Work

First day of work tomorrow! After 3.5 years, getting back to industry! Buddham saranam gacchami! :)

Guilt

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on guilt

The Master was always teaching that guilt is an evil emotion to be avoided like the very devil.

"But are we not to hate our sins", a disciple said one day.

"When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself"

Master's light

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on his light

The Master had been on his deathbed in a coma for weeks. One day, he suddenly opened his eyes to find his favorite disciple there.

"You never leave my bedside, do you?", he said softly

"No, Master. I cannot"

"Why?"

"Because you are the light of my life."

The Master sighed. "Have I so dazzled you, my son, that you still refuse to see the light in you?"

Master as authority

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on himself as authority

"If you make me your authority," said the Master to a starry eyed disciple, "you harm yourself because you refuse to see things for yourself."

After a pause, he added gently, "You harm me too, because you refuse to see me as I am."

Holy places

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on holy places

To a group of his disciples whose hearts were set on a pilgrimage, the Master said: "Take this bitter gourd along. Make sure you dip it into all the holy rivers and bring it into all the hold shrines."

When the disciples returned, the bitter gourd was cooked and served as sacramental gourd.

"Strange", said the Master slyly after he had tasted it, "the hold water and the shrines have failed to sweeten it!"

Expression

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on expression

He was a religous writer and was interested in the master's views.

"How does one discover god?"

Said the Master sharply, "Through making the heart white with silent meditation, not making paper black with religious composition."

And, turning to his scholarly disciples, he teasingly added, "Or making the air thick with learned conversation."

Yoga and directed evolution

Sri Aurobindo on how Yoga is directed evolution - from 'The Synthesis of Yoga'

The process of yoga leaves behind the ordinary tardy method of slow and confused growth through the evolution of nature. For, the natural evolution is at its best an uncertain growth under cover, partly by the pressure of the environment, partly by a groping education and an ill-lighted purposeful effort, an only partially illumined and half-automatic use of opportunities with many blunders and lapses and relapses; a great portion of it is made up of apparent accidents and circumstances and vicissitudes, - though veiling a secret diving intervention and guidance. In Yoga, we replace this confused crooked crab-motion by a rapid, conscious and self-directed evolution which is planned to carry us, as far as can be, in a straight line towards the goal set before us. In a certain sense, it may be an error to speak of a goal anywhere in a progression which may well be infinite. Still, we can conceive of an immediate goal, an ulterior objective beyond our present achievement towards which the soul in man can aspire. There lies before him the possibility of a new birth; there can be an ascent into a higher and wider plane of being and its descent to transform its members. An enlarged and illumined consciousness is possible that shall make of him a liberated spirit and a perfected force.

Aldous Huxley on The Truth

On his death bed, Aldous Huxley was asked what he had learnt about The Truth from the great masters of the east. His answer was,

Its embarrassingly simple.

Finding God

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on finding god

"Where can I find God?"

"He is right in front of you."

"Then, why do I fail to see him?"

Later the Master said, "Find out what it is that makes you drunk. To see, you must be sober."

Enlightenment

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on enlightenment

"Make a clean break with your past and you will be enlightened", said the Master.

"I am doing that by degrees."

"Growth is achieved by degrees. Enlightenment is instantaneous."

Later he said, "Take the leap! You cannot cross the chasm in little jumps."

Worshiping the master

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on worshiping the master

To the disciple who was overly respectful, the master said,

"Light is reflected on a wall. Why venerate the wall? Be attentive to the light."

Wisdom & Action

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on wisdom and action

The master once asked his disciples which was more important, wisdom or action.

The disciples were unanimous: "Action, of course. Of what use is wisdom that does not show itself in action?"

Said the master,"And of what use is action that proceeds from an unenlightened heart?"

Vedic chanting

Attended a 'vedic chanting' special meeting today that was intended to raise awareness on the advantages of vedic chanting. Some truly wonderful singers sang some, possibly profoundly meaningful, chants in enchanting voices. Only thing I could understand was the oft repeated beautiful phrase 'Viswam naaraayanam' meaning 'the universe is the eternal being Narayana'. Sanskrit slokas, when chanted properly (as was done today), do have a certain unfathomable depth in them! That depth brings along a lot of silence, albeit short lived, in the listener.

Senior people who organized the show waxed eloquent on the importance of vedic chanting and the advantages to be accrued due to it. This, usually, is my bone of contention with them. Such calculated gambles of doing a certain act of 'devotion' in order to gain some benefits is still totally within the realm of the ego. I see a bunch of peripheral benefits in chanting in the form of the silence it brings in one. But, why should one really worry about these things when there are so many direct things to be done that bring in so much more spiritual advancement. Why don't we instead try and rid ourselves of our conditioned fears and desires? May be the chants have more use for someone who is 'twice born' (first birth = coming out of moms womb; second birth = coming out of the grasp of ego induced fears and desires). But for those who are still caught in fears and desires, what good would this chanting do? A mouse does not become wise by staying inside a room where all the vedas are being chanted.

The only thing all the speakers harped upon constantly was about all the info one might accrue by reading and chanting vedas. I would bet that most people who took the pains to write the vedas did not have this in mind when they wrote it. Theyd rather have a transformation in the listener than it being a simple addition to his/her memory!

Indian parents

There are a friends words on her mom and this mostly sums up young Indian adult's (especially the not so conventional ones) relationships with their parents.

and mom is only concerned about my well being endlessly. she is happiest when i am tied down in front of her eyes, eating endlessly and buying expensive indian clothes.

Intelligence as prison

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on intelligence as prison

"You are so proud of your intelligence", said the master to a disciple.

"You are like the condemned man who his proud of the vastness of his prison cell"

Teaching truth

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on teaching truth

"I wish to become a teacher of the truth"

"Are you ready to be ignored, ridiculed and starving till you are 45"

"I am. But, tell me, what will happen after I am 45"

"You will get used to it"

Spirituality

Fr. Anthony's master speaks on Spirituality

Even though it was the Master's day of Silence, a traveller begged for a word of wisdom that would guide him through life's journey.

The Master nodded affably, took a sheet of paper and wrote a single word on it: "Awareness"

The visitor was perplexed. "That's too brief. Would you please expand on it a bit?"

The master took the paper and wrote "Awareness, awareness, awareness"

'But what do these words mean?', said the stranger helplessly.

The Master reached out for the paper and wrote: "Awareness, awareness, awareness means AWARENESS."

Master

Father Anthony de Mello has a lot of stories about a 'Master' talking to his disciples. Here is his description of who the master is:

The Master in these tales is not a single person. He is a Hindu Guru, a Zen Roshi, a Taoist Sage, a Jewish Rabbi, a Christian Monk, a Sufi Mystic. He is a Lao Tzu and Socrates, Buddha and Jesus, Zarathustra and Mohammed. His teaching is found in the 7th century B.C. and the 20th century A.D. His wisdom belongs to east and west alike. Do his historical antecedents really matter? History, after all, is the record of appearances, not Reality; of doctrines, not of Silence.

I just love this description. I also love many of the stories and the anecdotes of this master. I am hoping to be able to post the ones I really love!

Best Epitaph!

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

Epitaph on the tomb of Nikos Kazantzakis, author of Last Temptation of Christ

Last Temptation of Christ

"Not my sins. I am a liar, a hypocrite. I am afraid of everything. I don't ever tell the truth, I don't have the courage. When I see a woman, I blush and look away, I want her but I don't take her, for God and that makes me proud, and then my pride ruins Magdalene. I don't steal, I don't kill, I don't fight, not because I don't want to, but because I am afraid. I wanna rebel against you, against everything, against God, but, I am afraid. You wanna know who my mother and father are? You wanna know who my God is? Fear. You look inside me, and thats all you find."

Dialog from the movie 'Last Temptation of Christ'. What words!!! Amazing!

PS: Courtesy - note from KG on his Facebook page!

All things come to him who waits patiently;
Love not expressed but kept inside becomes divine;

Educating poor kids

FS: This is a bit long, but kindly read through patiently! :)

After having spent a year at home, not being involved in any activities involving monetary gain (popularly called as sitting jobless at home), almost every week I meet someone who suggests that I do some 'social service' in the form of educating poor kids, like Anand Kumar. The eyes of many people brighten up at this very thought (of educating poor kids) and they consider this to be a holy thing to do. They even want to involve themselves in such acts of social service once they retire or at least some point later in their lives. This post is addressed at them.

First and foremost is the question of why we want to educate the poor (by education here, I simply refer to studying till class 12 in todays schools and then doing some under graduate degree). The immediate answer is that one is moved by compassion by their not so fortunate state. Certainly it aint wonderful to be poor, especially in the cities of an under-developed or developing country where poverty means living besides filth, facing the brunt of pollution, being treated like garbage by the high and mighty of the society besides not having the means to involve yourself in activities that interest you. So, providing a poor person education definitely does open up opportunities to improve his/her life condition. It certainly is a god-send gift to those people. Similar is the case with other 'social work' like 'running orphanages and old age homes', 'providing jobs for the poor', 'assisting sex workers to find a better life' etc etc. The lives of the beneficiaries indeed take a turn to the better.

But, I am not motivated to 'educate' people in the sense I had described above and have serious reservations about it. Education to me has three primary goals: (a) to understand ones true self as the observer and not the actor so as to be at peace always (b) to find that one thing that one likes so much that one would like to do it day in and day out, without any consideration to the social status that it might give and/or the monetary gains one might get from it and, (c) to earn a livelihood that can sustain ones basic needs like food, shelter etc. But, all of education today is reduced to a means to earn livelihood. In addition, the educational system is in total subordination to the economic system. The only and primary goal of all educational institutions in India (and most institutions in the rest of the world) is to ensure that their students (read products) fit into the market place. If we look at the economic system, it ensures that unless the top (in terms of money) 10% become richer by 90%, the bottom 90 cannot get richer by 10%. All the great investments in SEZ's and all the other hi-tech things in India wont do much for the poor for this reason (besides pulling a small percentage out of desperate poverty). The structure of the economic system will ensure that there will always be a vast number of the people below the poverty line.

Even if we want to ignore these questions about the economic system, there are still other questions to be asked. Are the vast majority of conventionally educated people the ideal citizens of our society? Are they the most compasionate, the most benevolent and loving people in our societies? Are they free from committing all sorts of violence and, at least, are they themsleves personally free from suffering (fear / anger / despair etc)? The simple answer is no. Of course some of them are, but that has no correlation with the fact that they went through the conventional educational system and are successful in the economic world. So, my question is, looking at the larger picture, what is it exactly that we are achieving by educating poor kids? At most, we might free a few people from poverty and give them the relative freedom of prosperity. Is it realistically possible to scale this economic system to pull everyone out of poverty? How many more planet earths will we have to destroy for that? In my opinion that will never happen. We will simply be like the satellite that is perennially falling towards the planet but the planet is constantly moving and hence the satellite will simply continue to be in motion around the planet without ever reaching the planet.

Thus, educating poor kids is no solution for an en-masse change in our society and the end of all violence in our society, though it provides some kind of symptomatic relief. The social / economic / political structures will retain their violent characteristics. So, the question arises what is it that we should be doing? Obviously, it is stupid to be constantly going around in cycles and always be giving symptomatic relief without addressing the root cause. I feel, all individuals who are interested in finding a solution to all of this violence should answer this question first before jumping into 'social service'. To effectively answer the question, we should understand the problem from its root. Is there a single root cause for all the violence we see around us? If there is no single root cause, then we will have to make progress separately in the various spheres of life like economic sphere, social sphere etc. But if there is one, then ,obviously, we should be tackling that.

I spent a significant part of my last three years investigating this, of course with a lot of assistance from a lot of people. As I see it, the human mind is the centre of all the social structures we see around us, be it violent structures like the army or benevolent structures like public hospitals. Conventionally, the human mind is equated only with the intellect and is repeatedly credited for all the scientific advances we have made over the last few centuries. Though these are indeed wonderful advances, the human mind is not just the intellect. Ego, which is the constant and unrelenting temptation of the mind to seek out permanence and greatness for itself, is also a part of it. This, I think is simply a matter of cultural software that trains the mind to constantly seek psychological desires and avoid psychological fears in the intention of seeking out permanence and greatness. The minds of most individuals is caught in this cycle without ever realizing that there is a way out of this and without ever realizing the peace outside of this cycle. All the social structures that have evolved, like educational & economic systems, have evolved purely out of this dysfunctional mind that is in service of the ego. The mind that is caught in its ego is sick and thereby all the social structures that have come out of it are destined to be sick and violent. There is no way that the product (social / economic / political structures) can be better than the mould (human mind).

Thus, as I see it, there will be no end to the violence we see around us unless the human mind is cleansed of ego. The average human mind is continuously restless and is constantly on the look out for drama or ways and means to become happy or wants to hold on to all the comforting factors. A little bit intelligence, a little bit of training, a little bit of good company combined with a lot of sincerity and perseverance will help us to still our minds. When the mind is stilled and is cleansed of ego, all the restlessness and the compulsive need for happiness, which is just a need for drama in disguise, will go away. This is basically an evolutionary push. Perhaps, humans are the first species that have so much conscious control over their future evolutionary paths. Its time we put it to full use and pull ourselves out of the mess we find us in today. How else can be even start to address all the violence? If fundamentally our minds are dysfunctional how can we expect to achieve any long lasting improvement without any work on this. Educating poor kids is nice and might give them a way out of poverty, but from a deeper perspective of the problem in the mind, the kids are probably still within the same system that causes all the violence in our society. Thus, isnt it imperative of us to work on this?

This requires us to work on us first. For, if we ourselves are caught inside our egos, we really cannot contribute much to the society. This is the hardest job to do for its much more easier to jump up and start doing work outside. But, its much more harder to stay calm when your relative / friend has a fight with you or when a junior bypasses you for promotion, and then respond to the situation with love and kindness. Its so much more harder to respond on the basis of truth and not on the basis of the narrow self interest of ego. Its even more harder to not demand things that are conventionally regarded as acceptable desires - want of a career, want of property, want of respectability in society, want of a partner etc etc. But, no matter how hard it appears at the outset, it is the ultimate problem and it has to be addressed if we hope to even genuinely begin addressing the violence in our society. Now, this necessitates immediate action from all us and especially from those who are thinking of doing some kind of 'social service' in the future. It requires all such of us who are living conventional lives, for whatever reasons, to immediately work on our own minds and cleanse our own thoughts and state of consciousness. If we put in our sincere efforts in understanding how our mind tricks us into fearing and desiring, we can begin the process of cleansing it. This would be a great contribution for us to make till the time we are living our conventional lives. Even when we are doing 'social service', cleansing ourselves of our ego would be a great contribution without which the 'social service' being done has little or no benefit.

To begin with, this is a hard task and is easier said than done. It needs constant vigil to find out the various ways in which our ego functions - constant vigil in relationships to see if we ever act based on ego (remember all the times you abused someone you did not like), constant vigil on our thoughts to see if we ever have a repetitive thought (remember all the times you complained about your situation), etc etc (there are lots of literature to the sincere seeker in these aspects). Then, the moment one is ready to forego the conventional life of earning money in the conventional economy (this has nothing to do with running around in a forest with just a piece of loin cloth on the body avoiding all pleasures of the senses), one can start providing symptomatic relief also. This is also important, but our state of being that is free of ego is probably more important due to its long lasting and deep impact. This state of being will constantly inspire others around the person to be in the same way and will slowly start creating a critical mass of such people, which will then lead to the flowering of a new human consciousness on a large scale. Then, with little or no narrow egoic self interests to clash, the society can start to move towards a state that is free of all forms of violence.

Half plant half animal

Surprising Sea Slug Is Half-plant, Half-animal

A green sea slug appears to be part animal, part plant. It's the first critter discovered to produce the plant pigment chlorophyll.

The sneaky slugs seem to have stolen the genes that enable this skill from algae that they've eaten. With their contraband genes, the slugs can carry out photosynthesis — the process plants use to convert sunlight into energy.

On fear

'Fear is not something that you conquer. It is something you stop creating.'

-- Attributed to Sadguru.

PS: Saw this quote on 'The Chronicles of A' today

Truth seeking

The state of living in the truth is indeed extremely simple - the state of total surrender to the universe. But, the normal mode of living is so extremely complex that the chasm between the two is deep and wide. In order to live in the truth, one has to cross this deep and wide chasm.

But, it is no trivial task. We need help from all quarters - from hinduism (vedantas / yoga), from buddhism, from christianity, from sufism, from irreligious philosophers like JK, from atheism, from modern science, from western thoughts on life, from tribal wisdom, from life history of people who have done similar things, from ones own understanding & experience and many more. All of these have pointers to help us and all of these have valid statements about The Truth. All of them are useful and should be carefully considered by the truth seeker and none should be ignored.

Once the individual is firmly established in The Truth, it might be obvious to him/her that any one of them is sufficient but this is not so obvious to the truth seeker. So, the best thing the truth seeker can do is to trust ones own intelligence. For this, ones own intelligence has to be cleansed thoroughly of ego, ignorance and all the other mental impurities to begin with and then it has to be used to enable oneself to cross the chasm separating oneself from the truth. Though this might seem to be quite cumbersome initially, but to me, it is ultimately the most efficient way of truth seeking. Holding on to any one path, say Hinduism, may work but it might have a very high risk percentage. After one investigates this entirely, one might choose a path that is any combination of all pointers available or might be something new. Whatever it is, that would be incidental. But, an exploration of everything available seems to me to be a must!

Thus, in my opinion, careful consideration of all available paths by ones own thoroughly cleansed intelligence will lead us to the truth in the most efficient manner possible.

Yoga definition by Sri Aurobindo

'The process of yoga is a turning of the human soul from the egoistic state of consciousness absorbed in the outer appearances and attractions of things to a higher state in which the Transcendent and Universal can pour itself into the individual mould and transform it.'

-- Sri Aurobindo in 'The Synthesis of Yoga'

மதுரம் மதுரம்!

மனத்தை மகிழ்த்திடும் மார்கழி மழை! மதுரம் மதுரம்!!

Heart soothing rains in the tamil month of margazhi! Madhuram Madhuram (Melodious melodious)!!

Bouncing between polarities!

I was sitting at the beach yesterday evening at twilight time. The wind was steady, and it being the coolest time of the year in Chennai, it felt wonderful on the skin - gently caressing it all the time. Of course, not everyone were paying attention to it. Most were lost in conversations with their friends. Some were playing in the sand. I saw a young couple playing Frisbee. They were playing fairly expertly, at least at the level of my perception, and were not even shy of diving to catch the Frisbee mid air. The moment one got hold of the Frisbee, it was flung fast and furiously at the other person who would then continued the process. It was quite wonderful to watch them play the game so gracefully. The Frisbee, of course, had no choice in this matter. It kept bouncing between two end points and the journey between the polarities was controlled by the players and the wind.

Its been three weeks since her beloved passed away. She has been crying incessantly since then. These three weeks have been emotionally charged. One minor positive side effect of it was the silence of her mind in this period. She was sad. Period. Now that the emotional high is gone, the noisiness of the mind is making a return. She now tries to be philosophical. She recollects the things that her mom told her when her mom herself went through similar circumstances. She feels its not quite right to 'love' someone so deeply that you feel like your life ceases to be meaningful when they leave. She says its better to maintain some distance so that when the other person leaves, you still retain sanity. One definitely does pity her for she sure deserves a lot of empathy and compassion at this point. But, in addition, we can also learn from this behavior - for, when we ourselves go through similarly trying circumstances, we will be so lost that we will be able to hardly think then.

Its obvious that, long ago, once her mind found out that it could obtain some form of security for itself by 'surrendering' itself to another or by 'loving' another, decide to walk that path unto infinity without ever realizing that it cannot continue ad infinitum. Neither did it realize that it felt deeply insecure initially and hence it was looking for security. This insecurity was never addressed so long because it found the security in the other. But, now, when the other mind has disappeared, this mind has lost the security and the comfort position. It now struggles for it does not know what to do next. It feels totally lost and by its own admission, it feels like it is drifting aimlessly in the open sea. It has reached one end point. So, it wants to move towards the other end point now and hence feels 'loving less' would be better. To me, this certainly does seem like the Frisbee that constantly moved between the two end points without any volition of its own. But, is there an escape from this? The Frisbee of course has none. But, ain't the human mind more capable than just bouncing between the polarities?

When we ourselves are in such a situation, all we can do is be carried by the emotional pangs. But, when others are in such a situation, besides empathizing with them, we could also try and understand the working of their mind. Of course, this is not done to look down upon them. But, because, for the vast majority of us, the states of our mind are quite similar. So by observing someone else bouncing between polarities, we will also learn to observe ourselves bouncing between polarities. This self observation or self knowledge is immensely powerful and will equip us with the rudders to travel through emotionally charged situations. Constant observation of ones own mind and that of others will improve the scope of our self-knowledge to all the pairs of polarities between which our minds keep bouncing (happiness - sadness, career highs - career lows, love - hate, life - death etc..). Slowly, with practice, we might even realize that this travelling between polarities is nothing but an addiction. And at that point, like Neo (matrix) suddenly realizing that he is the one and stopping the bullets, we will suddenly awaken and stop this journey between polarities. And that is the moment one awakens to the higher self.

The challenge

The primary challenge is about achieving that extraordinary internal state amidst very very normal external circumstances!

JK on discontentment

JK on discontentment from 'Think on these things'

Do you know what it means to be discontented? It is very difficult to understand discontent, because most of us canalize discontent in a certain direction and thereby smother it. That is, our only concern is to establish ourselves in a secure position with well-established interests and prestige, so as not to be disturbed. It happens in homes and in schools too. The teachers don't want to be disturbed, and that is why they follow the old routine; because the moment one is really discontented and begins to inquire, to question, there is bound to be disturbance. But it is only through real discontent that one has initiative.

Do you know what initiative is? You have initiative when you initiate or start something without being prompted. It need not be anything very great or extraordinary - that may come later; but there is the spark of initiative when you plant a tree on your own, when you are spontaneously kind, when you smile at a man who is carrying a heavy load, when you remove a stone from the path, or pat an animal along the way. That is a small beginning of the tremendous initiative you must have if you are to know this extraordinary thing called creativeness. Creativeness has its roots in the initiative which comes into being only when there is deep discontent.

Don't be afraid of discontent, but give it nourishment until the spark becomes a flame and you are everlastingly discontented with everything - with your jobs, with your families, with the traditional pursuit of money, position, power - so that you really begin to think, to discover. But as you grow older you will find that to maintain this spirit of discontent is very difficult. You have children to provide for and the demands of your job to consider; the opinion of your neighbours, of society closing in upon you, and soon you begin to lose this burning flame of discontent. When you feel discontented you turn on the radio, you go to a guru, do puja, join a club, drink, run after women - anything to smother the flame. But, you see, without this flame of discontent you will never have the initiative which is the beginning of creativeness. To find out what is true you must be in revolt against the established order; but the more money your parents have and the more secure your teachers are in their jobs, the less they want you to revolt.

Creativeness is not merely a matter of painting pictures or writing poems, which is good to do, but which is very little in itself. What is important is to be wholly discontented, for such total discontent is the beginning of the initiative which becomes creative as it matures; and that is the only way to find out what is truth, what is God, because the creative state is God.

So one must have this total discontent - but with joy. Do you understand? One must be wholly discontented, not complainingly, but with joy, with gaiety, with love. Most people who are discontented are terrible bores; they are always complaining that something or other is not right, or wishing they were in a better position, or wanting circumstances to be different, because their discontent is very superficial. And those who are not discontented at all are already dead.

If you can be in revolt while you are young, and as you grow older keep your discontent alive with the vitality of joy and great affection, then that flame of discontent will have an extraordinary significance because it will build, it will create, it will bring new things into being. For this you must have the right kind of education, which is not the kind that merely prepares you to get a job or to climb the ladder of success, but the education that helps you to think and gives you space - space, not in the form of a larger bedroom or a higher roof, but space for your mind to grow so that it is not bound by any belief, by any fear.

Dharmic Kama!

In my yoga class, we are taught that the four important aspects of human life are: a.) Dharma - Duties / Righteousness, b.) Artha - Material prosperity, c.) Kama - Desires, d.) Moksha - Liberation / Salvation. There is a lot of commentary on this. In particular, I am told that dharma decides what the acceptable desires are (and am also expected to repeat this in exams). This is in my opinion quite crazy - trying to find dharmic sanction for desires!

Who is to decide which desires are acceptable and which is not? Moreover, the fact that one particular desire of mine does not have 'dharmic sanction', certainly does not make it go away. Out of fear of the law or out of fear of being made a social outcast, one might not openly indulge in it. Nevertheless, ones mind will be totally obsessed with it and will try to find underground ways of satisfying that craving! So, its quite obvious, that dharmic sanctions have no true effect on the desires an individual possesses.

On the other hand, if one tries to totally understand the desires, one might be able to bring about a total transformation from a state of craving. What are desires really? Aren't they a playback of some pleasurable event from the past, from memory? Otherwise how would we know that the target is pleasure giving? So, desire is nothing but memory of pleasure. This memory of pleasure then forces us to behave in certain ways, much like the dog that remembers from its training days that it will be given tasty food if it runs behind the object that its master throws and catches it. Hence, desire is nothing but learned behavior where we are addicted to seeking pleasure. Thus it is nothing more than addiction. So, the desires we might have are highly specific to our social environments, the ones for which we are trained - like how some dogs catch Frisbees, some others sniff bombs.

When the mind becomes intelligent enough to witness this, the cause of a desire and its effect on the individual, in totality and is startled by the fact that it has been acting out like an automaton, programmed to seek pleasures, a transformation of indescribable beauty happens. The mind then behaves much more spontaneously and stops behaving like an automaton. Therein lies the moksha or liberation from desires - not in quoting countless ancient scriptures that talk about what is acceptable and what is not.