SELF CONTROL

                                                                      

Uninhibited freedom or liberty is always dangerous! It leads to destruction and downfall. While Liberty is one’s birth right, and has to be cherished, if it is not kept in check or curtailed to an extent, it leads to many troubles and difficulties. The tendency in modern days is to assert one’s freedom too much. Boys want to be independent of their parents. Girls and women vociferously assert their freedom. None can criticize them! They say wearing fashionable and western dress is their birth right! They denounce others who ask them to cover themselves properly with decorum. When they are advised not to go out late at night, they retort  saying that it is an affront to their freedom of action! In every sphere of life they compete with man and say that they are being discriminated against! Modern women are very touchy, sensitive, and mostly well educated.  They stand on their own legs and are embodiment of self confidence as well as arrogance sometimes!

         While discussing this aspect, it is significant to understand that liberty is not a personal affair but a social contract. Your liberty has an impact on the liberty of the other person. Your actions can affect others since they too have their liberty. You cannot sing or bawl out at dead of night disturbing their liberty to sleep calmly. There are many smaller but very important things where mutual liberties of people clash. In short you have to curtail your liberty to enjoy and allow others to enjoy it! Otherwise there will be confusion and chaos in society! People cannot act and speak according to their whims and fancies ignoring their effect on others and society! Recent charges of ‘intolerance’ and the speeches of a few students at JNU have highlighted the importance of self control.

         Thus SELF CONTROL is a cardinal virtue for the progress of Man. “A bullock that does not yield to the yoke, a horse that resists the reins, a car without a brake and a person who knows no self control are all equally heading towards a disaster.”  Says Bhagawan Sri Sri Sathya Sai Baba. How ttrue the statement is! If the bullock does not obey the yoke it will go astray and get appropriate whip lashes from its master! The horse that resists the reins leads the rider to his downfall and its own injury !There is no need to describe what happens when you drive a car without a brake. It ,leads to accident and death! A person without SELF CONTROL is surely treading the dangerous path of destruction!

         The Vedas and the Upanishads have extolled the virtue of SELF CONTROL! Man is tempted by the illusory effect of Maya and considers  the good as bad, right as wrong, desirable as undesirable, the undesirable as desirable! The “arishadvargas”—the inner enemies prod him to commit mistakes. Anger,desire, lust and greediness have control over him and lead to his sorrow and agony! According to  ‘Kenopanishad’ the SELF is similar to the lord of the chariot and the body his chariot! Intellect is the charioteer and the mind constitutes reins that control! The senses are the horses and the object of the  senses is their road! Man has to take advantage of his intellect or ‘Buddhi’ and control the senses with the reins of his MIND! In other words he should have SELF CONTROL by restricting the galloping senses leading him to ruin!

           It is difficult for ordinary man who is tossed in the shoreless sea of samsara to attain SELF CONTROL.  He is lured by many ephemeral and transitory things in life and is easily diverted.  SELF CONTROL has eluded even the Devas and very great Maharshis  whom we respect and honor today! Indra was undone by his lust for Ahalya, the spouse of the Sage Gauthama! He had to lose his manliness on account of his immoral act of seducing Ahalya  in the guise of of her husband sage gauthama!We have another illu4tration in the renowned sage Viswamitra who fell for the bewitching beauty of Menaka the heavenly dancer! Ravana, the great devotee of Lord Siva who shook Mount Kailash and mastered the Sama Veda had to bite the dust due to the abject desire to marry Sita! King Yayati is a strange example who, unable to get satiated  with conjugal bliss, exchanged his old age with his son’s youth! King Nahusha, about to become the king of heaven, lost his chance because of his anger! He prodded the sages carrying him on the palanquin by his feet and was cursed  to drop down as a snake! He had to bear the ignominy as a python for long! Let us realize the need and significance of SELF CONTROL and cultivate it for our own and other's good!