The End of Sorrow

by Eknath Easwaran

  In samadhi, when we see the Lord, the source of all joy, then we do not need any other source of pleasure. When we see the source of all beauty, then we do not need any other source of beauty. When we see the source of all love, we do not need any other source of love. In samadhi, Sri Krishna says, we become complete; all the vacancies are filled, and there is no more craving.

  When we consistently practice this exhilarating discipline of discriminating sense restraint, the time will come when we shall see for ourselves that the connection between our senses and the sense objects is cut. It is a glorious day that we can mark on our calendar as Deliverance Day, and celebrate every year because it brings such relief. Then we can go everywhere in freedom; there is no compulsive liking or disliking. We are free to choose.

  60. For even of one who treads the path, the stormy senses can sweep off the mind.

  Even though we are trying our best to lead the spiritual life, the senses are so fiercely turbulent that if we yield to them for a little while, and a little while more, we will be swept away. Vipashcitah indriyani pramathini: even of someone very wise, the senses can become so powerful that they just pick him up and throw him from the path. This is a warning given to all of us, particularly on the level of sex.

  We do not have to belong to the monastic order to lead the spiritual life, and sex has a beautiful place in married relations, though even there with discrimination. But for people who indulge in sex in the wrong context, even though at the outset there may be some satisfaction, ultimately the relationship will be disrupted. If we ask any two people who have built their relationship on the physical level, they will say that in just a few months they could not bear each other. The tragedy is that after a short time they are again in the same relationship with someone else. If you ask them the same question again, they will say their new relationship also could not last even a few months. The senses are getting stronger and stronger, resistance is getting weaker and weaker, and one day such people will find that even if they want to, they will not be able to lead the spiritual life because of the turbulence of the mind. Sex is sacred; it has beauty and tenderness in the married relationship, where it brings two people closer and closer to become one. But on no account is it going to help us physically, psychologically, or spiritually to indulge this impulse as the mass media are trying to make us do.

  We shall find that we give our best to each other when we put each other first; and when we do not put each other first, particularly in the married relationship, sex breeds jealousy. Shakespeare does not exaggerate when he talks about the “green-eyed monster” of jealousy, which is characteristic of sex on the physical level. Even when we do not suspect a trace of jealousy in ourselves, it may be clouding our eyes. I remember one of our friends who told me he could not take his girlfriend out on Telegraph Avenue because there were so many fellows there who wanted to deprive him of her. I got permission to accompany them one day, and as far as my rather bright eyes could see, nobody was looking at them. People were all engrossed in themselves or in their dinner. In his case, he was trying to build the relationship on the physical level, and as he could not avoid admitting that, I told him that jealousy is the nature of such a relationship.

  Jealousy comes in only when we try to possess something for ourselves. It is good to admire beauty, but it is neither beautiful nor good if we want to take it home, put it on the mantle, and say, “You just stay there.” When we see something beautiful, we begin to want it for ourselves. It may be a beautiful house, it may be a beautiful flower, it may be a beautiful dancer – we just want it. The Gita says by doing this we have lost all three. It is a very difficult secret to understand that when we do not want to possess another selfishly, he or she will always love us. It is when we do not want to possess, when we do not make demand after demand, that the relationship will last. Sri Krishna is giving us the secret of all relationships, not only between husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, but between friend and friend, parents and children. Instead of trying to exact and demand, just give, and give more, and give still more. This is the way to keep love and respect; and it is something we have to learn the hard, hard way.

  Unless we exercise vigilant control over the senses, we cannot put other people first. For example, if we let the palate run away with us, we will want to eat only what we like and may try to force others to eat what we like. If we do not restrain the senses, we may try to impose our self-will on those around us in all the little matters of daily living. I am sure that all of you will find, as I have, how delightful it can be to forget your own taste in eating what your wife, girlfriend, or mother wants you to eat. When you are not appreciating the taste very much, when it reminds you of gall and wormwood, try to smile, and you will see what real freedom means. Inside, the taste glands are conducting a funeral, but you just free yourself and smile. It begins with a half-paralyzed expression, but through repetition of the mantram the smile slowly pervades the whole face, until at last the eyes light up. We can train our senses with artistry by doing what will add to the joy of our parents, partner, children, and friends.

  61. But they live in wisdom who subdue them, and keep their minds ever absorbed in Me.

  He is of unshakable wisdom and security who has subdued his senses and become completely absorbed in the Lord of Love, call him Krishna or Christ. The subjugation of the senses is enormously difficult when we keep telling ourselves, “I must subdue my senses; I must deny my body.” On this impersonal path – the path of neti neti, ‘not this, not this,’ as the Upanishads put it – you are told you are not the body, you are not the senses, you are not the mind, you are not the intellect, you are not the ego. There are great mystics who have traveled this way to Self-realization, but it is hard to imagine ordinary people like ourselves climbing the Himalayas up such precipitous slopes.

  One of the practical beauties of the Gita is that it is not negative in its presentation. The Gita approach, which I try to follow, is expressed here in the words yukta asita matparah: the Lord is in me, and I ask him, “Reveal yourself to me; unite me to yourself; make me the dust of your lotus feet.” This is the positive approach, and I have seldom found it useful to keep on the negative path. Let us follow the positive way of asking the Lord to reveal himself to us in the depths of our consciousness, and of loving him in our parents, partner, children, and friends. This discipline of adding to the joy of those around us itself weakens the tyranny of the senses.

  62–63. When you keep thinking about sense objects, attachment comes. Attachment breeds desire, the lust of possession which, when thwarted, burns to anger. Anger clouds the judgment; you can no longer learn from past mistakes. Lost is the power to choose between the wise and the unwise, and your life is utter waste.

  In his autobiography, Gandhi narrates in moving language how these two verses, which he read for the first time in London, haunted him day in and day out and began to protect him from the dangers of life on the sensory level. Many times when I, too, have been tempted to follow the call of the senses, these words have rescued me from rushing headlong into torrential waters. I would suggest these two verses be used in meditation, particularly by people who want to subdue their senses, not to negate them but to use them as faithful servants in the service of others. The purpose of these verses is not negative; their purpose is to bring under our command the resources of love, wisdom, and selfless action which lie dormant within us all.

  Dhyayato vishayan pumsah means ‘dwelling on sense objects.’ To apply this to the modern context, we are dwelling on sense objects when we read books, for example, that are erotically charged, which means most of the books that come hot off the press today. Whenever I go into a bookstore now, I fail to find a section where Eros has not homesteaded. There is a tendency for all of us to be drawn into this kind of reading. Partly it is our conditioning, and partly it is our deep belief that we are the body, which leads us to think that by giving in to the senses we can win love, we can give love, we can become
beautiful and fulfilled. It is good to select books in which there is not undue and distasteful description of what stimulates sexual desire. As a former student of both Sanskrit and English literature, I can say the most beautiful love scenes can be conveyed without a single sensate word. Last month we had the pleasure of seeing a movie by Satyajit Ray, the distinguished producer and director from Bengal, whose movies are well attended in this country. It was a powerful love story narrated from beginning to end without a kiss, without the two people ever throwing themselves into each other’s arms, all the more powerful because it was so beautifully done with great restraint. It should not be too difficult for us to understand that power can be conveyed better by restraint than by taking the lid off. This is one of the great secrets of the classical tradition, where the enormous power that is contained within is suggested rather than explicitly described.

  Books are a stage through which we pass, but we should slowly outgrow the need to draw upon other people’s imagination and information, and especially upon the mass media, for our entertainment. Magazines particularly must be read with discrimination. When I am in the supermarket and take a look at the covers of the magazines on the shelves, every week there seems to be some new scandal, couched in such inconsiderate, unkind language that I often wonder why people even like to look at these articles. By not reading most magazines, we are not losing out on our education, though there are one or two we can select carefully and pass on to our friends.

  My wife looks upon me as a well-informed critic of the movies, but I do not mind confessing that now and then I make a faux pas. Sometimes, after looking at the reviews, I come to the conclusion that I have found a peaceful movie. I think the scenes are going to be rather restrained, but before we know where we are, pandemonium has burst loose on the screen, and people are taking off their clothes on all sides. As far as the movies are concerned, I have now almost become resigned; and for those of you who want to share my secret, whenever this kind of disrobing begins I close my eyes and take a nap. The dangers of such movies are more serious than we sometimes think. We are still beginners on the spiritual path. We are still trying to bring the senses under control. The desires are all there, just hidden in a corner, waiting for their opportunity. When we see a voluptuous scene on the screen, we may not even notice it very carefully, or be conscious when we come home that it is this scene we see in our dream, meaning that it has gone into our deeper consciousness. The advertisers and movie makers know much better than we do how these stray, seductive, highly suggestive images get into our consciousness. Movies can be harmful if we do not have some kind of resistance, and one of the easiest ways to immunize oneself against the seductive powers of the movies is to learn to laugh, not with them, but at them.

  Sangas teshu ‘pajayate. If we keep on reading about something, and seeing it, and hearing about it, even in the most self-controlled among us the seed will gradually germinate; and sangat samjayate kamah: we will come to desire to have the experience ourselves. This is all underneath the surface level of consciousness, so we are often not even aware of what is going on until we suddenly find ourselves in a situation where we can gratify the desire.

  Here the Gita does not talk about morality or ethics; it says what Patanjali also says: when we have a desire for a certain thing or experience, and fulfill that desire, the happiness we feel is due to having no craving for a little while. It is not because this craving has been satisfied, but because for just a little while there is a state of no craving. The Gita is in no way deprecating love and tenderness between man and woman in the legitimate context; it is merely trying to tell us that sensory desire makes us wrongly believe the object of desire can bring us satisfaction. It is our desire which gives quality to a relationship or a thing. In our own experience, where we have built a relationship on the sensory level, we must have asked the question: “Why is it that six months ago I thought I could go through ten incarnations with this person, and now I cannot go through ten weeks?” There is nothing wrong with us, nor is anything wrong with the other person. Our desire has exhausted itself. It is the nature of sensory desire to come to an end very, very soon.

  In most of us our desires are not under our control; but if, as the Upanishads say, we can get hold of our desires, we will get hold of our destiny. We can then direct our desires at will. The Katha Upanishad (1:3) uses a particularly vivid image:

  Know the Self as lord of the chariot,

  The body as the chariot indeed.

  Discrimination is the charioteer,

  And the mind the reins by which it governs.

  The senses, say the wise, are the horses;

  Selfish desires are the roads they travel.

  When we mistake the Self, the sages say,

  For the body, mind, and senses, it seems

  To enjoy pleasure and suffer sorrow.

  When a person lacks discrimination

  And leaves his mind undisciplined, his senses

  Run hither and thither like wild horses.

  But they obey the rein like trained horses

  When he has discrimination and his

  Mind is one-pointed. The man who lacks

  Discrimination, with little control

  Over his thoughts and far from pure, reaches

  Not the pure state of immortality

  But wanders from death to death, while he who

  Has discrimination, with a still mind

  And pure heart, reaches journey’s end, never

  Again to fall into the jaws of death.

  With a discriminating intellect

  As charioteer and a trained mind as reins,

  He soon attains the supreme goal of life,

  To be united with the Lord of Love.

  The more we indulge the senses, the less we get out of them, and the less we get out of them, the more we indulge them. Finally, we begin to get angry. This is the anger that bursts out between two people in a physical relationship, when they begin to quarrel and drag up the past. The physical desire has been exhausted, and now they just go on doing things which will bring the relationship to an end. When both parties become resentful, the most tragic stage in personal relationships is reached. Formerly, every little thing she did was so lovely that you could have gone on watching these innumerable acts of grace forever. Now the same thing begins to irk you. These were the things with which you used to be in love, about which you wrote minor poetry; why is it that now they only irritate you? When resentment begins to arise, even things not meant to be hostile are interpreted with hostility. The whole atmosphere of the home, of the relationship, becomes vitiated because the desire on the physical level has been exhausted.

  When this kind of constant resentment and anger becomes established in our consciousness – it may be for any apparent reason outside – we begin to see what is not there. Krodhad bhavati sammohah: from anger arises delusion. We accuse people of things they have not dreamt of; we attack people for what they are not doing, and sammohat smritivibhramah: we lose the capacity to learn from previous mistakes. All of us commit mistakes, and none of us need feel guilty about past errors if we have learned from them. The tragedy of this kind of anger is that the power of discrimination goes completely. Sri Krishna uses terms here which he very rarely uses, smritibhramshad buddhinasho buddhinashat pranashyati: when a human being has lost all capacity to learn from the past, when he has lost all judgment, his life might as well be written off as a complete waste. Such a person, whatever else he may do in life, will be bringing misery upon himself as well as on those connected with him. He will leave this life having proved to be a burden, instead of being a contributor to the welfare of others.

  Arjuna is now terrified because the Lord of Love does not talk in this way very often. These verses are meant to remind you and me that we cannot play the sensory game for long, saying, “Oh, we can always run away when it gets too hot.” By restraining ourselves we do not lose joy; by indulging ourselves we lose all joy. By putting
other people first, we do not lose joy; by putting ourselves first, we lose all joy. Many young people are under the impression that the only way to build a relationship is on the physical level. They are not aware that there is an alternative basis for relationships, which can grow in mutual understanding, love, and respect with the passage of time. The physical relationship promises what it cannot give, while the spiritual relationship gives and continues to give an abiding sense of joy all our life.

  64–65. But when you move amidst the world of sense, free from both attachment and aversion, there comes the peace in which all sorrows end, and you live in the wisdom of the Self.

  To go beyond suffering, to live in the full confidence that our life is meant for the service of others and that the Lord has given us ample resources to perform this service whatever the obstacles, we must shed all likes and dislikes. We cannot afford to say, “I like this; I dislike that. I like him; I dislike her.” To try to translate this into neurological language, our nervous system is meant for two-way traffic. It should be able to move towards pain, if necessary, as well as towards pleasure. Now in the case of most of us, our nervous system will flow only one way, towards what we like. Most forms of allergy are a screaming protest from the nervous system: “You can’t do this to me! I move in one direction only.” If we are forced to go towards what we do not like, we get an ulcer in our stomach, a creeping sensation under the skin, and numbness of the fingers. Finally we faint, and then ask, “Do you blame me?” In order to grow up to our full beauty and maturity, we have to learn very often to go near what we have turned away from, to go with appreciation to the person we have always avoided. There is joy in this, and there is fulfillment in this, because we can do it for the sake of others – the mother for the child, the husband for the wife, the wife for the husband, and the friend for the friend. When the nervous system has been reconditioned for serving others, we will find ourselves free to enjoy what we do not like just as much as what we like. In the monastic order, I am told, they apply this kind of discipline with artistic perfection. If there is someone who has always been fond of books, out he goes into the garden, and if there is someone who is always after the potato bugs, in he goes to the library. The principle is to free ourselves.