enemy | Radhanath Swami | Marriage and Parenting Advice

The greatest enemy of all

The recent incident where the modesty of a Delhi girl was brutally outraged has drawn lot of public attention not only in the nation but also globally. Many are crying hoarse that the judicial system metes out severe punishment to the rapists. It has become yet another issue which ‘somebody out there’ is responsible for and ‘some others’ will fight to resolve while we will sit in the cozy comforts of our house and become spectators of the ongoing volley of words and at best exchange sympathetic comments.

Do we want to be mere spectators or is there some learning that we can draw from this shocking incident and apply in our own lives and thereby change the world a little bit, for the better? We can probably use this opportunity to introspect and clean our own houses!

When a woman who had committed adultery was being stoned, Jesus Christ said ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast the first stone at her’ and one by one everyone dropped their stones. Likewise, the very fact that we live in this material world shows that all of us are sinners to some degree or the other. Such lustful propensities lie deep within us. The Bhagavad Gita claims that this ‘Lust’ is the greatest enemy of the living entity and it covers the living entity by different degrees. It is said that this lust is never satisfied and the more you feed it, the more it burns like fire.

Vedic scriptures call this material world as maithunya-āgāra or the shackles of sex life. While one enjoys sense gratification, it may be that there is some feeling of happiness, but actually that so-called feeling of happiness is the ultimate enemy of the sense enjoyer as it keeps him tied down to this miserable material existence birth after birth.

Radhanath Swami answers the question as to what the truth is? He reiterates that our true identity is that we’re eternal souls. We’re stranded like strangers in a foreign land. For the eternal souls to try to be happy with the cheap thrills with the temporary pleasures of this material existence is really an embarrassment, he says. But sometimes when a person is so intoxicated and consumed, he puts himself to do things that are so humiliating and embarrassing that he does not even know that he’s doing it. That’s the deluding potency of the material energy or maya. So, how do we get out of the shackles of this material energy? Radhanath Swami gives a simple answer. He says, all we have to do to get out of it is to choose to ‘get out of it.’

When a living entity comes in contact with the material creation, his eternal love for the Lord is transformed into lust. Service attitude is transformed into the propensity for sense enjoyment. Designations and attachments are due to our lust and desire, our wanting to lord it over the material nature. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna tells us that the senses, the mind and the intelligence are the sitting places of this lust. Through them lust covers the real knowledge of the living entity and bewilders him. Cure is also given by Lord Krishna in the Gita, He says, ‘In the very beginning curb this great symbol of sin [lust] by regulating the senses, and slay this destroyer of knowledge and self-realization.’

To bring about clarity of understanding, Radhanath Swami narrates a parallel from our scriptures how the Supreme Lord showed how this all devouring sinful enemy can be conquered through the example of lust personified Ravana.

Goddess of Fortune, Sita devi is the wife of Lord Rama and she is eternally in loving service of Lord Rama but Ravana wanted to take Sita for himself. This is called kama or lust. In Caitanya Caritamrita, a holy scripture of the Lord in which the author Krishnadas Kaviraj Goswami describes love as the natural inclination of the soul wanting to give pleasure to God. But when that natural affection for God is misplaced, we are trying to enjoy the property of God for our own selfish desire, then that love is transformed into lust. Prema or love is when our energies are placed towards God. When it is placed anywhere else, it is called Kama or lust.

So, Ravana disguised himself and stole Sita. He was so powerful that no one could defeat him, demigods were living in utter fear of Ravana and he was unconquerable. Lord Rama shows us how powerful lust really is. Everytime He cut off the heads of Ravana, another one grew. Doesn’t that sound like our own material desires? Everytime you perform some yajna or sacrifice to give up one material sinful desire, immediately another one shoots up. Those on the spiritual path know that as soon as you cut down one lusty desire, 10 more grow. It is seemingly an endless battle. Finally, Lord Rama shot His arrow into Ravana’s heart. When the arrow pierced the heart, Ravana fell to the ground.

The Lord is the only one who has this arrow. The arrow cannot be obtained by any mortal, living entity. It is the exclusive power of the Lord. That is why Lord Krishna says in the Gita, that this material energy of mine is very very difficult to overcome. But one who surrenders unto Me, I fight their battles with My own hands, I will conquer lust. I will conquer Ravana within your heart. So, when we surrender our sinful desires and
propensities to the Lord, the merciful Lord appears within our heart. Through the process of Bhakti i,e by remembering the Lord, by worshipping Him and chanting His holy names, by offering loving service unto Him, we make place for the Lord to appear within our heart and with His mighty arrows, he can shoot right into the heart of Ravana and make our sinful desires disappear forever from our hearts. That is the recommended process in the vedic scriptures.

So, let us all take this opportunity to introspect and bring out the Ravana hidden deep within each of us. Let us make a prayerful attempt to the Lord to help us by conquering this greatest enemy of all!

– Mrs. Preethi Dhiman

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Be Divinely Empowered

I’ve been maintaining a ‘Forgiveness Diary’ and every now and then I revisit it to see if I feel differently about people I’m committed to forgive but the resentments are running deeper than my resolve to forgive. Just as I was contemplating on the fact, I came across a beautiful quote which affected me deeply and has helped me change my perspective. “Heaven and Earth can never meet as long as you hold even one person outside of your heart.” from Devrah Laval, The Magic Doorway into the Divine. So, I began my journey of introspection…..

The first instinct when someone says something hurtful is 100% of the times ‘self-defense.’ Its the mother of all instincts. We tend to immediately wield our sharpest weapon against the offender and bring her down & then feel satisfied (ofcourse, at a gross level). If we’re unable to defend ourselves, the ‘hurt’ lingers on and the itchy feeling of at least detailing her all the reasons as to ‘why she is wrong,’ persists. What is worse is that it can persist life-long if we are unable to ‘give it back to her.’ Our clever mind keeps us busy by engaging itself into schemes of retaliation. At this point, you know that the set path is destructive but who can control the mind? And because you are treading a spiritual path and have read and theoretically understood that to forgive is divine, a deeper conflict emerges. ‘Am I grossly wrong in beating up my offender or in atleast making her realize she’s wrong!’ Vs ‘How do I forgive and emerge out of it unhurt.’ As the conflict rages on, you cannot seem to get it out of your mind and you activate a negative spiral of thoughts which seems to only collect negative impressions of your offender & more your mind is propelled into thinking how you were wronged, the deeper you fall into the resentment quick sand!

What can we do to overcome these strong negative thoughts? How can we relinquish ourselves from feelings conjured up by other’s acts? It set me think on deeper aspects of other’s behavior and motives. Did my offender know that what she said could hurt me deeply? What prompted her to behave as such? Why do I have such an urge to be understood rightly, every time?

Stephen R Covey has laid out seven habits of highly effective people & I’ve lived a part of my life following it sincerely and one of the habits he mentions is ‘to seek first to understand and then to be understood.’ So, I choose to apply it in this analysis because Covey says that we’re in a habit of deciding prematurely what the other person means before he/she finishes communicating. If you’re like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And in doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you’re listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely because most people listen with the intent to reply & not with the intent to understand. He calls it ‘autobiographical response.’

So, I decided to understand my offender first. Well, it was not an easy decision. It meant that I had to keep my ‘hurt’ aside and wear an objective hat, so that I’m not blinded by my own emotions. On can adopt various available techniques to bring about an objective frame of reference in the conscious realm either through meditative yoga, mantra chanting, breathing exercises or any other means of centering yourself and calming down your mind.

In a calm state of mind when there was possibility for clarity to emerge & objectivity to set in, I attempted to ‘understand’ the words of my offender. As I had drifted deep into this exercise, I realized that it had already provided me relief from the emotional burden (of negative thoughts) that I had been carrying all along. When we seek peace and clarity, we are ultimately creating the space within ourselves for alternative possibilities and healing. Without which, we will remain in a never-ending cycle of unnecessary pain and suffering. As we endeavor to sincerely understand the other person, it opens up the thus far unknown realm of what the other person’s state of mind is and gives us insight into what the other person is feeling & this shift in focus automatically puts us at ease on our own emotional front. If we are successful to break the chain of negative thoughts that
engulf us all the time and are able to bring our consciousness upto this point of peace and clarity, we become divinely empowered to see the ‘Truth,’ which most of the time is covered as we cover ourselves up with the blanket of our own emotions. I understood that to ‘hurt me’ was not the ‘real intention’ of my offender but she was acting on her primal instinct of ‘protecting’ her own sense of self (which is described as false-ego) under the cover of her blinds.

This is how we all act, unwittingly–each precious day of our life–under the spell of our false sense of self, pulling up our cover of emotions, wielding it with the hope that it will protect us, but it actually blinds us from the ‘Truth’ and what’s worse, we expect the other person to understand and respect our emotions, all the while not attempting to understand the other person’s state of mind or emotional being. But when you choose to understand the other person & his action, then you break the negative chain of thoughts and allow something wonderful to happen–the ability to see the ‘Truth,’ then, you have the healing choice of ‘Forgiving’ your offender & thereby ‘Healing’ your hurt. Dear friends, please understand that the only way to permanently heal your hurt is through ‘forgiveness’ and when we are able to truly forgive someone else, the person who benefits the most is ‘you!’ Remember, when we choose to crossover to the other side by attempting forgiveness, we are seeding new impressions that can form new habits. When we collect enough ‘impressions’ through ‘forgiving’ it automatically forms a new habit which means what was an endeavor earlier, now comes easily and naturally to us.

Radhanath Swami says ‘Mind is ones biggest enemy when uncontrolled, but majority of people put full faith on their enemy!’ He further elaborates that there can be lasting peace and happiness only if you keep your mind in captivity.

– Mrs. Preethi Dhiman

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