Which is more dangerous – failure of the mind or failure of the intelligence?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
so which is more dangerous failure of the mind or failure of the intelligence that means initially the mind proposes something and we get into something which is undesirable and then when we recognize also that this is something which has been done wrong but then at that time we start feeling that ultimately I only did it so I only have to bear the consequence whom can I blame for it and then we start feeling that the intelligence has become aware too late and we can’t do anything to correct it now because it’s too late right now so what do we do at that time I would say that whatever stage we realize that we have got wrong, on wrong we need to correct from that stage onwards so whenever it is if it is before the first indulgence it is after the first indulgence it is before the second indulgence it is after the second indulgence, whenever we realize from that point we start correcting just like if the example of the horse and the rider is given, see the charioteer is driving, charioteer is in control of the horses now if the horse sees something off the road and the horse starts running now when the horse starts its running at that time the charioteer pulls back charioteer can control much more quickly but if the horse gains momentum then controlling it is much more difficult the faster the horse is running the more the charioteer will have to strain to control but still it is possible it’s not impossible even if the chariot goes off the road and overturns and the horse goes and eats that and then it becomes a little peaceful, then also the chariot can be turned again from its upside down to the normal state and the person can walk person can resume the journey but it is much more trouble so the more we go into a particular activity the tougher it becomes to recover but it’s always possible even after a complete fall also we can recover but the earlier the better so I would say that in this analysis it is the mind which makes us do wrong and then afterwards it discourages us from correcting the wrong thinking that is already done but then at that time we can understand that one mistake or one indulgence is a certain level of conditioning a certain level of impression a second indulgence will be a deeper level of conditioning so let me stop at least at this stage it’s not I may feel it’s not early enough but at least it’s not so late but when we it’s one thing is that it’s like if you consider the intelligence to be a guard and temptation is like a thief which is coming in to catch or to rob so initially the guard is say not alert the guard doesn’t see the thief coming in and then the guard thief comes in and steals so then eventually when the guard realizes hey this thief has broken in and now the thief has almost packed the things and the thief is about to run away the guard thinks what is he going to do when the thief is anyway going to run away but then the guard can think you know okay if I run and try to catch the thief now at least the thief may not steal that much so I would say that the first level itself is a problem because the intelligence was not alert enough but even that is not a problem at the second level that when the intelligence is aware and doesn’t do something then there is like a guard who is present and doesn’t do that, that’s more of a dereliction of duty if the guard is not present then that’s okay it’s also bad but that’s not that bad so Prabhupada writes in that purport that Krishna is saying therefore in the beginning control your senses so Prabhupada writes in the purport that means that from the childhood only one should learn to control the senses or he says as soon as one realizes the urgency of controlling the senses so then if I realize I am in the situation where I am in trouble then as soon as I realize the urgency that time I do it so yes failure of the mind is bad but then the mind is conditioned and in that sense it will happen but failure of the intelligence means when the intelligence just refuses to do its duty then it’s more serious because then the chance of correcting ourselves becomes much lesser