Veda Gyanam

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Chapter 2 Verse 62-63

dhyayato visayan pumsah sangastesupajayate

sangat sanjayate kamah kamat krodho bhijayate (Verse 62)

 

krodhad bhavati sammohah smmohat smrtivibhramah

smrtibhramsad buddhinaso buddhinasat pranasyati (Verse 63)

 

visayan – objects; dhyayatah – for the one who dwells upon; pumsah – for the person

sangah – attachment; tesu – with reference to them ; upajayate – is born; sangat – from attachment

sanjayate – is born; kamah – desire; kamat – from desire; krodahah – anger;

abhijayate – is born; krodhat – from anger; bhavati – comes; sammohah – delusion;

sammohat – from delusion; smrti vibhramah – loss of memory; smrti-bhramsat – from loss of memory

buddhi-nasah – ruin of the mind; buddhi-nasat – from the ruin of the mind; pranasyati – one is destroyed

 

In the person who dwells upon objects, an attachment is born with reference to them. From attachment is born desire and from desire, anger is born.

 

From anger comes delusion and from delusion comes the loss of memory.  Because of loss of memory, the mind becomes incapacitated and when the mind is incapacitated, the person is destroyed.

The person discussed in these 2 verses meditates on the objects instead of the atma or the inner self. One who is dwelling on a particular object and its merits develops certain longing. E.g you have been thinking of buying a new European car say a BMW. You visit your friend and you see his BMW and you are attracted by it. The experience leaves you with memory and now you start contemplating on that for some time. A desire gets created and you now are fully immersed into it as to how to acquire one.  Even at this stage, there is no problem as your desire is still in infancy stage.

But the more you keep thinking about that object or person; you develop an attachment to it. Now you want to acquire it as your attachment to it now grows day by day.  Now you want to possess it as now your desire has taken a full turn and now it has become a obsession now.  You go the BMW dealer and now ask for a price and haggle here and there. Ultimately the price is too expensive or you cannot afford it and you come home disappointed. All these are your own desires and not someone’s.  So there is a problem now as the desire now turns slowly into irritation and aloofness and you are now always in contemplation of the BMW. Slowly this turns into now anger and you start showing it on people around you or anyone who thinks comes into your line of fire.  So always anger is born of desire and that too unfulfilled. Most often desires do not get fulfilled.  The other way is that you expected your husband or wife to buy this car for your birthday and he did not buy it for you. So the anger is now not from your desire but because of nonfulfillment from your husband or wife.  We see this all the time in daily life. We get upset for small things as we expect all our desires to be fulfilled and we cannot take ‘No’ for an answer.

The point here is not to avoid anger by avoiding desire. Rather, you have to remove the sting from your desire, for which a proper attitude is important. That everything should happen as planned or as per your expectation is unrealistic and  such an expectation is due to raga-dvesas alone which have to be neutralized if you would like to be free of anger.

Nor you can control anger. The anger inside you is simmering, simmering and one day it erupts like a volcano. In anger you are not going to reason whether it is correct or not as you have lost your viveki and your reasoning buddhi. You are not going to spend too much time in thinking ‘should I kick him or punch him’.  Whatever comes first is what happens. Once anger is there, things take place. So there is no question of control here.

From anger comes delusion, sammoha. When you dwell upon the object and inculcate your desire, it could lead into affection, attachment, anger, delusion and more. Because of this delusion, we suffer memory loss meaning whatever shastram we studied or we were told, we have completely forgotten. Our smriti has gone for a toss and none of the good things you knew, experienced now matters. Now only revenge is what is looming in your mind. So there is buddhi-nasah and your mind is now totally incapacitated.  Delusion is like a inner blackout that makes you forget who you are and the wisdom you had.

The buddhi is available only when wisdom is available. In other words,  the buddhi is destroyed (pranasyati). The person is no more a human being and can be likened to an animal as he or she gives himself or herself over to impulses. The impulses take over and  determine exactly what the person is going to do. Until anger comes, a person can be careful. But once anger sets in, all caution is gone.

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