Namaste

And welcome to Part 2 of The Q&A in the Scripture series in which we are looking at the answers given by Krishna to a list of questions asked by his cousin Uddhava in a scripture called the Uddhava Gita.

Remember the scene? Uddhava has asked Krishna a pile of questions about how to live a good life, how to live in the world with discernment.

These questions have become urgent because the cousins are about to leave their hometown which is on the brink of war. Both will be going their separate ways and both know they won’t be seeing each other for a while – perhaps never again.

Anyway, moving right along: In our last installment, we had Uddhava asking the first of his questions; this one happens to have two parts:

What is quietude and what is self-control?

We discovered that quietude is not the state in which one finds peace, silence, our true selves, or the Divine, but is itself that consciousness, that pervades and permeates all that is, silence, peace. In other words, quietude is  the Divine itself.

In the present post, we move to the second of Uddhava’s two-part question: what is self-control? Krishna’s answer is excellently short and sweet:

Dama  (self-control) is restraint of the senses.

Krishna in his response, makes it clear that restraining the (one’s own) senses includes mind as a kind of sixth sense in addition to the five physical senses. In the context you could almost say that it’s his mind that Uddhava is in most need of restraining. Maybe that’s the message for all of us?

Well, we are all well aware of the ways in which we have tried to control our senses; Uddhava knows too. But look at the situation these two cousins find themselves in:

It’s fine for Krishna: he’s returning home to Heaven, or wherever. But, Uddhava, who is also about to leave, is facing more uncertain prospects. He’s experiencing great turmoil, and fear over his and his familiy’s safety as the threat of war closes in. Most likely he’s also grieving over having to go into exile from his ancestral home.

Of course he’d be fearful for the future: where will he go? What will he do? How will he protect and provide for his family? Like I said, an onslaught of mental and emotional anguish.

Still, it does seem that Uddhava is maintaining quite a steady presence of mind. He’s thinking about the future; he is clear about the sort of stuff he needs to find out from his cousin (remember Krishna is God) in order to put and keep his life on the right track despite the challenges facing him now and in the future.

Then there’s the fact that this self-control thing is only one question on a list of 36. Clearly Uddhava is looking for a lot of advice.

Restrain the senses – all six of them – Krishna says. But how? What does it mean, ‘restrain the senses’? I think I alluded to the notion that we all have some ideas, some clues, about how we as individuals might restrain them, but let’s personalise this: What does it mean for me to restrain my senses?

Actually, now I’ve made that suggestion, I feel overwhelmed: Where would I start? Surely I need to do a whole series of posts, just on this one topic alone?

Oh wait, I can start right there. Exaggeration, hyperbole, over-dramatising, catastrophizing, all perfect examples of emotional reactions leaping from an unrestrained senses central: my mind.

Let’s put aside that mental stuff for a little while, and just say that all those emotional responses could do with a bit more restraining training. Just looking at the physical senses to begin with, I can easily say that they also, at least some of them sometimes, need various degrees of working on.

First, my sense of taste: it goes into overdrive sometimes, and then I eat too much. Not so much as in the past, but the restraint has a way to go still.

My sense of sight is pretty good, well restrained for the most part. But there are times when I lapse into old habits and spend too much time looking at a screen and scrolling in a mindless kind of way. Getting there though!

As for my sense of hearing: You might remember a post from a while ago when I talked about letting go of much of my music collection, some of which I’ve listened to my whole life.  I’m doing this because so much of what used to be ‘my favourite’ songs or artists, no longer serve my spiritual growth, nor does much of it reflect the view of life and the world that I’m trying to cultivate.

Well, I’ve made a good start, but occasionally I slip and find myself humming old tunes, or listening to an album that I really ‘should have’ deleted already. Restrained? Sort of, and I’m still encouraged.

Enough! Let’s get straight to the biggie: my mind. If I’m honest, I have to say that my mind, while not exactly in full agreement with my efforts at restraint, is starting to get into sync with me and my aspirations for a more controlled mind.

But still, those previously mentioned emotional reactions like exaggeration, over-dramatising and the rest, are still there. Falling into line, it’s true, still … .

Then there is the (more than) occasional first port of call reactions to pieces of news of various kinds: I’m prone to ask, just as I imagine Uddhava might have: Why don’t ‘they’ control themselves? Why can’t he or she or such and such country or politician show a little restraint?

Yes, I know, we’re all guilty of this one to some degree or other.

My quickness to anger is not quite, but almost, might soon be, won’t be long before it is, a thing of the past.

Then, there’s my tendency to ruminate: rehash endlessly real and imagined events and other stuff from the past – as well as the always imagined possibilities (as well as the impossibilities) for the future.

Again, I know I’m not alone in this emotional roller coaster ride, and I do know that I am nowhere near as much of a ruminator as I was; I have made great strides, significant inroads, and I am encouraged that the end of rumination is getting closer!

And now, here is the one thing I tend to think of one of my biggest, most tiresome and tedious, most annoying conditioned emotional responses: I talk too much. Not as much as I used to, but still too much for my comfort, and for the peace of mind of those around me. More restraint is called for.

Restraint has played its part in reducing my talking. But in a sense the major ally has been the ongoing quest I’m engaged in to discover my true nature, as consciousness, which is really my oneness with all that is.

And here our second question and answer leads us right back to the first: quietude.

I wrote in that post:

Quietude, calmness, peace of mind, are not where  you will find God, consciousness, or whatever we call it.  Quietude and the rest are God. They are consciousness.

Or putting it the other way round: cultivate silence, calm, peace of mind, and your senses will no longer need to be restrained. Your whole Self, including body and mind, will then be resting in Quietude, in your true nature.

That’s why I think these two questions are asked and answered together: Each leads to the other: by restraining our senses we are more easily able to achieve a state of calm, quiet, some level of peace of mind – in other words, Quietude.