Kama (lust) Krodha (anger) Lobha (greed) Moha (desire) Mada (ego) Matsarya (envy)

 If I were to ask the persons in this world or of this world the following questions casually what answers will I get? 

• Is it good to have desires for comforts and pleasant things in life which give instant gratification? 
• Is it Ok to get angry if one does not get what one wants?
• Do I feel lesser than my peers if they get things which I want and I do not get them?
• Am I envious when I see someone who I think is doing wrong getting rich?
• When I am denied what I think I must rightfully get does the situation drive me crazy?
• Is it OK to be hungry for success and exhibit our greed for the same?

If your answer to all these questions is firmly affirmative, I will not be surprised. Yet cutting across religions cultures and ages the scriptures list the above 6 qualities as enemies of the mind. All of us are in pursuit of happiness and want to eat, drink, enjoy in life as though there were no tomorrow, yet our experience shows that every single time we succumb to desires we get a temporary high followed by a low, till the next desire comes. The insatiable hunger for material things, the instant gratification and expectation of reciprocal transactional love in relationships and ego centric argumentative nature of our thinking is unable to give us lasting happiness. Yet the media, people around us and everything we experience drives us away from lasting happiness. 

The ladder of possession and the story of Nachiketa are pointing out the problem and offering a solution. I will allude to two of my favorite scriptural passages last 18 verses of chapter 2 Bhagwad Gita where the Lord describes the person of steadfast wisdom and the story of Nachiketa who rejects passing pleasure to get the knowledge that will give him the way to get perennial joy instead. 

Theoretically in our own lifetime especially those born in the sixties we have facilities and comforts which surpass utopian dreams. From a life of severe scarcity we live a life of abundance and often over indulgence. Yet, almost all of us are not happy or contented. Is this not a paradox? As we go older and wiser we realize that the root cause of misery and conflict is desire and expectations. The mimetic nature of desires alluded to in the book Wanting by Luke Burgis is almost like a compulsive urge to satisfy ones desire and the agitation caused by failure to do so leads to anger and delusion. On the other hand fufilling a desire causes temporary happiness only to become the seed for a new desire leading to the cycle of likes dislikes, profit and loss, victory and defeat a yo yo which always comes back to haunt us. This agitated mind needs to be disciplined and made calm. The only tool to overcome this is to recognize the true nature of the Self as the Universal Consciousness which is present in all creation and is permanent, infinite and imperishable as against the body, mind intellect apparatus which is temporary, finite and perishable. 

The problem is that so ingrained is this lack of knowledge that we are literally led to believe that meditation, Self realization is numbo jumbo and living a life of fun and games and living life king size is all that matters. As children we run after toys and trinkets and their possession becomes the be all and end all of life. Later in life physical attraction and infatuation take over and we literally fall in love, it is a transactional relationship demanding pleasure and obedience. I will like you if you become like me and stop liking you if you oppose me. As we grow older the desire for wealth, name, fame and power takes over. But as soon as you lose this all the hanger ons disappear and you die a lonely person. 

I produce below the answer of Krishna to Arjuna request to describe the man of steadfast wisdom who has found a purpose in life and lives in harmony to give rather than receive united with the universal consciousness. 

They live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them, whose love for the Lord of Love has consumed every selfish desire and sense craving tormenting the heart. 

Not agitated by grief or hankering after pleasure, they live free from lust and fear and anger.

Fettered no more by selfish attachments, they are not elated by good fortune nor depressed by bad, such are the seers.

Even as a tortoise draws in its limbs, the wise can draw in their senses at will.

Even though aspirants abstain from sense pleasures, but in their hearts they still crave for them. 

These cravings all disappear when they see the Lord of Love.

For even of those who tread the path, the stormy senses can sweep off the mind but they live in wisdom who subdue them and keep their minds ever absorbed in me.

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 and robs you of the power to learn from past mistakes. Lost is the discriminative faculty, and your life is utter waste.

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

The disunited mind is far from wise; how can it meditate? how be at peace?

When you know no peace, how can you know joy?

When you let your mind follow the siren call of the senses, they carry away your better judgment as a cyclone drives a boat off the charted course to its doom.

Use your mighty arms to free the senses from attachment and aversion alike and live in the full wisdom of the Self. Such a sage awakes to light in the night of all creatures. 

In which they are awake is the night of ignorance to the sage.

As the rivers flow into the ocean but cannot make the vast ocean overflow, so flow the magic streams of the sense world into the sea of peace that is the sage.

They are forever free who have broken out of the ego-cage of I  me and mine to be united with the Lord of Love.

This is the supreme state. Attain to this and pass from death to immortality.

Coming to the story of Nachiketa and Kathaupanishad one finds how Nachiketa the young boy on being sent prematurely to the God of death asked Yama to give him the knowledge of what happens after death. Yama offers Nachiketa every kind of wealth and inducement to dissuade Nachiketaa but the boys simple query that was that everything given to him would be finite, perishable and temporary as against the knowledge which is infinite, imperishable and permanent. So he asked for the knowledge and chose perrenial joy over passing pleasure.

Know the Self to be the Lord of the Chariot, Body to be a chariot, Mind they say are the reins, Senses say the wise are the horses which represent (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch). Selfish desires are the roads they travel. When the supreme Self is confused with the body, mind and senses, that person seems to enjoy pleasure and suffer sorrow. So in such persons who lack discriminitation the senses make them run hither and tither like wild horses. On the other hand for the one who has discrimination and a single pointed mind, the horses obey and are reined in like trained horses. So it is said that if you are able to overcome all desires and live for others without a trace of ego you can reach the goal of life to realise the true nature of the Self within. It is said that such realized souls do not take rebirth and attain freedom or moksha. 

This universal message is reinforced time and again across religions, scriptural messages, yet driven by the insatiable thirst of desires and ego satisfaction we chase the great dream of worldly prosperity. The way to remove this is Meditation and giving up desires and expectations and learning to live and act with a purpose in life. Live for others and see the unity of consciousness and find bliss. 

Vispi Jokhi