It is very well-known that although millions of gallons of water reach the ocean through the various rivers, yet the level of water in the ocean does not change even by a fraction. Similarly, even though the infinite number of sense-objects may pour in their stimuli, and reach the mental zone of the Perfect Man through his five sense-channels, they do not create any commotion or flux, in his bosom.
Such an individual, who always finds his own level in spite of the fact that he is living amidst the sense-objects, and with his sense-organs unavoidably ever in contact with the objects, is called a Man-of-Perfection, a true Saint. And Krishna asserts that such an individual alone can truly discover peace and happiness in himself. The Lord, in the Geeta, not satisfied with this negative assertion, positively denies any true peace or joy to those who are “desirers of desires.”
This idea is totally in opposition with the modern belief in the material world. The materialists believe that by fanning up their desires, and satisfying as many of them as possible, one is helped to live a life of joy and happiness. Modern civilisation, based upon industrialisation and large-scale production, is attempting to whip up desires, and this attempt has now succeeded to such an extent that the average man has a million times more desires today than his fore-father ever entertained, a century ago. The financiers and the industrialists, with the aid of modern scientific knowledge, struggle hard to discover and to satisfy new desires, and to the extent an individual has come to fulfil his newly-created desires, he is taught by the day’s civilisation that he is more happy than ever before.
On the other hand, the great thinkers of the past in India, perhaps through their experience, or through their more careful and exhaustive thinking, discovered that the joy created through satisfaction of desires can never be complete. They discovered that joy or happiness, at any given time, is a quotient when the “number of desires fulfilled” is divided by the “total number of desires entertained” by the same individual at that time. This mathematical truth has been accepted by the modern preachers of secularism also; but in their practical application, the old Rishis and the modern politicians seem to differ to a large extent.
In the modern world, the attempt is to increase the numerator, which is represented by the “number of the desires fulfilled.” The Scriptural Masters of India also were living in a world peopled by a society of men, and their philosophical contemplations were upon man as a social being, and their aim too was to bring more happiness in their society. Unlike the present prophets of profit, these Rishis of Religion did not conceive that an attempt to increase the NUMERATOR without a corresponding attention upon the rate of increase of the DENOMINATOR, could produce any palpable increase in joy. On the other hand, today, we are struggling hard to increase the “number of desires fulfilled” without at the same time, trying to control the “number of desires entertained.” That this state of affairs cannot produce any palpable increase in the QUOTIENT OF HAPPINESS is the scriptural verdict which seems to be an easily understandable scientific truth.
Herein, the Geeta is only repeating what the Upanishadic Rishis never get tired of emphasising in the Scriptures of India. The “desirer of desires” can never come to perfect peace (Shanti). Only he who has, in his spirit of detachment, gained a complete control over his mind, so that the sense-objects of the outer world cannot create in him an infinite number of yearnings or desires, is the Man-of-Peace-and-Joy. The objects in the outer world cannot themselves tease a man by their existence, or by their non-existence. The outer world can borrow its capacity to ill-treat man only when he exposes himself unguarded, and gets wounded and crushed by his own attachments to a wrong valuation of the sense-objects.
In this stanza Bhagawan is only giving a more elaborate and complete commentary upon the opening line of this section where He started the description of a Man-of-Steady-Wisdom. There He explained that, “When a man completely casts off all the desires in his mind, then he is said to be one of Steady-Knowledge.”
BECAUSE IT IS SO, THEREFORE:
