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A man should regard his customary duties as his dharma and should perform them without any idea of the fulfil- ment of any of his own desires. When a man performs karma from a sense of disinterested duty, his karma is no longer a bondage to him. The Gita does not, on the one hand, follow the old karma- ideal, that one should perform sacrifices in order to secure earthly and heavenly advantages, nor does it follow, on the other hand, the ideal of the Vedanta or of other systems of philosophy that require us to abandon our desires and control our passions with a view to cleansing the mind entirely of impurities, so as to transcend the sphere of duties and realize the wisdom of the oneness of the spirit. The Gita holds that a man should attain the true wisdom, purge his mind of all its desires, but at the same time perform his customary duties and be faithful to his own dharma. There should be no impelling force other than regard and reverence for his own inner law of duty with reference to his own dharma of conventional and customary practices or the duties prescribed by the sastra. Sense-control in the Gita. The uncontrollability of the senses was realized in the Katha Upanisad, where the senses are compared with horses. The Gita says that, when the mind is led on by fleeting sense-attractions, the man loses all his wisdom, just as a boat swings to and fro in deep waters in a strong gale. Even in the case of the wise XIV] Sense-control in the Gita 489 man, in spite of his efforts to keep himself steady, the troubled senses might lead the mind astray. By continually brooding over sense-objects one becomes attached to them; out of such attach- ments there arise desires, out of desires there arises anger, out of anger blindness of passions, through such blindness there is lapse of memory, by such lapse of memory a man’s intelligence is destroyed, and as a result of that he himself is destroyed!. Man is naturally inclined towards the path of evil, and in spite of his efforts to restrain himself he tends towards the downward path. Each particular sense has its own specific attachments and antipathies, and attachment (raga) and antipathy are the two enemies. The Gita again and again proclaims the evil effects of desires and attachments (kama), anger (krodha) and greed (lobha) as the three gates of Hell, being that which veils wisdom as smoke veils fire, as impurities sully a mirror or as the foetus is covered by the womb?. Arjuna is made to refer to Krsna the difficulty of controlling the senses. Thus he says, “My mind, O Krsna, is violent, troubied and changeful; it is as difficult to control it as it is to control the winds*.” True yoga can never be attained unless and until the senses are controlled. The Pali work Dhamma-pada is also filled with similar ideas regarding the control of attachments and anger. Thus it says, “‘He has abused me, beaten me, worsted me, robbed me—those who dwell not upon such thoughts are freed from hate. Never does hatred cease by hating, but hatred ceases by love; this is the ancient law....As the wind brings down a weak tree, so Mara overwhelms him who lives looking for pleasures, has his senses uncontrolled, or is immoderate in his food, slothful and effeminate. ...As rain breaks through an ill-thatched house, so passion will break through an undisciplined mind*.” Again, speaking of mind, it says, ‘‘ As an arrow-maker levels his arrow, so a wise man levels his trembling, unsteady mind, which it is difficult to guard and hold back....Let the wise man guard his mind, incomprehensible, subtle, capricious though it is. Blessed is the guarded mind?.” Again, ‘‘Not nakedness, nor matted hair, not dirt, nor fastings, not lying on earth, nor ashes, nor ascetic postures, none of these things purify a man who is not free from desires®.” Again, “From 1 Gitd, 11. 60, 62, 63. 2 Ibid. 111. 34, 37-393 XVI. 21. AU GK. p 4 Dhamma-pada (Poona, 1923), I. 4, 5, 7, 13- 5 Ibid. 111. 36, 38. 8 Tbid. X. 141. 490 The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita [cH. attachment (piyato) comes grief, from attachment comes fear; he who is free from attachment knows neither grief nor fear. From affection (pemato) come grief and fear. He who is free from affection knows neither grief nor fear. From lust (ratz) come grief and fear. He who is free from affection knows neither grief nor fear. From lust (kama) come grief and fear. He who is free from lust knows neither grief nor fear. From desire (tanha) come grief and fear. He who is free from desire knows neither grief nor fear?.”’ It is clear from the above that both the Gita and the Dhamma- pada praise sense-control and consider desires, attachments, anger and grief as great enemies. But the treatment of the Gita differs from that of the Dhamma-pada in this, that, while in the Dhamma- pada there is a course of separate lessons or moral instructions on diverse subjects, the Gita deals with sense-control as a means to the attainment of peace, contentment and desirelessness, which enables a man to dedicate all his actions to God and follow the conventional courses of duties without looking for anything in them for himself. The Git@ knows that the senses, mind and intellect are the seats of all attachments and antipathies, and that it is through the senses and the mind that these can stupefy a man and make his knowledge blind?. All the sense-affections of cold and heat, pleasure and sorrow, are mere changes of our sensibility, are mere touches of feeling which are transitory and should therefore be quietly borne®. It is only by controlling the senses that the demon of desire, which distorts all ordinary and philosophic knowledge, can be destroyed. But it is very hard to stifle this demon of desire, which always appears in new forms. It is only when a man can realize within himself the great being which transcends our intellect that he can control his lower self with his higher self and uproot his desires. The self is its own friend as well as its own foe, and one should always try to uplift oneself and not allow oneself to sink down. The chief aim of all sense-control is to make a man’s thoughts steady, so that he can link himself up in communion with God?. The senses in the Gita are regarded as drawing the mind along with them. The senses are continually changing and fleeting, and they make the mind also changeful and fleeting; and, as a result of 1 Dhamma-pada, xvi. 212-216. 2 Gita, ut. 40. Sr lhtda ite tac 4 Ibid. 11. 61; 111. 41, 433 VI. 5, 6. XIV] Sense-control in the Gita 4g! that, the mind, like a boat at sea before a strong wind, is driven to and fro, and steadiness of thought and wisdom (prajfia) are destroyed. The word prajfia is used in the Gita in the sense of thought or wisdom or mental inclinations in general. It is used in.a more or less similar sense in the Brhad-aranyaka Upanisad, Iv. 4. 21, and in a somewhat different sense in the Mandikya Upanisad, 7. But the sense in which Patafijali uses the word is entirely different from that in which it is used in the Gita or the Upanisads. Patafijali uses the word in the technical sense of a specific type of mystical cognition arising out of the steady fixing of the mind on an object, and speaks of seven stages of such prajna corresponding to the stages of yoga ascension. Praja in the Gita means, as has just been said, thought or mental inclination. It does not mean j#ana, or ordinary cognition, or vijfidna as higher wisdom; it means knowledge in its volitional aspect. It is not the kriyakhya- jnana, as moral discipline of yama, niyama, etc., of the Pafica-ratra work Fayakhya-samlita. It means an intellectual outlook, as in- tegrally connected with, and determining, the mental bent or inclination. When the mind follows the mad dance of the senses after their objects, the intellectual background of the mind deter- mining its direction, the prajfia is also upset. Unless the prajna is fixed, the mind cannot proceed undisturbed in its prescribed fixed course. So the central object of controlling the senses is the securing of the steadiness of this prajfa (vase hi yasyendriyam tasya prajna pratisthita—t1. 57). Praja and dhi are two words which seem to be in the Gita synonymous, and they both mean mental inclination. This mental inclination probably involves both an intellectual outlook, and a corresponding volitional tendency. Sense-control makes this prajfa steady, and the Gita abounds in praise of the sthita-prajfia and sthita-dhi, i.e. of one who has mental inclination or thoughts fixed and steady?. Sense-attach- ments are formed by continual association with sense-objects, and attachment begets desire, desire begets anger, and so on. Thus all the vices spring from sense-attachments. And the person who indulges in sense-gratifications is rushed along by the passions. So, just as a tortoise collects within itself all its limbs, so the person who restrains his senses from the sense-objects has his mind steady and fixed. The direct result of sense-control is thus steadiness of will; and of mental inclinations or mind (prajfa). 1 11. 54-56. 492 The Philosophy of the Bhagavad-gita [cH. The person who has his prajfa fixed is not troubled in sorrows and is not eager to gain pleasures, he has no attachment, no fear and no anger!. He is indifferent in prosperity and in adversity and neither desires anything nor shuns anything”. He alone can obtain peace who, like the sea receiving all the rivers in it, absorbs all his desires within himself; not so the man who is always busy in satisfying his desires. The man who has given up all his desires and is unattached to anything is not bound to anything, has no vanity and attains true peace.