Swami Yuktatmananda answers the question how to become free
from desire.
Very few people are even aware that they are in bondage,
that they are enslaved by their senses and mind. The only freedom they know is
freedom for the mind and the senses.
Only by God's grace do we become aware of bondage, and begin
to strive for freedom from the mind and the senses. This happens at the right
time. We do not begin to seek God until we are through with desire for
enjoyment. When we are disgusted with worldly pleasure, we begin to truly seek
God and He responds to us. Till then, God does not forcibly wean us from
worldly pleasure. He lets us play with the objects of the world as long as we
like.
According to the Bhagavad Gita (7.3), only very few among
thousands strive for perfection; among such rare ones only one perhaps knows
God in Reality.
How to Become Free from Desire?
Disciplining the senses: Sri Krishna prescribes sense
control as the first discipline to free oneself from desire: "Therefore,
control your senses at the outset and kill this destroyer of Knowledge and
realization." (Gita, 3.41) Our five sense organs-ears, skin, eyes, tongue,
and nose-are like windows to the external world bringing us perceptual
knowledge and, along with it, the memory and desire acquired from these
perceptions. He who does not want to be swayed by desire needs to be careful about
what he takes in through his senses and mind.
According to the Chandogya Upanishad (7.26.2), "If the
food is pure the mind too becomes pure." In his commentary on the passage,
Sri Shankara explains that food is not only what we eat but what we take in through
all the sense organs, and more importantly, through the mind, the most powerful
of the sense organs (Gita, 10.22).
Senses mean not only the five sense organs, but also the
mind. Mind is the inner organ and the most powerful of the sense organs. In any
perception the mind connects itself to the concerned sense organ and the sense
object, so control of mind is fundamental to control of desires. What controls
the mind? It is buddhi, the determinative and discriminative faculty, which
lies dormant in us as long as we are swayed by desire.
When we succumb to a desire, our will does not have a
separate existence: it merges with the mind and the senses. A man who is a
slave to sense enjoyments identifies himself only with his mind and body, and
is not conscious of having a separate will. He begins to grow in mental
strength only when he succeeds in freeing his will from the hold of desires.
Though our will is bound, it is through will alone that release is possible.
Sri Krishna says that besides the senses and the mind, buddhi is also the seat
of desire. (Bhagavad Gita, 3.40) But he also says elsewhere in the Gita,
"Take refuge in buddhi." (2.49) Thus, all efforts at mind control
primarily involve awakening buddhi, which amounts to freeing and strengthening
the will.
Sri Krishna describes in the Gita the various aspects of
human personality in order of increasing subtlety: "The senses are
superior (to the gross body); the mind is superior to the senses; buddhi is
superior to the mind; He (the Atman) is superior to buddhi. Knowing that the
Atman is superior to buddhi, restrain your lower self with the help of your
higher self, and destroy the enemy who comes in the form of desire and is hard
to overcome." (3.42-3) Sri Ramanuja explains that this means controlling
the mind with buddhi.