When renunciation cannot be pursued, one should discard wealth, relation, possessions, wife and kids, and move over to a forest as a vanaprastha. There he should practise mental renunciation and pursue atmasadhana. That is why the saying ‘for the sake of atma, renounce the world itself.’ Hence for atmasadhana to become easy and successful, worship Govinda, right from this moment.
Kaamam krodham lobham moham, tyaktvaatmaanam bhaavaya koham, aatmajnaanaviheenaa modhaaha, te pacyante naraka nigodhaaha
Conquering the six enemies has been stressed here. Every human being, invariably, is under the shackles of one or more of these enemies. These enemies are flourishing within us either in subtle or well known forms, acting as highly poisonous and destructive agents.
Sri Vidura advised Dhritarashta, in his famous Viduraneeti as : Anger is an agent of destruction, Anger is the iron shackles of earthly life, Anger burns even the best of the good deeds, Anger is the one to be forsaken, Anger if resides in any person, says Vidura, makes him unworthy both here and in heaven.
A nose, cut in anger, can never be restored to its original form. Anger always destroys all our earlier good deeds. This very message is reiterated by lord Krishna in Gita as —
Krodhaadbhavati sammohaha, sammohaat smrtivibhramaha, smrtibhramshaat buddhi naashaha, buddhinaashaat pranashyati
In anger, the mind becomes incoherent and loses the wisdom of judging right and wrong. Further, very rare are the people who are not trapped by the nets of kama. Whether it is Maharshi Vishwamitra, Indra the king of Gods, or Ravana, the Monarch of demons, all are marked by the burning iron, the kama. It is because of kama on Menaka that all the penance of Viswamitra became like a homa done in water. The anger and kama of Ravana are the root causes for Ramayana, which ended in the destruction of his kingdom, Lanka. Is it not because of the infatuation, Moha, towards Indrani that Nahusha lost his coveted position of Indra?
Once, while Bharata Maharshi was in penance in a forest, a pregnant deer, struck by a hunter collapsed near the Maharshi. Before dying it gave birth to a fawn. Bharatha Maharshi was moved by the sorrowful condition of the stag. Taking pity on it, he started nursing and feeding the stag with lots of love. The attachment towards the stag went out of bounds and his tapas started getting disturbed. At the time of his death, he was thinking only about the deer and hence he himself became a deer in his next birth. Hence it is imperative for a Sadhaka to be far away from attachments of this type.
Sri Krishna in Bhagavadgita, warns Arjuna about these Kama and Krodha.
Kaama eysha krodha eysha rajoguna samudbhavaha,
mahaashano mahaapaapmaa viddhi enam iha vairinam.
Kama and Krodha take birth in Rajoguna. They are the very sources of deadly sins. Sri Ramanujacharya explains that it is the kama, which is the root cause of krodha. Unsatiated kama results in krodha.
Sri Shankaracharya prays to Lord Lakshmi Narasimha — “Kindly hold my hand and uplift me from the deadly dark and deep well of moha”.
But Sri Krishna has assured that — ‘I am that kama, (which continuously pulls and attaches us to god) which is not outside the tenets of dharma.
Let us have kama which leads us to Vishnu. Let us aspire for that kama which Sita had towards lord Rama Let us look at Nachiketa who was showered by the lord Yamadharma with the boon of worldly wealth and fitness. Nachiketa was not swayed by these attractions.
He held on to his desire to acquire the atmajnana. Inspired by Nachiketa, let us also renounce kama from its roots.
(The article has been taken from the book A Torchlight in the Path of Salvation, Bhaja Govindam- Pray to Govinda by K V Varadaraja Iyengar)