A common space for harmonic peacemakers

II: 62, 63

Chapter 2, Verses 62, 63

“Being preoccupied about sense-objects

Will attach you to sense-objects.

Grow attached, and you become addicted.

Thwart your addiction, and it turns to anger.

Be angry, and you confuse your mind.

Confuse your mind, and you forget the lessons of experience.

Forget your lessons, and you lose discernment.

Lose discernment, and you miss life’s purpose.”

Swami Shivananda:

“When people think of the beauty and the pleasant and alluring features of certain sense-objects, they become attached to them. They then regard them as being worthy of acquisition and possession and hanker after them. Then they endeavor their level best to obtain them. When this desire is frustrated by something or other, anger arises in the mind. If people put up an obstruction in the way of obtaining the desired object, they hate them, fight with them, and develop hostility towards them.”

Swami Swarupananda:

“With the arising of an obstruction, the impulse to anger throws the mind into a state of confusion, which casts a veil over the lessons of wisdom learned through past experience. Thus deprived of their moral standard, they are prevented from using discernment. Failing in discernment, they act irrationally, on the impulse of passion, thus paving the way to moral death. In these two verses, Krishna traces moral degradation to those first breaths of thought that come softly and sometimes even unconsciously to the mind.”

Mahatma Gandhi:

“Craving cannot but lead to resentment, for it remains unsatisfied and unending.”

[“Craving” has a different quality than the “longing” for steady presence. The former is desire turned outward and the latter is desire turned inward, towards the source of all that is, which can be touched when the mind chatter ceases. We need to cultivate that longing to motivate us to turn that outward-going momentum inward. It is a Sattvic desire, the function of a pure Buddhi (discerning faculty). Ultimately, even Sattvic desires will get burnt up in the fire of steady wisdom.]