“Excessive eating or harnessing property, strenuous endeavors, idle talks, neglect of principles, the company of the worldly and fickleness; these six make the devotion perish.”
Ambrosial streams of this text shall feed the lotus of devotion till it blossoms in full.
The basis of yoga sadhana is shuddhi (purification), sthiti (the illumination that comes through concentration as a result of purification) and arpana (awakening and conscious unification with the higher force within). Purification comes by awareness around the 6 enemies of the mind.
In the evolutional journey of the spiralling up and down, we often stay unaware of the intricate interplay of the major basic 6 strings that our mind is playing all the time. Often a combination of some of them, occasionally all of them at once this creates the most dramatic effect to the observer or participant, depending on what our presence tells us. All the emotions that spring into the play are sprouting from one of the original six Arishadvargas, which in turn can also be traced and reduced to the original one, somewhat like a telescopic lense.
Lobha – greed, miserliness, narrow minded; Mooladhara
Kama – lust, craze, desire, passion, obsession; Swadhisthana
Krodha – anger, hatred, motivation, aggression, dynamism; Manipura
Matsarya – envy, jealousy, show or vanity, and pride. Anahata
Moha – delusory emotional attachment, infatuation; Vishuddha
Mada or Ahankara – pride, stubborn mindedness, arrogance, superiority complex; Ajna
These are the 6 enemies, which can be made friends with by simply acknowledging their existence and interaction in our life.
Amritananda Natha Saraswati writes “All these binding negatives come from the fixation that βI am this body, mind and intellect and these are mine. … Anger against these children of βIβ and βmineβ pushes them away. Thus we become a life in everyone. We become mothers to this illusory world giving the positive elements protection and nourishment.β
KAMA… Wanting something that is not mine is lust. Desire for riches, property, honour, status, fame, children. Attachment to all things of this sensory world.
KRODHA… The object of lust not coming to me creates anger. Yearning to harm others and cause ruin to them.
LOBHA… The object of my lust comes to me and the emotion that I should not lose it creates possessiveness. Determination that no one else should partake of even a small fraction of what one has earned or what one has. Even in times of distress, one’s possessions should not be diminished by use.
MOHA… The feeling that I cannot live without it is delusion. Seeing life incorrectly. Unable to see reality, living in illusion. The delusion that some people are nearer to one than others and the desire to please them more than others, leading to exertions for earning and accumulating for their sake.
MADA/AHANKARA… The sense that only I have it and no one else has it is pride. The false pride that develops when one feels that he has either scholarship or strength or riches or high birth or good looks or fame, more than others. Even when one has not got these, Mada makes men move about without reverence for elders and consideration for others’ feelings and stimulates craving only for one’s own comfort and security. Mada is extreme egoism or self – centeredness.
MATSARYA… The sense that others have it and I donβt have it is jealousy. Finding it intolerable that others are as happy as oneself, Matsarya makes one miserable; over other s good fortune. Only I should have all things is the feeling of Matsarya.
