More damaging than the lies we tell others are the lies we tell ourselves Gita 03 06

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. They are not only deceiving others but they are deceiving themselves.
But suppose they start doing this repeatedly, initially they don’t experience any harmful effects of this. And over time they start believing themselves that there is nothing wrong with eating desserts, even in a diabetic condition. It’s all just hype created by physicians to make their life miserable.
If they themselves start believing this lie, then they will hurt themselves far more. Similar is the situation when we start believing the lies we tell others. Sensuality is a universal temptation for everyone and it is a special temptation for those on the path of spirituality.
Some people may engage in spirituality while professing to live spiritually and deny it to others. They are hurting their own spiritual growth. But if they keep indulging and start believing that whoever tells them that sensuality and spirituality can’t go together, are simply misleading killjoys, then they are misleading themselves.
The Bhagavad Gita states that a mind obsessed with sensuality just can’t have the clarity or stability to focus on spirituality. Those who restrain their senses externally while wantonly dwelling on sensuality internally are not only deluding the world but they are deluding themselves. They are not only depriving themselves of the prospects of spiritual advancement but they are depriving themselves of the process of spiritual advancement.
And thus they stay materially trapped. Bhagavad Gita 3.6 says that karmendriyāṇi saṃyāmyāyāsate manasaḥ smaran indriyārthāṁ vimūḍhātmā mithyācāryaḥ sa uchyate So not only are such people mithyācārya, hypocrites who put on a pretense before the world, but vimūḍhātmā, they are also people who delude themselves. Thus more damaging than the lies we tell others are the lies we tell ourselves.
And spiritual growth begins when we learn to align ourselves with truth, understanding that the truth is meant not to deprive us of pleasure, but it is meant to end our deprivation of pleasure, of spiritual pleasure. Thank you.