52. Automaticity of Indriyas

Krishna cautions Arjuna that indriyas (senses) are capable of forcibly carrying away the mind of even an aspiring wise person (2.60). This verse is about the automaticity of indriyas to stimuli.

The best example is of a smoker who’s quite aware of the pitfalls of smoking but finds it extremely difficult to quit it. He laments that by the time he realises, the cigarette is already lit. Anyone who is involved in a road rage or a crime vouches that it happened in the heat of the moment but not consciously. The same is the case with someone who speaks harsh words at the workplace or in the family and keeps regretting them as they weren’t intended in the first place. These instances imply that indriyas take over us and bind us in karma bandhan (bondage of action).

During our formative years, free neurons in the brain form neural connections called hardwiring. This takes care of automatic activities like walking as it saves a lot of energy for the brain. The same is the case with skills and habits which we acquire during the latter part of life.

We expend a lot of energy in this process of hardwiring. It’s extremely difficult to overcome habits based on hardwiring. Neuroscience says that hardwiring is impossible to break except by making a new one to override the existing one.

Krishna is referring to this phenomenon when he says that the indriyas are so powerful that they can forcibly take away the mind of even an aspiring wise person.

Krishna says that one must surrender to the Almighty, the Supreme power, to overcome the automaticity of indriyas (2.61). The key is not to fight but to surrender with awareness, which is the source of required strength.