The End of Sorrow

by Eknath Easwaran

  Not only in the accumulation of money, but in the accumulation of every material thing, we are likely to get caught unless we have the capacity for detachment. We know people, for example, who give much of their love to their wardrobe. I have seen one of those wardrobes – countless pairs of shoes to match the colors of the season, and numberless dresses and hats. I could not see how that lady would have any time for meditation, and when I was told she didn’t meditate, I said, “No wonder.” I have seen very well-dressed women, both here and in India, having a small, select wardrobe that freed them from spending hours weighing the pros and cons of particular colors and hemlines. They have a small closet where they can walk in and come out well dressed without becoming prey to the whims and fancies of some fashion expert in Europe. Even to wear clothes well, we must be detached. To keep our hair in the best condition, we have to be detached; otherwise we are likely to be caught in fads and fancies.

  Arjuna must now be completely overwhelmed. I can imagine his agreeing, “Without detachment, you can’t do anything in life.” And here, as elsewhere, when Sri Krishna throws a flood of light on something in his life, I imagine Arjuna saying “That’s right!” just as you and I would say it.

  In this verse Sri Krishna uses the very strong word kama which, in general, means keeping our eyes only on what will serve our personal ends, what will satisfy our needs to the exclusion of the rights and needs of others. Unfortunately, there is no human being who, once he develops this sense of ‘I and mine’ by dwelling upon himself, can remain sensitive to the needs of others. Once we get caught in money, everywhere we go there is a dollar sign painted on our pupils. Everywhere we see money. We see a beautiful landscape and instead of wanting to write a poem about it, or paint a picture of it, or just enjoy it, we say, “If it could only be subdivided, developed, and rented out, it would bring in millions of dollars for us.” This is just what is now happening in some of the most beautiful areas of our state of California.

  Sri Krishna’s teaching can be translated into practice every day by remembering that everything belongs to the Lord. The basis of all ecology is the awareness that the whole world belongs to the Lord. We are just transients or, if you prefer, guests who refuse to move out. The Lord doesn’t expect any rent; he doesn’t expect any cleaning deposit. All that he asks is that we please don’t tear up the curtains, don’t cut up the carpets, don’t pull away the pillars, and keep the house reasonably tidy, which is the least any landlord will ask of us.

  Even this body doesn’t belong to us, but has been given to us to serve others; therefore, we cannot afford to do whatever we like with it, to give it cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, or too much food. The body is really like a rented car. As we come into the cosmos, we line up and say, “I would like to have a body.” We specify the color and the horsepower, and the Lord, whose models are infinite, says, “You’ve got it.” He trusts us; we look so honest and conscientious that he doesn’t take any deposit; he doesn’t even ask for references. But when we return it at the end of the journey, there is no battery, there are only two wheels, there is only one windshield wiper, and the hood is missing. To understand this, one doesn’t have to be very philosophical; one can be very practical. Ordinary courtesy requires that when someone has very graciously lent us a body, we should use it for a good purpose and return it in good condition.

  When we talk about the use of tobacco, alcohol, and drugs, it is not just a personal matter; the owner also has a say in it. The Lord has given this body to us on trust, and we shouldn’t betray his trust under any circumstances. In the early days, when our selfish desires and sense cravings may not be very strong, we may say, “We will take it out for a small detour on a rough road. After all, it is only a couple of miles. We will come back and not go there again.” Once we have taken our car on a detour of a couple of miles, the next time we want to take it three miles, four miles, and finally, taking it further and further from the main road, we don’t know how to get back.

  In yielding to most compulsions, like drugs, this is unfortunately what happens. No one wants to be a victim; no one wants to lose his liberty. But we know from many, many incidents every day in the Bay Area alone that there comes a time when in order to maintain, for example, a heroin habit, people rob and even kill.

  This is the application of the simple word kama. The Lord warns Arjuna never to lose his vigilance against the blandishments of the desire for selfish satisfaction, whether it is the craving of the senses or the urge to enforce self-will on those around. Little by little, Sri Krishna says, this will become his fiercest enemy; any time he yields to a selfish desire, he is actually strengthening his enemy.

  40. Selfish desire is said to be found in the senses, mind, and intellect, misleading them and burying the understanding in delusion.

  Sri Krishna now tells us where Kama lives. Just as a wealthy person may have a house in London, a manor in Yorkshire, and a villa in the south of France, similarly Kama has three houses – indriya, manas, and buddhi. His favorite house is indriya,the five senses, where he is usually to be found. He spends most of the year in the eye, in the ear, and of course on the palate. If we want to see Kama, we do not have to look very far at mealtime to see which is his favorite room.

  Kama’s second home is manas, the mind, where he lives during the turbulent periods. Though the word kama is usually applied on the sensory level, and especially to sexual desire, it can also refer to the lust for power, which is one of the most terrible urges in the human being. By the side of the lust for power, the cravings of the palate are insignificant. The control of the palate is not a serious problem. Yielding to the senses does not usually harm others. It is the lust for power that in our modern age is responsible for so much misery all over the world. In order to guard ourselves against competition and turmoil, whether in international politics or in the home, we must remember the needs of those around us and forget our personal needs for power and prestige.

  Buddhi, the intellect, is Kama’s third home. Even though we usually do not associate the intellect with selfish desire, we cannot help agreeing with Sri Krishna if we examine many of the books published today. Good books are rare, and to have a really good library, a few shelves are all we need. When I was still on my campus in India, I was convinced, like many professors, that if the Lord was to be found anywhere, it was in the lower stacks of the library. But now – just as when I go into a big department store, I can say, “How many things I don’t need! How many expensive suits I don’t want!” – when I enter a big library I say, “What tomes I don’t have to read again! What folios I will never open!” This feeling of freedom will come to all of us when we realize, in the depths of our meditation, that all wisdom lies within.

  Even to use the intellect wisely, we must be detached from it. The communication gap between the older and younger generations is caused mostly by our identifying ourselves with our opinions. We all can render a great service by listening to opposing opinions without agitation, discourtesy, or violence, and by offering our opinions not as nonnegotiable demands but as calm, courteous statements. Gandhi could listen to opposing views with concentration, calmness, and respect, which would enable his opponent to ask for his views also. Gandhi showed the world that we can state our case well in simple, gentle, and respectful language. It is the person with a weak argument who tries to rely on violent or obscene language.

  When most of us say “True! Absolutely right!” the translation is “Just what I think!” At my university in India, I would emphasize to my classes not to make marginal comments in library books. On one occasion I found, in delicate feminine handwriting, “How true!” As I recognized the handwriting, I went to the girl, sat by her and said, “My dear, what do you mean by ‘How true!’” Immediately she said, “This is exactly what I think.”

  Even though we may use courteous phrases like “apparently” or “to the best of my knowledge,” underneath we are saying our statements are completely, irrevocably true. If we real
ly mean “to the best of my knowledge” – or as I like to say, “to the best of my ignorance” – there would be no agitation. Today I read a penetrating anecdote from the meditation notebook of a student in our university extension class. She and her husband were having a heated discussion. When the situation was almost out of control, she said, “My course instructor says we are not arguing about opinions or philosophies; we are just trying to impose our self-will on each other.” Even in a moment of heat, when patience is wearing thin, it is good to remind ourselves that it is not a philosophical dispute, it is not a question of principles; it is just your self-will against mine. If we can remember this, we will be more courteous, more lenient, and not condemn views different from ours or use violence to express our disapproval.

  When the senses have come under our control and Kama has been evicted from his first home, he moves with all his luggage to the mind, his second line of defense. Evict him there too, and you will find him in the intellect, where he is so strongly barricaded he can be thrown out only with great difficulty.

  41. Fight with all your strength, O Bharata; controlling your senses, attack your enemy directly, who is the destroyer of knowledge and realization.

  We begin our conquest of Kama by controlling the senses, especially the palate, which is very much like training a puppy. Today, as we were walking around Lake Merritt, we saw an Alsatian being trained by a lady who was tugging at his leash, giving him angry looks, and using strong language. Knowing something about the dog’s point of view, I told my wife that I had easily trained my own dogs just by loving them, being patient with them, and giving them my appreciation when they obeyed. When we went to the circus some time ago, we saw a group of dogs who were really in love with their trainer, a girl. After every performance they would leap into her arms, and she hugged them and talked baby language to them. Even the really big dogs would act like little pups, playing up to her. In this way, little by little, we can train the senses if we have a deep desire to bring them under control and a sense of artistry that prevents us from being too austere or over-indulgent.

  Sri Krishna tells us through Arjuna to put to death this greed for personal pleasure, profit, prestige, and power. It is our worst enemy, which prevents us from living in joy and security and attaining spiritual wisdom.

  In the Ramayana, this enemy is personified as Ravana, the ten-headed one. Rama, the desire for selfless service, and Ravana, the desire for selfish satisfaction, both exist within us. When Rama faces Ravana on the battlefield, he must sever all ten heads of his enemy at once, which is how we must slay the selfish ‘I,’ the only barrier between us and the Lord. In our own daily life we begin the conquest of Ravana by keeping the happiness of those around us first and ours last.

  42. The senses are said to be higher than the body, the mind higher than the senses; above the mind is the intellect, and above the intellect is the Atman.

  Here we have a simple hierarchy of the various members composing the human individual. We not only have a family at home; each of us is himself a family, whose members are the body, senses, mind, and intellect, who seldom pay any respect to the advice of the head, the Atman. Sometimes in meditation the Atman says, “Boys, let’s all get together and think one thought on the Lord.” Immediately the body goes to sleep; that is his way of meditation. He says, “This is good for me. In this I find security,” and the Atman really doesn’t know what to do. Then the palate says, “I am going out for a quick one.” The mind begins to re-enact a quarrel which everyone else has forgotten, saying, “I don’t want to live in the present; I want to re-enact a drama that took place five years ago in which my girlfriend gave me my hat.” The intellect, supposedly the most cultured member of the group, says, “Nobody listens to my opinions.” Finally the Atman says, “I guess we’d better wait for another incarnation to get these boys together,” and we just throw up our hands.

  We can become united within only by training these rebels to act in harmony with the Atman through a total discipline based on the practice of meditation. We train the body by giving it the right exercise and food. The senses are trained through discriminating restraint. The Gita will tell us that we can poison ourselves not only through our mouth, but through our eyes and ears. In this respect, we can do our children a great service by guiding them in the movies they go to, the television programs they watch, and the books they read. We should remember that children do not know what to read and what not to read. It is the duty of the parents to educate their tastes gradually by giving them the right books and then, when they are older, leaving them to make their own choice.

  Just as the body and senses can be trained and made to act in harmony with the Atman, the mind and intellect can also be trained. We train the mind by learning to transform negative emotions into positive ones, ill will into goodwill, hatred into love. To train the intellect, we must learn to be detached from our opinions. Even to have sound intellectual knowledge, we have to be, in a certain measure, detached from the intellect. In using the word “objective,” a favorite term in academic circles, we should remember that we cannot be objective as long as we identify ourselves with our opinions.

  It is good to respect the opinions of the opposite camp and of the older generation. One day our children are going to look upon our opinions as rather old-fogyish. When we are looking upon ourselves as the avant garde, the spearhead of radicalism and revolution, we should remember that our grandchildren one day are going to point us out with “Here comes the rear guard, bringing up reaction.” Often those who are fanatically attached to their opinions come with the passage of time to be just as fanatically attached to the opposite views. One could write a comedy, if it were not so macabre, about how radicals become reactionaries in their old age. But if we can have respect for opposing opinions now, later on also, whatever time or circumstance may bring, we will have the same tolerance. Even in the evening of our life, we will be able to listen to the views of our grandchildren and say, “There is something in what you say.”

  No problem is insoluble if we are prepared to sit down and listen affectionately and respectfully to what the other person has to say. This is true not only in the home and on the campus but in areas of international friction as well. As Winston Churchill put it, “It is better to jaw, jaw, jaw than war, war, war.” In communicating with the enemy, Gandhi was really at his best. There was a very important political figure in India who opposed every move Gandhi made. It was said that he had a problem for every solution that Gandhiji brought forth, but even with him, Gandhi was loving, respectful, yet completely clear in elucidating his own point of view.

  43. Thus, knowing that which is supreme, let the Atman rule the ego; use your mighty arms to slay the fierce enemy that is selfish desire.

  If all our faculties do not listen completely to the Atman, there is division, conflict, and despair; there can never be joy. Meditation is a practical discipline for bringing under control these rebels who try to destroy the unity of the individual. Drawing upon the power released in meditation, we can train the body, senses, mind, and intellect to work in perfect harmony, until we finally go beyond these to realize the Atman within.

  This transformation requires enormous perseverance and, as Gandhiji would point out, the infinite patience of a person trying to empty the sea with a cup. But even here people differ, especially at the outset. There are a few rare people in every country, every age, who require only a minimum of work to make themselves selfless. These people are like our meditation hall, called Shanti, which is solid and well built. When we first moved to the ashram, it required only reroofing to make it suitable for our use. For the vast majority of us, however, the appropriate simile is the men’s dormitory. There we had to rebuild the foundations completely. It required an enormous amount of work, a good deal of equipment, and a lot of thinking on the part of the authorities before they could give their approval. Most of us have to change completely the foundations of our lives, which are at present based up
on the belief that by following personal profit, pleasure, and prestige we can build a personality that is beautiful and loving.

  In the deeper stages of meditation, we make the salutary discovery that the ego is a crashing bore. We all know how unpleasant it can be to associate with people who dwell upon themselves. Nobody wants our selfishness, including us. Do not try to show your ego to anybody; no one wants to look at it. Do not talk about it; nobody wants to hear about it. Whatever our past may have been, if we can dissolve the ego, we shall find this is all we need to do to become radiantly beautiful, perennially wise, and tireless in our service of those around us.

  The Lord concludes the third chapter with this resounding verse, in which he tells Arjuna: “Slay all that is selfish in you. Extinguish your ego completely.” This is exactly what the word nirvana means: nir, ‘out’; vana, ‘to blow.’ Blow out all that is selfish in you, extinguish all that is separate in you, and you will realize the Atman, the indivisible unity of all life.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Wisdom in Action

  SRI KRISHNA

  1. I told this eternal secret to Vivasvat. Vivasvat instructed Manu, and Manu instructed Ikshvaku.

  This verse is very much in the traditional scriptural style, almost like the Old Testament narratives where A begat B, B begat C, C begat D. But we should not get bored; they will tell us in their own way what finally happened.

  When Sri Krishna says, “I told this eternal secret to Vivasvat,” he means that he inspired Vivasvat to start meditating, to restrain the senses, to put other people first, and to discover the Lord within. Vivasvat, having traveled this way, instructed Manu in meditation and the allied disciplines, and he too discovered the Lord within himself. Manu immediately ran after another man, called Ikshvaku, and instructed him to meditate and attain Self-realization also.