JOIN USThe five senses of sound, touch, vision, taste and smell, while being indispensable for human body to exist, can also mislead individuals and lead them towards downfall.
Adi Shankaracharya, in his treatise ‘Vivekachudamani’, lucidly expounds on this truth. The five sense organs, unless controlled, can bind man to himself, just like the chords which tether cattle to the pole from which they cannot free themselves.
Once man falls victim to uncontrolled sense attractions, he commits various misdeeds in order to fulfil his desires, in the process adding to his baggage of wrongdoings.
This is a never-ending cycle, like a court attender who escorts witnesses to the court hall upstairs and then leads them downstairs in a continuous cycle.
As an illustration of the dangers of giving in to the senses, Shankaracharya gives five telling analogies.
It is said deer is enticed by the sweet sound of the music of the flute played by the hunter, forgetting that it has to run away. A wild elephant is tempted by the touch of the tamed female elephant and thus gets trapped.
A moth sees the bright flame and is attracted by it, goes near it and is burnt to death.
The fish, wanting to eat the bait dangled by the fisherman pays with its life for succumbing to the call of taste.
The bee, unable to resist the overpowering fragrance of the champaka flower, inhales too much of it and falls down dead.
If this is the fate of creatures, which are victims of only one of the five senses, what needs to be said in the case of man, in whom all the five senses are active? In order to drive home this fact, Shankara employs another powerful example.
The king cobra’s venom is the deadliest poison which can kill a man in a few minutes. But it is lethal only if man is bitten and the venom enters the bloodstream.
There is no danger in just looking at the snake. Whereas, merely looking at an object of sense pleasure is enough to destroy man. The meaning here is that sense objects ensnare man, unless he controls the wild horses of his senses.
Thus, too much of attachment to sense pleasures is fraught with great dangers, like being caught in the tentacles of a sea monster.
It is only he who kills this monster with the sword of right discrimination between good and bad elevates himself to higher planes of existence.
Shankara warns that death and obstacles haunt at every step a man of impure mind who travels on the road of sense pleasures.
A man overcome by sense desires is like a stupid frog, caught in the mouth of a snake and which, unaware of its impending fate, stretches its tongue to catch an insect. Sense objects induce desire. Failure to satisfy desire leads to anger.
Anger leads to delusion. Delusion causes loss of memory which destroys the intellect. Thus man himself is destroyed.