A Reader asked me:
I wish to have your views on how to control greed lust anger attachment and pride etc the 5 vikaras I have realized that each one is greater and stronger than other.My Reply:
Dear Nari,I forwarded your Question to an enlightened friend of mine. She has written on the subject extensivelyRead about her:http://www.dalsabzi.com/Articles/deepa.htmhttp://www.dalsabzi.com/readers_respond/deepa_kodikal_response.htm
Deepa’s reply:Hi Shakun,Good morning. Here is the answer to your reader’s Q of how to control greed, lust, anger and attachment. I hope it satisfies your reader. A little deep thinking will show us clearly that all emotions such as anger, lust, greed, and attachment, and pride, are basically a ‘thought’. A thought yet not perhaps expressed in words. A thought has the power to produce certain secretions in the body and the body reacts to them. For example, anger will make our blood boil, make us take short shallow breaths, there will be tingling sensation in the soles of the feet etc. The body reactions may differ with individuals, but by becoming sensitive to what happens within us, we can learn to recognize these symptoms the moment anger strikes. Each different emotion will produce a different effect and symptom.. Now, watch this emotion developing within the mind and the body reacting to it even whilst continuing with the work at hand. This watching itself creates a duality, a gap between the thought and us. Between the emotion and us. Now, there are two, there is a watcher, us, and the watched, the anger. The gap has the power to detach the emotion, anger from us. Separate it from us. This severance of anger from us makes it loose its hold on us, it becomes impotent and drops. The body too returns to normalcy. Earlier the anger and us were one, anger was ruling over us, anger was the master and was making us behave and react in a particular way. Simply watching it detachedly, makes us retain mastery over ourselves and our body. We prevent ourselves from getting lost in the anger. We remain cool and at peace and unruffled. The body does not produce the disturbing secretions and the body does not react and get tensed up. This method is a ‘ self-watch’ method that can be used for any emotion, any time, and is very effective. In the beginning this may demand self-control but gradually it becomes our nature and slowly the tendency to lose control in the face of that emotion drops down. This method is equally useful to control prejudice, greed, pride, greed or any other emotion. Basically, we have to retain the mastery over ourselves and not get swayed by the emotion.Deepa
Shakun Kimatrai 