Happy Diwali to all…Have a great time, eat a lot of sweets, enjoy yourself, put on some weight, and try not to pollute the environment with too many crackers…Let it be a festival of light minus the noise pollution….And that is also what this post of the Bhagavad Gita is about: indriyarthesu vairagyam, a sense of vairagya or objectivity with respect to sense objects.
Indriyartheshu vairagyam anahankara eva ca |
janmamrityujaravyadhiduhkadoshanudarshanam || 13.9 ||
…objectivity towards the sense objects, absence of pride and seeing clearly the defects of pain in birth, death, old and disease….
Vairagya means objectivity towards the objects of our sense organs. In other words, objectivity towards the enjoyments in life. Indian festivals are all about enjoying oneself, and being spiritual doesn’t mean one can’t enjoy festivities. All it means is that one doesn’t get carried away. For example, one doesn’t pollute the environment with too many crackers. We reign in ourselves and perhaps light up a lot of diyas/ oil lamps. Traditionally, Diwali is known as ‘Deepavali’– a line of lights to light up the world. To be able to refrain from bursting crackers although one enjoys it and to light more diyas instead in keeping with the true spirit of the festival calls for a certain amount of objectivity and dispassion. Same with the sweets and the ladoos beckoning you during the festive season. Enjoy your sweets but have a little objectivity, and see that you do not put on too much on the waist and you don’t inject too much cholesterol into your bloodstream…
All this comes under Indriyarthesu Vairagyam, a sense of objectivity towards all your sensual enjoyments. They are only meant to give you temporary joy and pleasure. Don’t connect them with your sense of fulfilment, happiness etc; they are not meant for that. The whole world of sensual enjoyment is like that; you can enjoy a drink if you want but don’t get drunk. There is a big difference between the two. Nowadays, I see this often among people—they believe they have to get drunk to enjoy themselves. Is it really necessary? As long as you’re having a good time, enjoying the company of your friends, it is fine. Therefore, vairagya or objectivity with respect to my enjoyment is what lets me enjoy myself without being carried away.
This vairagya or objectivity is important to the understanding of Vedanta. A large craving for the objects of enjoyment only indicates that one has concluded that one is not ananda and is, therefore, seeking it in the object of enjoyment. In earlier posts, I have pointed out that this is not true. Therefore, instead of strengthening my old beliefs and conditionings that happiness is in the objects of enjoyments, I cultivate a value of objectivity. At the same time I am human enough, normal enough to have a good time.
The next value Krishna takes up is Anahankara, absence of egoism. One may have healthy self-esteem without being an egotist. If I have healthy self-esteem, I will not be too much of an egotist in terms of my functioning. A person with healthy self-esteem respects his rights as well as the rights of the other person. Ego is when I don’t respect the other person and his rights. If I do this, keep this in mind, I respect my rights as well as the other person’s rights in mind, then you can be sure that ego is not going to come up unnecessarily. It’s always good to have a healthy ego and a person with a healthy ego will not trample on another person’s rights. Trampling another’ rights, another’s feelings is unhealthy and will only lead the person away from understanding what the ego is made of. Ego is the notion I have imposed on the atma. Therefore, the ego has to be negated for you to understand the atma. The more egotistic you are, the more difficult it will be to negate it. Of course, if you have a very submissive ego, you will not have the guts to try for this wisdom, and, therefore, it is important to maintain a balance. Having a healthy ego is what Anahankara means. This type of behaviour is what assertiveness is all about, which adds to one’s healthy self-esteem. This has been discussed in posts concerning values of adambitvam and amaanitvam.
Swamiji, can a healthy self-esteem be mistaken for ego? For example, I could tell people that I am a good writer and that could be self-esteem, but people may say he has an ego ….
Worrying too much about other’s opinions is also a sign of low self-esteem. One’s attitude should be, `I will take feedback from people, but I will not worry about people’s opinions’. As long as I am open to feedback from people, then it is not a problem. In fact, ego is a sign of low self-esteem. A healthy self- esteem is fine and such a person would not worry about people’s opinion, but would always be open to feedback from people. That would be a good balance, that would be a good sign of Anahankara.
The next value is a very important one. For my students, I convert this into a meditation called janma mrityu jaara vyaadi dukhaa dosham darshanam…Look at the limitations of your life as a whole. If there is birth, there is death. We have limited time on earth to achieve whatever it is we need to achieve, and old age, illness, sorrow etc take up a chunk of that time. One could become depressed because of this, but that is not what this value is trying to teach us. It is meant to make you look at the limitations of life in terms of old age, sickness, depression, etc; so that the awareness of these limitations will motivate you to seek something that is free from all this. The more you are aware of the limitations, the more you will want to be free from them. If you are escaping your limitations, like many people escape into excessive partying, etc; they are trying to make their life one big, long escape. Much of our modern living is based on escape. which is a tragedy. A lot of our entertainment fare today is escapist; nobody really thinks about a movie or a story or a play or song, most of it is escapist in nature, and it’s the fastest growing industry…..That should tell you how desperate people are to escape.
Here, Krishna is holding up a mirror to you and saying, “Hey, this is your life…Don’t try to escape it…Instead solve the issue now, do what it takes to know the truth, because life is limited.’’ What is it that you really want to achieve in life becomes clear to you when you are aware of this deadline called death. It’s only when you face death that you really start living, you become conscious of the fact that there is a `deadline’. Not having a deadline would be like giving a corporate executive a project to complete without setting a deadline. When do you think it will be done? Probably never. But give him a deadline and it will be done. Same thing with Life. Death is very important, because if we don’t have that deadline or the death-line, we are just going to be drifting in life, and most of us do drift in spite of death being there because we think we are going to live forever. Krishna says, `No……Focus on it and see that there is an end to everything.’ It’s not a morbid topic, it’s a very good topic to have for Deepavali. The message here is, `You had your fun, but now light up your life with this Vedic Wisdom…’
Happy Deepavali…