22. Balance is Bliss

 

At the very beginning of the Gita (2.14), Krishna says that the meeting of the indriyas (senses) with the sense-objects causes polarities of pleasure and pain. He tells Arjuna to learn to tolerate them, as they are transient. In the contemporary world this is expressed as, ‘This too shall pass’. If this is inculcated at an experiential level, we can transcend these polarities to find them equally acceptable.

There are five indriyas (senses) viz. vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Sense perception happens through a combination of a physical part and a controller part. The physical parts of the senses are eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin. The controller parts are those parts of the brain which process the sensory inputs of the respective physical parts.

However, the physical parts of the senses have a lot of limitations. For example, the eyeball can process only a particular frequency of light which we call visible light. Secondly, it cannot process more than 15 images per second, which is the basis for the creation of videos and movies giving us the pleasure of screen watching. Thirdly, it requires at least some amount of light to be able to see an object.  These limitations of indriyas, hinder our ability to differentiate between the ‘sat’ (permanent) and the ‘asat’ (impermanent) and make us perceive the rope as a coiled snake.

 The controller parts of these senses in the brain are also handicapped by the limitations of their respective physical parts. Secondly, they suffer from the conditioning done to them especially during childhood, which is termed as hard wiring. This results in a motivated perception of seeing what we want to see but failing to grasp reality.

This inability to see ‘sat’ and the tendency to gravitate towards ‘asat’ results in misery. Krishna says that when we maintain a balance during the onslaught of the polarities of pleasure and pain, we are eligible for the amrit (moksha) (2.15). This is liberation here and now.