The Total Solution to the Total Problem.21 - Swami Krishnananda

07/04/2017.

I.
You may ask me, “Why comes this question of self-control in the attempt of man to solve this peculiar difficulty that you are proposing before us?” Self-control is also something not easy to understand. It is not easy to understand because one cannot easily know what the self is. What do we mean by self-control? Which self are we going to control?

A hundred ideas are generally poured upon a poor student by a multitude of teachers as to what self-control means because there are a hundred notions of self, and therefore, there can be a hundred methods of self-control. While all these are praiseworthy and to be certified as perhaps necessary under certain given conditions, the final stamp of its veracity and validity can be had only when the vital spring of man’s existence is touched.

II.
I am not here to discourse upon any philosophical theme as to the nature of the Self of man or the spiritual roots of mankind as a whole, but my intention in these few words is only to highlight the inviolable necessity on the part of anyone who would like to be a real human being to be restrained in his passions, by which I mean the vehement expressions of any one of the sense organs – more so, the impulses of the mind.

Any impulse of the psyche or of the sense organs, any urge of the understanding or even the intellect which would defy there being such a thing called a harmonious relationship among the things in the world would be a counter-bolt dealt at the very root of a sincere attempt on the part of one who seeks a solution to the problems of life. One has to sit at the feet of a great Master for a few years even to understand what real self-control is. We sit at the feet of pundits and learned people,

Sanskrit scholars, to study grammar and the grammatical meaning of the scriptures, the phonetic and the linguistic interpretation of the writings of the Masters. We have very learned people indeed. This will not suffice. The world has seen many learned people, but it is the same world even today. It is perhaps not showing any signs of being different. What is required of us today is, therefore, a sincerity in the eyes of reality, and not merely before one’s political or official boss. That will not suffice, though that also is a part of this higher obedience.

To be continued ...