इन्द्रियाणां हि चरतां यन्मनोऽनुविधीयते |
तदस्य हरति प्रज्ञां वायुर्नावमिवाम्भसि || 67||
indriyāṇāṁ hi charatāṁ yan mano ’nuvidhīyate
tadasya harati prajñāṁ vāyur nāvam ivāmbhasi
indriyāṇām—of the senses; hi—indeed; charatām—roaming; yat—which; manaḥ—the mind; anuvidhīyate—becomes constantly engaged; tat—that; asya—of that; harati—carries away; prajñām—intellect; vāyuḥ—wind; nāvam—boat; iva—as; ambhasi—on the water
Translation:
As a strong wind sweeps away a boat on the water, even one of the senses on which the mind focuses can carry away the discrimination.
Commentary:
The seeker should have dispassion towards sense objects like color, sound, form, etc. If the senses are allowed freely to wander in the wilderness of the objective world, there is a great danger. The mind functions through the senses which are constantly in contact with material objects. The mind by its own impurities prompts the senses to seek enjoyment in the objective world. The mind follows the senses and is carried away in various ways. A simile is used to illustrate the idea. The gale carries away the ship on the waters. The ship may capsize by the gale or otherwise be damaged and lost. Likewise, the mind is driven away from Atma and wrecked on the rocks of sensual pleasures. Even a single sense-organ is capable of pulling away the mind from the spiritual goal. If all the senses rebel, what should be the fate of the man?
Therefore the mind should be trained to think of the Self and to discriminate between the real and the unreal. If the mind is trained in this way, it can resist the temptation caused by the senses. Otherwise, the mind runs after the senses. The eye sees an attractive object and the mind thinks of it. The power of discrimination is lost. When the intellect yields to the glamour of the mind, man becomes a slave to the material world. So the seeker should carefully preserve his power of discrimination and spiritual attitude, by shutting out the objective world as much as possible. We come across instances of spiritual aspirants suddenly lapsing into sense-pleasures and ruining their chances of ultimate victory. By some amount of practice, they acquire a little steadiness of mind and experience a little peace, but then, by their own negligence, they allow the senses to touch some material object, and the whole process of degradation starts. The mind is like a rubber ball. If the ball is let down on the top of the staircase, it rolls down step by step till it falls on the ground. The seeker therefore should not relax his vigilance even for a moment till the final goal is reached.
Swami Vivekananda Says —
Whensoever a man desireth anything inordinately, he becometh presently disquieted in himself.[Source]
harati and prajñām are the keywords here. Prajñā, we saw, is steady intelligence. The Knowledge ‘I am the Self’ is prajñā. “prajñānam is Brahman,” says the Upanishad. Pure Awareness, which is the import of the ‘I’, is prajñā. In the process of Self-inquiry, the ‘I’ is segregated from the body, senses, prāṇa, mind and intellect and is experienced as pure Awareness. This is prajñā. Whenever we indulge in body-based sensory pleasures, we affirm to ourselves, ‘I am the body’. How is it possible for the body-less Awareness to stay in this prison house of contradictory knowledge? When the mind follows the senses and starts collecting sensory rubbish through them, it loses its prāṇa-śakti—vitality—to meditate and becomes dull. Very soon, it abducts the awareness of the Self accrued through meditation. Here, the prajñā has not become steady. ….
…..There is a point to be noted here. When the mind follows the senses, it affects the intellect. Here the senses are not said to be the cause of the fall of the intellect; but the mind is. This is because it is the mind that acts through the senses, and it is subtler than the senses. Although the mind is inferior to the intellect, the blemishes of the mind will certainly influence the intellect. The intellect too follows the mind, falls to the plane of the senses, and gets scattered in the objects. This is how the fall occurs—the senses affect the mind, and the mind affects the intellect. Thus, if the intellect fails to steer the mind as a good helmsman would, the mind will get tossed about in all the tidal waves that arise in the ocean of life. Such a mind will create havoc in the sensory plane.
(Source: Srimad Bhagavad Gita – Elixir of Eternal Wisdom)
Question: What is the harm if the senses and the mind wander through worldly objects?
Answer: They destroy the discrimination, spirituality, and Godliness of the aspirant.
