and then the characteristic of frustration is that one has not given up the hope of material enjoyment per se one has found one’s hope of material enjoyment in one particular way to be shattered so a man who finds that his affair with a particular girl is turning sour and bitter then he will try to find another woman to develop a relationship same way with a girl if she finds that it doesn’t get along well with one boy, she may find another boy so essentially frustration and detachment have two different results when we are frustrated in our material desires all that happens by that is we lose the hope of getting enjoyment in one particular way and we start looking for enjoyment in another material way only, why material way? because frustration doesn’t lead to any purification frustration doesn’t lead to any elevation of consciousness frustration doesn’t take us from a lower mode to a higher mode and that’s why the level of our desires remains the same and that is why frustration in and of itself can never lead to detachment what leads to detachment is purification what leads to detachment is purification and whether it is grahastha ashram or brahmachari ashram, the spiritual advancement will come not by the experience of sense gratification or by the absence of experience of sense gratification, the spiritual advancement will come by one’s practice of the purificatory process in a serious and diligent way to the extent one is not practicing the purificatory process, one will never get any realization, even if one gets frustration hundreds and millions of times, all that will happen is the hope for enjoying in one way will be frustrated one material way will be frustrated and the hope for enjoying in another material way will emerge forth now, it is possible that when somebody becomes a brahmachari that person may have some desires lingering in the back of the mind and those may tempt that person so, if a person is becoming a brahmachari, that person has to be very honest with himself as these desires are there the Shrimad Bhagavatam says that except for Narayana and Rishi nobody in this world is free from material desires, especially the desire of lust so, it is no surprise it is not a matter of surprise nor a matter of shame if a brahmachari still finds that he is having some lusty desires lurking in the heart, but the brahmachari should be very clear about how he is going to deal with these desires he is accepting the brahmachari ashram because he wants to get rid of these desires by purification, not by experience so, if one has that honest and firm intention then the brahmachari ashram offers much more facility to purify oneself than is offered in the grahat ashram or in general in material life where one tries to experience sense gratification because the brahmacharis have more time, they have more opportunity to study shastra, more opportunity to directly be in contact with spiritual things so, they have more opportunity to become purified this does not necessarily automatically mean that they are more purified or more advanced but they have chosen a path where they have the facility to advance faster so, of course, it is possible that some brahmachari may find that they have taken a path which is which up in the initial instance they took it and afterwards they found that they are not up to it so, then they can honestly change over to grahat ashram and continue the practice of spiritual life in a way that will eventually lead to purification detachment and spiritual advancement so, as far as the essence of spiritual advancement is concerned it is not the experience of sense gratification or the lack of experience because maya is so deceptive that whatever experience we have maya wipes out the memory of that experience and the memory of that frustration in a remarkably short time our memory of the futility of sense gratification is a sort of stored in the RAM it is it is stored in such a way that quickly it gets erased we just can’t make it get stored permanently in our memory if you want it to be stored permanently in the memory that permanent storage happens not by repeated indulgence or experience of sense gratification that happens by realization that happens by purification and both this realization and purification come by the practice of dharma by the practice of chanting of the holy name the study of scriptures and the remembrance of krishna and only in both ways the way of grahastha ashram and the way of brahmacharya ashram are both meant ultimately as facilities for this purification and realization and even in grahastha life if one doesn’t follow dharma and one just engages in sense gratification one will get frustrated but that detachment will not be but that frustration will never lead to sustainable detachment it is something like markat vairagya or phalgo vairagya temporary that attachment stays and again the desires come back so will the doubts be there in the mind of those who have not experienced sense gratification yes they will be there but they have chosen a path that they want to be convinced by the study of scripture that those lingering desires can never lead to happiness lord krishna uses a very striking phrase in 2.70 na kaam kaami na kaam kaami this translates as not a desirer of desires so the desires are there but a serious transcendentalist is not a desirer of desires the desires come in his consciousness but he doesn’t desire to fulfill those desires and krishna says na kaam kaami that only one who is not a desirer of desires can attain peace of mind one who tries to fulfill his desires will never attain peace of mind because the desires will keep agitating the person more and more so to summarize the first point is that frustration and detachment are not the same thing experience of sense gratification leads to frustration whereas it is only the experience of a higher spiritual happiness through purification that leads to detachment from lower pleasures so the essential difference between frustration and detachment is that in frustration we give up one material form of enjoyment temporarily because we find it is not giving us happiness but after sometime we start looking at the same material level for happiness in some other way because our desires themselves have not changed our desires have not become purified when we have purification, detachment and advancement then the quality of our desires changes then we move from the material level to the spiritual level and that is the essential purpose and both Brahmacharya Ashram and Vyasata Ashram are facilities for this purification, detachment and advancement neither of them are either facilities for experience or for frustration experience and frustration in and of themselves don’t lead to any tangible or lasting transformation