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How Intense Thinking Of Sense Objects Ruins Happiness On Earth?

Happiness on earth is ruined by the intense thinking of sense objects. This is one of the important teaching in Hinduism. Swami Nityasthananda explains this in the article titled Yoga and Upanishads in the January 2019 issue of Prabuddha Bharata (page 52).

The intense thinking of sense objects is ruinous to spiritual life and happiness on earth, leading one ultimately, step by step to complete spiritual death. This idea is very forcefully and graphically expressed in the Bhagavad Gita (2.62 – 3): ‘In one who dwells longingly on sense objects, an inclination towards them is generated. This inclination develops into desire, and desire begets anger. Anger generates delusion, and delusion results in loss of memory. Loss of memory brings about the destruction of discerning intelligence and loss of discerning intelligence spells ruin to a person.’

By constantly thinking about some object of the senses, attachment towards that object is developed. The attachment is of two types: one is through love and the other is through hatred. We constantly think about the one whom we hate intensely and we get attached to that person negatively. This attachment produces a desire to possess or enjoy the desired object or harm the hated object or person. Since all the desires can never be fulfilled, unfulfilled desires bring about frustration which in turn makes the person irritable by nature, because of which one gets irritated even by the slightest disturbances. This leads one to delusion in which one is not aware of what one is doing, one becomes mechanical, impulsive, self-hypnotised, and loses the discerning faculty completely. Without this discerning faculty, a person is no more a human being, but is only an intelligent animal propelled by instinctual drives.