Thwart the desires that titillate initially but torment eventually

[Reflection at Phoenix, USA]

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you.
What the desires. That torment initially. But torment eventually.
We all. Have many desires. That pop up in our consciousness.
And if we’re not careful. What we desire is to. Cultivate.
And which desire is to eliminate. Then we. Can become our worst enemies.
We may then. Act on the desires. That actually hurt us.
That. Make our life miserable. So we have many desires.
Within us. And Krishna in 18.37. 38 and 39. Analyzes.
Pleasure according to. Three modes. And he states that.
Sensual pleasure. That means. The pleasure that comes from.
Interaction of the senses. And sense objects. So.
But thereafter. It torments. But.
It turns out to be. A poison in it. And that.
Same thing he repeats here. So he continues. The theme.
When he declares that. By the contact of the senses. And the sense objects.
Certain pleasures. And those pleasures. He states that.
The consequence is poison. And what is the poison? You can understand at various levels. There are karmic consequences.
That we suffer. Because of. Various reasons.
In various ways. But in this life. One.
Poison that we cannot escape. Is. The torment.
Say when somebody starts. Taking drugs. Can you do it? Because you want to go high.
You want to feel titillated. But eventually. You start taking drugs.
Then. It’s not that taking drugs. Takes them high.
It’s not that not taking the drugs. Takes them low. And then we take drugs.
Not to get high. But just to feel normal. We find ourselves.
Tormented. By the lack of the experience. More than we find ourselves.
We find ourselves gratified. By the experience. So.
There is fulfillment. And there is deprivation. So.
We think that gratification. The sensual indulgence. Will give us positive gratification.
That it will take us. Towards spiritual growth. And thereby.
It will enable us. Not towards spiritual growth. But it will take us towards.
Satisfaction. So we expect. Positive pleasure.
Through the indulgence. In sensuality. And yes.
Initially. We may get some positive pleasure. But soon after that.
The positive pleasure. Goes off. And instead.
There is an aggravated. Negative emptiness. That is created within us.
There is. The feeling that. We.
Are seriously. Severely. Lacking.
Pleasure. That. We cannot live without this.
Now there are millions of people. Who live without drugs. And even that.
The people who get addicted also. They were living without drugs earlier. But eventually.
When they start taking drugs. What will happen is. They start getting into alcohol.
Then. The lack of alcohol. Creates.
An intolerable. Emptiness. And when they take alcohol.
Not to. So much to get. A positive fullness.
But to avoid this negative emptiness. So. What begins as a desire.
Starts. Becoming. The need.
And then it becomes a. Irresistible. Unbearable need. And thus.
We and us. End up. In a trap.
So. Now. When we are.
Striving to grow spiritually. Or even when we are. Striving to live sensibly.
We need to. Be. Intelligent enough.
To understand the nature of desires. The desires. That.
Titillate. They promise pleasure initially. They will.
Torment eventually. They will torment because. That is the nature of those desires.
They will torment because. We are helpless. Otherwise against the onslaught of those desires.
We feel such a. Compelling. Sense of emptiness within us. Because.
That experience. Gave us a high and then took away that high. So.
We just can’t live without it now. So. Instead of getting positively enriched.
We get negatively. Impoverished. So.
This is how the desires are deceptive. Sensual desires. They promise enrichment.
But deliver impoverishment. They promise to take us up. But they end up.
Taking us down. And then. We.
When we indulge. It is not so much. Because the pleasure is so irresistible.
But because the absence of that pleasure. Is so unbearable. And when that happens.
It’s like a. Torment. A torture. It’s almost like.
Somebody with a gourd inside us. Is gourding us up. Eat this.
Touch this. Watch this. Do this.
And we just get no relief. Till we do it. But even after we do it.
That relief doesn’t last. Why not? Because even after we do it. We find that.
The desire. May subside momentarily. Temporarily.
But then it comes back. With far greater force. Because we have fed that desire.
And next time. The gourding is. Even more intense.
Even more unbearable. It’s almost like our indulgence. Sharpens the gourd.
That is going to. Pierce us. Torment us.
Glowing sense of. Emptiness and deprivation. Is.
A self inflicted torture. That. We bring upon ourselves.
By our indiscriminate indulgence. So. There are lower desires.
Within us. We equip them. With a gourd by our indulgence.
And then with our. Successive indulgence. We sharpen the gourd for them.
And thus. We become. Our own enemies.
We make our. We do the things. That hurt us.
That’s why. We need to. Thwart.
The desires. That bring attention. If we don’t learn to.
Thwart those desires. Then. We will stay tormented.
Now. When somebody is. Goading us.
At that time. If we. Don’t want to do what they are telling us to do.
Then we have to go out of their range. Or. We have to get.
Something. To defend ourselves. By which.
The gourd doesn’t hurt us. We have some armour. Which will ensure that the gourd doesn’t beat us.
And. Till we have that armour. We may have to tolerate the pain of the goading.
So this is what. The process of bhakti yoga is. The process of bhakti yoga does.
Four different things. First is. It uses the knowledge.
Through scriptural study. And through personal realisation. That.
Sensual desires are actually not giving us. Pleasure. They are actually a very bad value.
They are giving us. More pain than pleasure. So at least we get the will.
To. Not let ourselves be goaded by those desires. But to find the gourd.
Not to give the gourd to the goading. That comes from the intelligence. Coming from the spiritual knowledge.
Second is. That. The remembrance of Krishna.
Becomes like the armour. By which. When the goading comes.
If we chant Krishna’s names. If we absorb ourselves in Krishna. If we strive to remember him.
And. Take shelter of him. This shelter becomes like.
The protector. Of the goaders. From the goading.
Ensures. That the goading. Doesn’t pierce us.
How does this happen? Primarily. If we develop the practice. By promising pleasure.
Or by creating. A sense of. Vibration.
And when we. Remember Krishna. That remembrance itself is enriching.
And the enrichment. From that remembrance. Enables us.
To resist. The lure of those pleasures. So that enrichment.
Is. Our strength. That becomes like our armour.
So that rather than. Indulging in the desire. When the desire seems unreal.
We can work in the opposite direction. Of. Intensely taking shelter of Krishna.
Secondly. When we refuse to indulge in desires. Then the desires tend to.
Become weak. Because they also make me deficient. So.
It’s like our enemy. The person who is holding us. Their gourd becomes blunt.
And they become weakened. If we abstain. And of course.
For some time. They may torment us. Even more forcefully.
Because they don’t want to lose. Control on us. We are their puppets and they want to keep it that way.
But. Eventually when we weaken them. Then the gourding decreases.
And further. We just go out of their reach. If we are in the territory where.
Those desires are ruling. Then to say no to them is difficult. To fight against them is difficult.
But if we go out of their. Territory. Then those desires can’t trouble us so much.
So bhakti. Bringing our consciousness. To the mode of passion and ignorance.
To the mode of goodness. By this we can. Resist those desires.
By going out of their reach. In the mode of goodness. We are not so tormented by those desires.
And thus. We can protect ourselves. Thus we can save ourselves.
So this motion. Enables us to thwart the desires. That dilate initially.
But torment eventually.