10 July 2012 - QA 3

Guruji, why did God give us the five sense objects when all the wise people ask us to control them?
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: So that you can express something even better than that.
You know, cotton candies are given to babies, but when they grow a little older, nobody goes for those toffees or candies. They go in for some higher joy, some higher experiences.
See, our ability to enjoy sense objects is limited; but when the desire is unlimited there is an imbalance. That is when you have to watch out!
For example, take Bulimia, how much food can you eat? This much (cupping his hands together), bulimia is when you eat but then also you are not satisfied. Then you say, ‘Come on, have control over your senses’, because if not it is going to harm your own body.

It is similar with all sense objects because experiencing them is draining. If you eat little food it gives you energy, but if you eat a little more then it tires you. How many of you have had this experience? Instead of giving you energy it has made you so tired.
So they say ‘Tena Tyaktena Bhunjitha’ – which means, experience it but go beyond it as well; let go. You can breathe in, but you cannot only breathe in, you have to breathe out as well, otherwise you will die, isn’t it?
So when you turn inward, when you go to yoga then you are able to experience greater joy. Yoga is energy conservation, otherwise it is energy spending.

If kids spend then nobody bothers, the parents say, ‘Okay, you spend.’
But if a teenager spends, or one who has grown beyond teenage, then parents say, ‘Be careful in spending. Earn as well, you can’t only spend.’
If you have become an adult they will tell you that you should earn too. But babies don’t earn, even then parents say, ‘You go and spend.’
In the same way, with sense objects, you enjoy good taste, good sight, good sound, everything, but then come and conserve your energy, go deep in meditation and realize that there is a bigger joy and greater happiness there and look at that also.