The Message of Self-control
by Swami Adiswarananda

Self-control is the control of the mind and its desires, urges, emotions and delusions. It is controlling the outgoing tendencies of the mind and the senses and bringing them back to our Self within. Self-control is the key to success in any field of life and it is an indispensable necessity for Self-realization, the goal of spiritual quest. Self-control is the message of the sages and saints. It is the exhortation of the scriptures and traditions, the foundation of all yogas and the very essence of all spiritual austerities and disciplines. In his Vivekachudamani Sri Shankaracharya says:

The mental sheath is the (sacrificial) fire, which, fed with the fuel of numerous desires by the five sense organs, which serve as priests, and set ablaze by the sense-objects, which act as the stream of oblations, brings about this phenomenal universe.

This is no ignorance (avidya) outside the mind. The mind alone is avidya, the cause of the bondage of transmigration. When that is destroyed, all else is destroyed, and when it is manifested, everything else is manifested.

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Courtesy & copyright Prabuddha Bharata