You are here: SriPedia - Oppiliappan - Archives - Jan 2006

Oppiliappan List Archive: Message 00100 Jan 2006

 
Jan 2006 Indexes ( Date | Thread | Author )
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]


              The cycle of ?kaama?
              -------------------

?kaama? breeds ?kaama?, Desire begets more Desire. In
much the same way as we know bacteria to be the most
productive farmer of more bacteria, Vedanta tells us
that ?kaama? too ploughs, plants, harvests, feeds upon
and multiplies its own self in an endless cycle of
mutation and proliferation. 

The Bhagavath-gita is one of the earliest Vedantic
texts to explain the cyclical, self-perpetuating
nature of ?kaama?. In 2 succinct verses the Gita dealt
with both the etiology and pathology of human ?kaama?.

?dhyAyathO vishyAnpumsah: sanghasthEshUpajAyathE I
sanghAthsamjAyathE kAmah:kAmAth-krOdhO?bhijAyathEII
                                  (B.Gita II.62)

?krOdhAdh-bhavati sammOhah:
sammOhAth-smriti-vibhramah:
smriti-bhramshAdh buddhi nAshO buddhinAshAth
pranashyathi II
                                (B.Gita II.63)
(meaning):

?To a man obsessed with objects of sensory Pleasure,
there arises attachment to them; from such attachment
arises desire, and from desire arises anger. From
anger arises delusion; from delusion, the loss of
sensibility; from loss of sensibility, the impairment
of moral discrimination; and with moral discrimination
impaired, total degradation of personality becomes a
certainty?.

            **************

In theory, ?kaama? is known to be single distinct or
discrete human passion. It is commonly associated with
the erotic urge in Man. But actually ?kaama? is a
pandemic emotional state not limited to sexuality
alone. It is more a chronic syndrome of human emotions
revealed in a variety of human behavior. It is really
a cycle of several emotional states each overlapping
the other and kept perpetually in motion through
self-generated momentum. 

"Kaama" is a sort of ferris-wheel of desires, geared
by complex human urges going forwards and backwards,
many times over and over again, taking the human mind
along with it on a roller-coaster journey through
life. ?Kaama? is not an emotional flash-point in the
life of a man. It is more like a slow and chronic
wasting disease caused by a deadly, invisible
parasite.

                ***************

The Vedantic theory behind the psychology of ?kaama?
is a very simple and elegant one. But it is also a
mordant and accurate commentary on the universal human
condition.

Let us quickly summarize the theory:

(a) The root of ?kaama?, says the Gita, lies not in a
person?s mind. It lies in the myriad objects of
delight and pleasure that abound in the world. They
generate or arouse a variety of tantalizing sensations
and titillating impressions by invading a person's
senses. The invasion then takes complete possession of
the Mind. 

Once the Mind is overpowered ?kaama? gradually
paralyzes the Will. Once the human Will goes into
coma, ?kAma? manifests itself as deep, raging and
uncontrollable appetite for promiscuous
self-gratification. This selfish appetite must be
whetted no matter what. It is a compulsion. And the
only way to do so is indulgence, at any cost. This is
precisely the way that man?s state of attachment (or
enchantment, beguilement, inebriation, enamor etc.) is
ushered in. In plain and simple language, ?kaama? is
abject human bondage to the Pleasure-Principle of
life. 

It is precisely such indulgence in ?kaama? that modern
Consumerism, the Faith that today rules the entire
world, lustily cheers and promotes. ?Have a good
time?, ?Feel good?, ?Just do it!?, ?Life is for
enjoyment! Have fun!?, ?Chill out! It?s Saturday night
out!? etc. are just a few of the oft-broadcasted
messages constantly dinned into our collective
sub-conscious by the ?high-priests of Consumerism?
viz.: the advertising and mass-communication media.
Through alluring market-place promotions and seductive
slogans, refined and perfected as creative art-form
over several decades of the last century, these
?high-priests of marketing? have achieved truly
fantastic success throughout the world in their
mission to apotheosize commonplace commercial jingles,
glorifying the ?Feel good factor? or the ??Have-fun?
habit? in life, into sacred mantras of abiding faith
for peoples of the world. 
                  *****************

(b) ?krOdha?: Not all sensual appetites can be whetted
at all times. Many of our desires cannot be satisfied
so easily. Un-fulfilled ?kaama? inevitably leads to
?krOdha? i.e. frustrated Desire or longing that is
accompanied by feelings of anger, resentment,
impatience, deprivation and disenfranchisement in
life. 

If there is so much anger and hatred around the world
today, it is chiefly because people are unable to
satisfy many of their deepest desires in life, big and
small. While the Consumerist faith does indeed inspire
everyone with the dazzling promise of ?Fun-in-life?
Ideal, it cannot, however, provide everyone with the
necessary means to attain it. And it is precisely that
yawning gap between inspiration and realization,
between desire and fulfillment that is the source of
all anger, resentment, frustration and self-loathing
amongst people in the world.  

               *****************

(c) ?mOha?: When desires (?kaama?) in life are not
sated, disappointment builds up. When the steam of
disappointment swells, the engine of Anger (?krOdha?)
cranks up. Pent-up anger in a person invariably leads
to ?mOha?, an unhinged mental state where he/she gets
increasingly out-of-touch with reality. When one loses
touch with reality, one begins to suffer rapid loss of
capacity for right-thinking and right-resolution. (In
modern clinical psychology this state of mind is
usually associated with the condition called ?severe
manic depression? which, in most cases, is traced to
mental disorders caused by deep-seated, pent-up anger
and disappointment with oneself for not being able to
fulfill desires). Perverse attitudes then quickly
begin to seep into one?s personality, deeply warping
and corroding one?s sense of life-values.
                *******************

(d) ?lObha?: A mind so deeply afflicted with ?mOha?,
Vedanta tells us, is soon overtaken by yet another
feeling that comes rolling along quickly on the
syndromic cycle of ?kaama?. This one is called ?lObha?
?- greed, unbridled lust, avarice.

Lust within Man?s heart represents the final triumph
of human Desire over human Will. It is the critical
state of mind a person reaches when he or she becomes
utterly insensitive to moral imperatives in life. The
eternal ethical question in Life, whether the ?End
justifies the Means?, becomes utterly irrelevant to
him/her. The End as represented in the object/objects
of personal desire, by whatever means realized,
becomes supreme goal in life. It is the moment when
the person begins to believe with all the conviction
at his command that Pleasure -- ?kaama? ? indeed is
absolute ideal in itself, justifying and overriding
any Means. 

The great Tamil saint of India ?Tirumangai AzhwAr? who
led a life of excess before he changed ways and became
a God-realized soul (?AzhwAn?), sang of the many ways
in which he wasted away his youthful days while in
search of the pleasures yielded in ?kaama?. In the
very first poem of his great collection of mystical
Tamil outpourings called ?peria-tirumOzhi?, the AzhwAr
spoke in heart-rending verses of the ?lObha?, or lust,
that had gripped him in the days of youthful folly. 

?venRiyE vENdi veezhporut_kirangi* vERkaNaar kalaviyE
karudhi*
nNinRavaa nNillaa neNYchinaiyudaiyEn* en_seygEn??     
         
                     (?peria-tirumOzhi? 1.1.4)

(meaning): ?I stooped to the lowest ways, went
everywhere and did the grossest things, Oh! just to
slake my gross appetites!? 

The Bhagavath-Gita too described such a state of mind
described by Tirumangai-AzhwAr, seized as his was by
?lObha?, in one apothegmatic ?shlOka?:

?lobhaH pravR^ittiraarambhaH karmaNaamashamaH spR^ihaa
. 
rajasyetaani jaayante vivR^iddhe bharatarshhabha ..   
                            B.Gita    14\.12.. 

?O chief of the Bhâratas, when there is a surge in the
symptoms of great attachment, what follows then is
frenzied activity, intense endeavor, an uncontrollable
lust and hankering.?

                   *************

(e) Whenever ?lObha?, lust, is satisfied, feelings of
extreme exultation follow. When Desire?s triumph over
Will is completed, it cannot help indulging in a bit
of gloating, a bit of self-congratulation and
vainglory. A person then usually turns arrogant,
haughty and conceited. This new transformation of
personality is what is called ?madha?. When ?kaama?
preens its feathers one may easily recognize its
colors to be the signs of ?madha?.  

Once again, in the soul-stirring words of
Tirumangai-AzhwAr are eloquently described the state
of a mind that is gripped by ?madha?:
 
?kaLvanEnaanEn padiRuseidhiruppEn* kaNdavaa
dhirithanNdhEnElum*? 1.1.5

(meaning):?I became a dissolute tyrant! I always had
my way, come what may! I?d brook no obstacle standing
in the way! I went wherever Pleasure led me, and none
dared stop me!?
                   **************

(f) ?mAtsarya?: Those who are vainglorious i.e. they
that are in the grip of ?madha?, often slip into envy,
?mAtsarya?. 

The vainglorious are always jealous of those they
perceive to be their superiors. They simply cannot
rest content with their lot but constantly covet the
power and prestige of those more exalted than
themselves. This is another form of extreme ?kaama?,
and what in the modern day is often recognized as
?overweening ambition? in a person. The ancient Greeks
had another special name for it ?- they called it
?hubris?. It is, in fact, a very advanced form of the
rabid human affliction called
?keeping-up-with-the-Joneses? syndrome.  This sort of
ambition is an extremely pathological form of ?kaama?
--- the sort that does not let a person rest content
with satisfying one?s own desires but urges him/her on
to adopt the desires of others too as one?s very own,
and makes them slaves of those too!

Tirumangai-AzhwAr beautifully captured the mood of one
who has simply lost his mind to ?mAtsarya?:  

?kaRRilEn kalaigaL aimbulan karudhum* karutthuLE
thirutthinEn manatthai*
peRRilEn adhanaal pEdhaiyEn nNanmai* perunNilatthaar
uyirkellaam*? 1.1.8

(meaning): ?Oh! What a moral illiterate I was, and
abject slave to my wild senses that led me everywhere
chasing one desire after another after another!?  

                  **************

(g) ?bhaya?: By the time a man has traversed the cycle
of the full spectrum of feelings of ?kaama? 
--- beginning with attachment, ?kaama?, ?krOdha?,
?mOha?, ?lObha?, ?madha? and ?mAtsarya? 
--- it is certain his whole personality has been
severely ravaged. The mind is ripe and ready then to
be possessed now by Fear, ?bhaya?. 

?Bhaya? manifests itself in personal behavior
characterized by deep insecurities, restiveness, a
nagging but nameless sense of loss etc. 

When a man is afflicted with such ?bhaya? he fears
that his deepest desires may not get fulfilled before
the curtains drop on his lifetime. His greatest fear
--- dark fear hidden deep within the cavern of the
human sub-conscious ?-- is he may simply pass away
from this world before having experienced all of its
alluring delights and seductive pleasures. To him hell
itself is nothing but untimely death befalling him
before the burning thirst for Pleasure has been fully
slaked. 

It is precisely this sort of ?kaama? that is known to
often afflict some persons in the twilight of their
lives when, knowing that their time on earth is
nearing its end, they suddenly turn berserk and go all
out to enjoy to the very hilt, in a sort of mad binge,
all the sensual pleasures they had probably denied
themselves earlier, and all with a vengeance or gusto
quite unbecoming of their age. 

It is in that fateful moment that "bhaya" and "kaama"
come together in a tight coital embrace, and when  the
cycle of ?kaama? too gets a fresh lease of momentum,
and signalling, as it were, the birth of another
desire inside the human heart....

                *************

And so, indeed, revolves the great inexorable cycle of
life called ?kaama?, where man's desires endlessly
mutate and multiply, all in an endless stream of
cosmic continuum... And wherein Man is but mere
hapless, enmeshed cog.

It is from falling into such a terrible ?cycle of
?kaama?? that the ?aaypAdi? girls of the TiruppAvai
too sought protection from God Almighty when they sang
their immortal call of prayer, ?maRRai nam kaamangaL
maaRRu?.

              (to be continued)

Regards,
dAsan,
Sudarshan 




Send instant messages to your online friends http://in.messenger.yahoo.com 


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> 
Join modern day disciples reach the disfigured and poor with hope and healing
http://us.click.yahoo.com/lMct6A/Vp3LAA/i1hLAA/XUWolB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~-> 

 
Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Oppiliappan/

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
    Oppiliappan-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
    http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
 



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index ] [Thread Index ] [Author Index ]
Home Page
http://www.ibiblio.org/sripedia
oppiliappan-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
To subscribe to the list