The Inner World- Swami Krishnananda

All desire is a tendency to union with externals.  And this external may be a physical object or psychological condition.  Physical objects constitute the usual attractions of sense, we may say, on the animal level.  We should not forget that man has also the animal in him, though kept in check due to social restrictions and one's own egoistic ambitions which temporarily forget the requisitions of the senses. But this, the egoistic level, is often far more weighty than the sensory, at least in a class of people whom we term the intelligentsia, though this weight is outweighed by the sense-urge when the individual is not in the good books of society or is cast out as an unwanted element or is disregarded for some reason. Those who always live in social circumstances and wind round themselves some sort of prestige - you may call it false, if you like - develop an exteriorized self and adore it as the real one.  Others who are mostly accustomed to solitary life have a chance of confining themselves to the voices of the within, whether this within is the sense-world or the spiritual.  This is why spiritual seekers, ascetics, hermits and the like, have, in the pursuit of the higher ideal of the Sprit, to face the dangers of the downward pulls of sense on being presented with the least opportunity for their manifestation.  And this may be due to lack of vigilance, - remember, no one can be always vigilant throughout one's life, and there are moments of slackness of watch even in the most powerful aspirants of the religious Ideal, - or the excessive impetuosity with which the sense-objects reveal their attractive natures.  The ego has, generally, no meaning when it is not associated with society to offer it adulations, though, very rarely it can pronounce grand judgments on itself, even when it is alone, sheerly by imagination of the extent of its achievements.  But, the senses do not require social approbation or patting; they are happy even if no one would know them.  In fact they hate being known to others.  Their essence is a selfishness of the narrowest kind, restricted to the personality or the individuality alone.  Animals do not want praise from others;  they are satisfied if their senses are satisfied. And the animal man, who is the sensual man, needs no society for his delights.  He would rather wish that the society know not his enjoyments.

©  The Divine Life Society, October 2001.  Reprinted with permission.

<< Back