Page 11 - Timeless Gita Endless Bless_Flip_Book_Demo

Root cause of the problem

Lord Krishna points to a different aspect and shows us the
source for most of these problems. According to him, even a
person who is wise (vipaścitaḥ puruṣaḥ) and has been able to
constantly strive for a good mind control (yatataḥ) will face
certain challenges. The turbulent senses (pramāthīni
indiriyāṇi) are so powerful that at times they snatch away the
mind (manaḥ haranti) of even such a person with force
(prasabhaṃ).

yatato hyāpi kaunteya puruṣasya vipaścitaḥ
indiriyāni pramāthīni haranti prasabhaṃ manaḥ

What we infer from this advice of Lord Krishna is that we
experience mental stress when we lose mind control and act
in a manner which may not appear appropriate. Further, one
important reason for losing mind control is succumbing to
powerful senses. Imagine riding on a set of five violent horses
at the same time, whose control we do not have. Instead of
reaching a desired destination we will only be tossed aside
and eventually thrown out.

Value of Sense Control

If you dig deep into why we react violently in a variety of
ways as mentioned earlier, we will invariably be able to trace
it to active and uncontrolled senses. An uncontrolled sense
starts this process and adds fuel to the fire and drags
individuals to the brink of animal behavior. Once we reach
that state of mind we start shouting and doing other things
which are unfitting of humans. An individual with
uncontrolled senses will be full of impulsive reactions to
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