Questions and Answers - Art and science of living
Bring back joy and tranquility into your life...
Question 1 - Why our behaviour is opposite to our thinking.
We have knowledge of what we should do, and what we should not do, but when any attraction or greed comes in front of us, then our actions work opposite to our wisdom. What is the reason for this?
As long as wisdom and joy lives together till then person don't do wrong things. When joy gets separated from wisdom and wisdom starts following joy, then wrong things starts happening by us. Understand it like this - We know that telling a lie is wrong or ill deed to do, stealing is wrong, it's a sin; But, when we assume that we'll have joy as a result of telling a lie or by stealing, then mind starts favouring joy, and wisdom is ignored or left aside. Actually, wisdom is master and joy is its servant. When you do things according to your wisdom, joy and happiness will accompany it. But, when wisdom starts following joy then wisdom does not remain in its purest form, actually it gets deteriorated, in other sense wisdom changes to ignorance form. This is the only reason mind has started following the joy blindly, and as a result we have very little interest left to lead our life in accordance with our wisdom and intellect.
To develop interest and reinforce your interest back into your wisdom, you must start controlling yourself and live your life according to your wisdom. Joy or happiness is short lived. When you go opposite to your wisdom it even brings in sorrow and troubles. So, by control, tolerance and selfless attitude we should try to make our joy servant or companion of our knowledge or wisdom, then the attraction of the wrong and sinful things will not impact your purest form of mind, intellect and spirit.
Mind = Substance like air in our body
Joy = Feeling
Wisdom = Brain has the power of wisdom
Question 2: What is Tapa (Tap)
In Chapter 17 of Bhagwat Gita Lord Krishna has explained the characteristics of Tapa as follows (Mansa, Vacha, Karmana i.e. Mind, Speech and Actions):
Body Tapa (Sharir-sambandhi Tap): Praise and worship Gods, Brahmin, Guru and knowledgeable people. Pure (Pavitra), simple (Saral), disciplined (Brahmcharya) and non violent (Ahinsa), these are body tapa.
Speech Tapa (Vani-Sambandhi Tap): Non provocative (udveg na karne wala), sweet (priye), beneficial (hitkari) and to the point (yathartha bhashan) speech, and reading religious books and pronouncing the name of the lord – All these are called speech Tapa.
Mind Tapa (Man-Sambhandi Tap): Happy mind (man ki prasanta), peace of mind (shant bhava), attitude to keep thinking god (Bhagwat chintan), self control on mind (man ka nigrah) and purity of the feelings arising in mind all the time (antahkaran ke bhavo ki bhali bjamnti pavitrata) – These are called Mind related tapa.
Index of Questions
- Why our behaviour is opposite to our thinking.
- What is Tapa (Tap)