Sense-Control is easy when you Understand the Senses

From times immemorial, great beings such as this yogi have existed in India, and, in the way in which they conducted their lives, taught other nations the highest truths about spirituality. They showed the spiritual heights that could be achieved through control of the senses. People who do not know the method of controlling the sense organs get lost and stray onto the wrong path. But, actually, controlling the senses is quite easy. When you do not understand the fickle nature of the senses, all attempts to control them are fraught with difficulty. But once you understand their limitations controlling them becomes easy, because you realize that all the pleasures and enjoyments you gain through them are filled with sorrow.

The first step in controlling the senses is to investigate the defects and problems associated with the various objects of the world. For the sake of temporary joys and pleasures you are subjecting yourself to many difficulties and problems that will hound you long after the little fleeting joys are forgotten. A person who has a disease may take some food items which are not prescribed in the diet and feel temporarily happy. Having ignored the diet and taken food which is prohibited, he may experience some temporary joy; but in a short period of time he will experience the unhappy consequences of his acts. It may even lead to a dangerous situation. In the same way, man, yielding to temporary joys, will suffer a great many problems in the long run.

How many powerful kings have there been who have created huge mansions and palaces, enjoyed luxurious comforts, eaten a variety of luxurious foods, traveled in luxurious cars and indulged themselves in countless vanities, all the while thinking that they were enjoying all the great pleasures available on the earth? What has happened to them in the end? Ask yourself, 'Is a king who indulges himself like that really enjoying the luxuries or are the luxuries enjoying him?' You will have to conclude that it is the luxuries which are enjoying him. It is he who is being enjoyed by the sense objects. They are literally eating him up. Soon he becomes weak, he becomes diseased and gets old.

If the king were really enjoying the sense objects, then he should have attained unbounded health and strength from them. But, as he is the one who is being enjoyed by the sense objects, he loses all his health, and his life span gets reduced. Not recognizing this truth he temporarily experiences some happiness. He fixes his vision on these transient sense objects without realizing the dire consequences which ultimately must come his way because of his indiscriminate desire to enjoy the senses.