Acharya Tulsi
Man lives in the world of motives (निमित्). He is surrounded with motives of all colours and hues. Motives influence an individual. They shape men’s -life. Men keep faith on motives. He believes that good motives make a life good and conversely bad motives make a life bad. On such belief he curses the motives for his failure, tries to avoid them and if he fails to do so, leaves everything on it.
It is true that man is a captive of his motives. Nevertheless, motives are responsible for all that happens in our life is not equally true. ‘It is also true that we cannot eliminate all the motives. It is not necessary to give much importance to those motives. A king got the sole of his foot punctured by a them. He felt the pinch. The king asked his minister to get the surface of the earth carpeted with leather. The minister replied. “Sir that can be done. But, please tell me if the surface was completely covered with leather as you wish, where shall the crops grow? Where from shall we get water?” “In this case I have to bear such pinch in future too”, the king replied. The minister submitted, “We cannot carpet the earth with leather, instead we can cover your foot with leather. Thus you would be saved from pinching thorns.” The king was satisfied with the minister’s submission.
There are five senses of enjoyment in this world—sense of the ears (shabda), sense of the eyes (rupa), sense of the tongue (rasa), sense of the nose (gandha) and sense of touch (sparsha). Indulgence in them causes suffering and detachment from them brings about delight. Man is oscillating between these two ends.
Only because these feelings can cause suffering, we cannot discard them from our life. As long as they are there, the motives will also be there. It is not wise to remove these motives. Instead, we should try to restrain ourselves from over indulgence to them. In order to learn detachment from these motives we have to learn how to train our mind and control our desires. If desires are under our perfect control, motives would not be able to make any harm.
Man’s manhood lies in his capacity to remain unattached amidst all bad motives. Living with spoiling effects and bad company if one could refuse to get spoiled, he is the man of steady mind, firm beliefs and resolute ideas. This steadiness, chivalry, and profoundness come from resoluteness. This virtue is earned by enjoying the company of great masters and after making much practice.
Though it is very difficult to take up the matter of right conduct in financial dealings in this age of dominant motives of economic malpractices, but is not impossible. If there are no allurements any Tom, Dick and Harry can proclaim—he is unattached. But in the midst of strong allurements, if one could restrain himself, he would be called a detached one. I firmly believe that resoluteness and constant practice of detachment can help a man get triumph over motives.
