Miscellaneous - Religion   

Control the senses

CHENNAI : " Even if the vilest sinner worships Me with exclusive devotion, he should be accounted as a saint; for he has rightly resolved," says Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. If there is no scope for reforming one's ways then there will be no hope for redemption. Human birth is the result of Karma (both meritorious and sinful) and hence every individual has to utilise this opportunity to work out his Karma for attaining liberation from bondage. So any attempt to mend one's ways must be considered as a step forward spiritually and hence there is no need to despair for a person given to licentious behaviour as long as he repents and desires to turn over a new leaf.

In his discourse on the Mahabharata, Sengalipuram Sri B. Damodara Dikshitar said the life of King Yayati illustrated why a spiritual aspirant must not succumb to sensory gratification. Yayati was a man of great penance as it is related that even the king of the celestials, Indra, was scared of his austerities. Circumstances made him marry princess Sarmishta (daughter of the Danava chief) and also Devayani, the daughter of Sukracharya, the preceptor of the Asuras. A skirmish between the two women before their marriage resulted in Sarmishta becoming the maid of Devayani later for slighting her.

Devayani gave birth to Yadu (from whom originated the Yadava race in which Lord Krishna was born) and also Turvasu, while Sarmishta bore Druhyu, Anu and Puru. When Devayani came to know that Yayati had married Sarmishta when her children were born she left for her father Sukracharya's house. She refused to be placated by Yayati's overtures and the preceptor cursed him with old age. He mitigated it when he submitted that he was not yet sated by sensory desires on the condition that he could exchange the youth of anyone who willingly accepted it. He begged his sons one by one and it was Puru who finally agreed.

Yayati regained his youth and ruled his kingdom for thousands of years enjoying all the sensory pleasures that he could command with his power and pelf, and yet he did not feel satisfied. At last he woke up to his spiritual fall and realised that sensory desires could never be fulfilled and they would only grow like a fire fed by fuel. He returned his youth to Puru and retired to the forest.

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