This world is full of wonders and attractions. Today, after getting up, went to the kitchen to prepare morning tea. After making tea, I was looking for a biscuit. I found so many things there on the dining table. An idea suddenly struck my mind that all the food items lying there are meaningless if I am sure that I need a biscuit. Otherwise, everything can tempt us. This phenomenon is not limited to the kitchen. It is there in every aspect of life. If we are focused on what we want in life, nothing can attract us, else, the world is full of temptations.
While talking to colleagues, we get to know about so many things. While reading the newspapers, we get to know about so many people who lived life so differently. Many of these things look quite tempting. There is something in our conscious or unconscious mind that gets attracted to these things. However, at the end of the day, what decides the course of action is the strength of the "connection" of our intellect with the soul. Where this connection is strong, the soul occupies the center stage like in the case of Arjuna. Where the connection is weak, one or the other temptation occupies the center stage depending upon the interplay of the forces of nature.
The "connection" was weak in the case of Duryodhana and that's why he got tempted towards the kingdom. Dushasana got tempted towards the pleasures, Bhishma was tied to his vow, Dronacharya was tempted towards revenge, and Karna towards social validation. A disconnected intellect becomes weak and loses the strength to give direction to the mind. In such cases, emotions drive our lives.
This life is an opportunity to work on that "connection" like Arjuna. We just have to make a choice. Once we make a choice of Krishna, He is always there to guide us in the moments of weakness. He is not going to leave us in the moments of weakness. The old samskaras lying deep in the unconscious mind will keep tempting us towards one or the other thing. But once that "connection" is strong, that "connection" will decide the course of our lives.
That connection brings wisdom and discrimination. We can enquire into reality and discriminate the real from the illusion, the temporary from the permanent. That is what "Nachiketa" did, as described in the Kathopnishada. His "connection" was so strong that he could enquire into the temptations offered by Yama. When Yama offered him the heaven and all the comforts of life, he enquired into its temporariness and asked a very basic question from Yama. Will he take these back? Yama said yes. Nothing is permanent. Nachiketa was clear that he wanted to know what is the eternal reality. He could discriminate between the temporary and the permanent and gave away the temptation for the temporary to know what is permanent.
The soul is a representative of that permanent like the drop of an ocean represents the ocean. Intellect is a very potent tool to connect to the soul. In its purest form, it can be a tool to manifest the soul. Since we allow the kingdom of our life to be ruled by the emotional mind, which is a storehouse of past impressions, the intellect gets weakened and dances to the tunes of the emotional mind. One after the other, desires make us set different goals in life and we keep running from the pillar to the post and die quite dissatisfied and these unsatiated desires give birth to the next cycle. A connected soul not only remains perpetually contended but also manifests the beauty of that contentment in this world as a painter, singer, artist, scientist, and in every other possible role.
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