When Maya presents options some temptations are not options at all – why?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So when maya presents options to us, how exactly does she do so? Because there’s something which is not even considered as options. Yes, that is based on our past culture, past upbringing. So, certain things are not even temptations for us.
That’s just, see, all of us are, what comprises temptations for us is also determined by our past. For a pig, halwa is not a temptation. Because it has got a particular body which shapes the scope of its desires.
So for us, what is food for the pig is not a temptation at all. It causes revulsion. Why? Because our, what is the scope of temptation is determined firstly by the body that we have.
And similarly, the scope of what comprises temptation is also determined by the mind that we have. So somebody who has come from India, they never heard of baseball. So baseball match is going on.
They won’t feel any temptation. But a cricket match is going on, big temptation. Why? Because by our, by the way our mind has been shaped, by our past and present actions, the scope of our temptation is greater.
So when we say maya gives us options, it is within the scope of our temptations. And sometimes the scope also expands. A person comes from India to America and their friend takes them to watch baseball.
And they watch once, twice, thrice. Then they also get tempted. So the scope can decrease, the scope can decrease also.
Some of us might have been eating meat earlier. But once you start practicing bhakti, now if we are going in a plane or a train and we see somebody eating meat, we don’t feel tempted. At least for that temptation, we can say, we curl our lips in distaste and we look away.
So what has happened? The scope of temptation has decreased. So maya gives us temptations, usually maya gives us options within the scope of our temptations.