To sit back physically retired is not the way to reach anywhere, much less the final State of Perfection. If this physical retirement is not efficiently accompanied by an equal amount of mental and intellectual withdrawal from the sensuous fields, the spiritual future of such a misinformed seeker is surely very bleak and dreary.
The truth of this statement is very well supported by modern text-books on psychology. To dissipate ourselves with immoral or criminal thoughts is more harmful than to physically indulge in them. The mind has a tendency to repeat its own thoughts. When a single thought is repeated off and on, it creates in the mind a deepening impression, and afterwards all thoughts arising in the mind irresistibly flow in that prepared channel. Once the direction of the flow in the mind has become fixed, all external activities of that individual become coloured by this characteristic tendency. A mind that constantly meditates on sensuous pleasures carves out for itself a deep sensuous tendency and ere long we discover that the individual is helplessly egged on to act in the external world, as he had tragically planned for himself in his mind.
To give physically a show of morality and ethics, while mentally living a shameless life of low motives and foul sentiments, is the occupation of a man who is not a seeker of spiritual fulfilment, but, as is termed here, a self-deluded hypocrite! Certainly we all know that, even if we can physically discipline ourselves, it is not easy for an average man to control the sensuous tendencies at his mental level.
KRISHNA REALISES THAT AN ORDINARY MAN WOULD NOT KNOW HOW TO SAVE HIMSELF FROM THIS NATURAL INSTINCT AND, THEREFORE, HE PRESCRIBES THE FOLLOWING STANZA:
