The question is: who control us so that we become subject to certain rules about pain and pleasure? By whom are we controlled? Who decides our fate? Sometimes we are happy and sometimes we are unhappy. Who controls us, putting us sometimes in the midst of joy (sukha) and sometimes in the midst of sorrow (duhkha).
If we deeply introspect, we come to conclusion that we are not the Body-Mind complex and is different from these. It is a greatest fact in this universe that every living being has to met with its end, to what we call as death, where one has to discard the physical form. So it is to be sure that ‘we are not a handful of ashes’ which implies we are something different from this body and mind. We may call it as Atman or Consciousness or Jiva whatever as per our level of understanding.
To know our real nature we have to turn to either scripture or to the Great Masters who have realized the Self. They say “We are Sat-Chit-Ananda” our nature is that. This verifies the fact that every living being has only one object in life that id a Joyful Living because our nature is Ananda. Now because we have identified ourselves with this body by the power of Maya, we seek to get joy from the phenomenal universe. This seeking is called Desire. This seeking is just like running behind mirage to quench our thirst because we are Atman our real joy is with Brahman, whereas we seek it from this universe which has a relation to the body-mind complex. This desire is described by Buddha as trsna, thirst. We run after material objects, and this is the source of all our trouble.
We should not look outside; we should look inside. We have to look within. We are attached to material objects; we are attached to sense enjoyment. And because of this attachment, this desire, the universe is functioning. We are now driven by our desires. We are completely at their mercy, and so we cannot control our minds. If a person has no attachments, no desires, he is then a different individual. He is free. His attitude to the world changes. In fact, for him there is no universe. The root cause of this entire universe is this desire.
Nest question comes, are we controlled by somebody or are we free? Now a days it is very common to proclaim that ‘I am free… I am not bound by anybody…. I do not care for anydody…. I do not believe in God….’ A little more thinking to this question revealed that we may not able to understand by whom we are controlled but undoubtedly we can accept that we have been controlled by our desire, which is expressed as LOVE.
Love defined:
What is this love by which we are controlled? See…. By our human intelligence, we have created such a huge police and military force to put all our behaviors and actions in control. That is to say by force we want to have control over others. But the Cosmic Intelligence has devised a method of Love by which the whole universe and its living beings are controlled. It is that love, which binds husband to wife, parents to children, friends to friends and protect the relations and wealth of individual. For the purpose of creation the all powerful Lord gives in our heart the force called love between two opposite sex & for sustenance the love comes in mother’s heart for the child, when the child is born and makes us slave at every step. Every adolescence and mother can verify this fact. And our whole life is governed by this love and we become slave at the hand of All Mighty and we ourselves called as free man!!!!! Ridiculous…. The more we become scientific and try to disbelieve the almighty of Lord the more we become to that power of love which makes us slave in this universe.
Swami Vivekananda says….
We are slaves in the hands of nature--slaves to a bit of bread, slaves to praise, slaves to blame, slaves to wife, to husband, to child, slaves to everything. Why, I go about all over the world--beg, steal, rob, do anything--to make happy a boy who is, perhaps, hump backed or ugly looking. I will do every wicked thing to make him happy. Why? Because I am his father. And, at the same time, there are millions and millions of boys in this world dying of starvation--boys beautiful in body and in mind. But they are nothing to me. Let them all die. I am apt to kill them all to save this one rascal to whom I have given birth. This is what you call love. Not I. Not I. This is brutality.
There are millions of women--beautiful in body and mind, good, gentle, virtuous--dying of starvation this minute. I do not care for them at all. But that Jennie who is mine--who beats me three times a day, and scolds me the whole day--for that Jennie I am going to beg, borrow, cheat and steal so that she will have a nice gown.
Do you call that love? Not I. This is mere desire, animal desire--nothing more. Turn away from these things. Is there no end to these hideous dreams? Put a stop to them.
Think of the slavery in which we are [bound]. Every beautiful form I see, every sound of praise I hear, immediately attracts me; every word of blame I hear immediately repels me. Every fool has an influence over my mind. Every little movement in the world makes an impression upon me. Is this a life worth living? So when you have realized the misery of this physical existence--when you have become convinced that such a life is not worth living--you have made the first step towards Jnana. (9.222)
Sankaracarya says that the cause for this desire is moham is ignorance, avidya. We identify ourselves with our body and our sense organs—our hands, eyes, etc. We think we are bound by all these, but in reality we are not. We are free. They do not qualify us or limit us. They are mere superimpositions, false understanding.
Swamaiji says in his songs of sannyasins:
Where seekest thou? That freedom, friend, this world
Thine only is the hand that holds
The rope that drags thee on. Then cease lament,
Let go thy hold, Sannyasin bold! Say --
"Om Tat Sat, Om!"
Categorically speaking we identify ourselves with what we are not. We are divine, because of our ignorance, because we identify ourselves with our sense organs, we become attached to sense objects, and that becomes the cause of the two (dvi-nimitta) says Svetasvetara Upanishad. What two? Pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow (sukha and duhkha). These are the two experiences that we all have. The goal of life is to go beyond sukha and duhkha. If you say, 'No, I will have only joy, sukha, ' it is absurd. If you want sukha then you will have to have a certain amount of duhkha also. They are like day and night; one comes after the other. So you have to go beyond both.
How can we get out of this situation? We have to practise meditation, as these scholars did. Meditate on what? Meditate on what we are. We must tell ourselves again and again that we are pure, we are strong, we are supreme, and we are divine. We can be free when we know our real nature, when we know that we are Brahman. That is the message of the Upanisads, the message of strength.
So Says Svetasvetara Upanishad (1.2) Maya is the common circumference of the Cosmic Wheel (Brahma-Chakra or Brahman) and is hidden by its three gunas [sattva, rajas, and tamas]. It has sixteen components [i.e., the mind, the five elements, the five organs of perception, and the five organs of action]. It is supported by fifty spokes [the fallacies and the disabilities arising from maya] and twenty pegs, and upheld by six categories of variations, each eightfold. It is represented by bondage in its varied forms, and it has three paths (seen as virtue, vice, and knowledge). Attachment [to the sense organs] is the one source causing both [pleasure and pain]. We meditate on that Cosmic Wheel.
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