When the intelligence is lost, mind is lost, when the mind is lost, you will become a slavery to your senses.....!

When the intelligence is lost, mind is lost, when the mind is lost, you will become a slavery to your senses.....!-- Harish Mencheri

"Bhagavad-gita 6.34: The chariot of the body. The five horses represent the five senses (tongue, eyes, ears, nose and skin). The reins, the driving instrument, symbolize the mind, the driver is the intelligence, and the passenger is the spirit soul."

THE ORIGINAL SANSKRIT VERSION:

"Know the self as a rider in a chariot,
and the body, as simply the chariot.
Know the intellect as the charioteer,
and the mind, as simply the reins.
The senses, they say, are the horses,
and sense objects are the paths around them....
When a man lacks understanding,
and his mind is never controlled;
His senses do not obey him,
as bad horses, a charioteer." 

 "The individual is the passenger in the car of the material body, and intelligence is the driver. Mind is the driving instrument, and the senses are the horses. The self is thus the enjoyer or sufferer in the association of the mind and senses. So it is understood by great thinkers." Intelligence is supposed to direct the mind, but the mind is so strong and obstinate that it often overcomes even one's own intelligence, as an acute infection may surpass the efficacy of medicine."

Be the Master, Not the Slave, of the Senses-- Jagad Guru

If You Identify Your Body as Yourself, You Will Try to Satisfy Yourself by Trying to Satisfy Your Body

If you identify your body as yourself, you will try to satisfy yourself by trying to satisfy your body. You’ll think, “I am the body and I want to be happy, I want to be satisfied.” Thus, you’ll try to satisfy the belly, the tongue, the genitals, the ears, the eyes, the nose, and so on, believing that this will bring you the inner satisfaction and happiness you crave.
If you believe that you are your body, you will strive endlessly to give your body sensual pleasure. You will struggle to fill up your inner emptiness with fleeting sensual flashes. But no amount of sensual pleasure will satisfy you. No matter how many taste orgasms, sexual orgasms, and other kinds of orgasms you may have, you still won’t be actually satisfied. You’ll always have a never-ending desire for more.

Sense Gratification Does Not Satisfy

Often people try so hard to find happiness through sense pleasure that they may attempt to gratify several or all of their senses at the same time. For example, you may simultaneously be watching TV, listening to the radio, munching potato chips, sipping beer, and smoking a cigarette. Perhaps you may have your arm around the shoulders of your girlfriend or boyfriend. You may also have a magazine at your side, which you look at during commercials. You try to fill up every sense; yet still you’re not satisfied; still you want something more.
You can eat so much food that your belly aches—yet you still want more! Even though your belly is filled to the point of physical pain, you, the self, are not full; you still desire to consume more. The fact that the body can be full or satisfied while you still feel empty is evidence that the body is not you.
Most of us—whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, civilized or uncivilized—are struggling to enjoy our senses. This is due to false identification with the body.
Sense gratification does not satisfy. This is further evidence that you are not the body. No matter how much sense pleasure you have, you are still never satisfied within.
In reality, the glossy picture of the “happy rich person” that most people hold in their minds is simply an illusion. Money can buy sense gratification, but not actual happiness or satisfaction.
Material happiness is likened to trying to drink from an ocean of salty water.

Real Freedom Is Only Possible When You Understand Your True Identity

It is natural for us to want to be happy, satisfied, and free. But due to ignorance of our true identity, our natural longing becomes misdirected and leads to further bondage and unhappiness.
If you wrongly identify yourself with your body—your senses—you will erroneously conclude that you can achieve happiness through material sense gratification.
The more your senses are in control, the more you are in the position of being controlled by them, and therefore the less free you are.
We all want freedom, but real freedom is possible only if we understand our true identity.
If you know that you aren’t your senses, you won’t automatically conclude that what your senses want is what you want. You’ll know that what your senses may want may not be good for you.
If you know you’re not the body, then you will probably have deeper, more spiritual goals in life. This will make you see the desires of your senses as something to control, not succumb to. Because you’ll see your material desires as distinct from your true desires, you’ll make an attempt to curb your material desires so they don’t get in your way.
So a person's entire lifestyle can be dovetailed with his deep purpose in life. Such a person is the controller of his body, not a slave of his senses. Most people are servants of their senses and minds—they are godas (go means “senses”; das means “servant”). A bhakti yogi, however, strives to be agoswami (swami means “master,” and so goswami means “master of the senses”). A goswami is not dragged around by his senses, but instead uses his senses for his own desired purposes. Although goswami is also a title, in fact the real meaning of goswami is controller of the senses, whether one is externally with the title goswami, brahmachari, householder, or whatever.
A person who tries to be a goswami is careful not to engage in those activities that are harmful to his spiritual development. For example, he refrains from taking intoxicants (including all sorts of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and so on); from having illicit sex; from gambling; and from eating meat, fish, and eggs.
If a person engages in the process of bhakti yoga and yet continues to engage in activities that are detrimental to spiritual progress, his spiritual progress will be very slow. This does not mean that a person must be completely free of all bad habits before he can even begin the process of bhakti yoga. For example, in the Philippines, one teacher saved many young people who were addicted to heroin and other drugs by teaching them the process of bhakti yoga. It took some time before they could completely give up all drugs, but eventually they did.
Sometimes a person is still addicted to cigarette smoking or meat-eating. If he follows the process of bhakti yoga, then gradually he will be able to give up such habits. It is a question of tasting a higher taste. If a person engages in the process of bhakti yoga, he will gradually begin to taste a higher spiritual happiness, and he will be able to give up all vices naturally. After he gives up such bad habits, then his progress will be very rapid.

Ever-Increasing Material Consumption

Due to the desire for sense pleasure, people try to conquer nature but end up destroying the world.
No matter how much sensual pleasure people have, no matter how much they consume, they always want more. This endless personal craving manifests as ever increasing material consumption.
There is more than enough food, water, fuel and so on to satisfy the actual needs of everyone on the planet. But there is not enough to satisfy everyone's greed. In some parts of the world, people are dying from severe undernourishment, while in other parts of the world people are dying from obesity.

Even if it were physically possible for you to consume all the food, water, and fuel in the world, you still would not be satisfied.“ “Material food” cannot satisfy spiritual craving. Since the materialist is never satisfied, he never feels that he has had enough.

A Life Spent in the Pursuit of Sense Pleasure Is a Wasted Life

Sense pleasure, although real, is quite superficial. It comes and goes quickly. It cannot compare to the sweet taste of spiritual love.
Sense gratification is not “bad.” Sense gratification comes and goes as a natural occurrence of the senses. For example, one cannot eat without tasting. The point is that a life that is centered around sense enjoyment, that makes sense enjoyment the goal, is a wasted life.
A life spent in the pursuit of sense pleasure is a wasted life. It is like spending one’s life chasing a mirage.
For one who lives a hedonistic life, a life in which nescience is cultivated, the results are envy, anger, greed, impatience, disrespect for others, anxiety, depression, hatred, ever-increasing lust, forgetfulness, frustration, dissatisfaction, duplicity, fear of death, and so on.

For a Person Who Cultivates Wisdom, the Result Is Inner Peace

On the other hand, for a person who cultivates wisdom or true knowledge, the results are inner peace, satisfaction, patience, respect for others, freedom from duplicity, compassion, joyfulness, remembrance of his spiritual identity, freedom from the fear of death, freedom from anxiety and depression, and so on.
Removal of fear and anguish from the heart creates the experience of real freedom. Just as the suffering caused by ignorance can never be described adequately, neither can the joy born out of wisdom.
Pleasure or blissfulness is not bad. To be blissful is our natural condition. But where will we find such pleasure, such bliss? Spiritual teachers state that happiness is to be found in loving devotional service to the Absolute Whole—not in the glittering but temporary goodies of this material world.
The symptom of a full, happy person is that he is always giving. His cup is overflowing. If someone feels he has enough, then he can give to others.

How to Have a Peaceful, Progressive Society

The negative social results of a society populated primarily by hedonistic people should be obvious to anyone. A society of self-centered, animalistic people who have no other interest than their own sense enjoyment cannot be at all peaceful or progressive—either materially or spiritually.
On the other hand, the positive results of a society populated mostly by people who are serious about cultivating wisdom and spiritual understanding should be clear. If the citizens are peaceful, satisfied, respectful of others, compassionate, selfless, and so on, then society will be progressive both materially and spiritually.

Only one who can learn the process of nescience and that of transcendental knowledge side by side can transcend the influence of repeated birth and death and enjoy the full blessing of immortality.

~Sri Ishopanishad, Mantra Eleven

People cannot remain as materialistic, selfish people and have peace and harmony in the family, society, or world.


There can never be harmony if we live like animals. We cannot have the consciousness of animals and yet have the peace of humans.


For the world to be peaceful, we have to be peaceful within ourselves.