Conquest of Illusion

(Excerpt from Wanderings in the Himalayas)

Swami Tapovan Maharaj

If enjoyment is the body, suffering is its head. Nobody can live without his head. Still, man forgets that the more he enjoys, the more he will suffer.

Even in extreme old age, when the body is in a state of dissolution, man clings to it as if it were still young and healthy and full of vigor. Thus aiming at pleasure and eagerly longing for the prolongation of life, man goes on revolving within the endless circle of samsara.

Man is like a caged lion. He cannot get out of the limitations of his senses. He does not recollect that he has fallen from a high state of freedom into abject slavery. Every book on religion may differ widely on other points, but they all agree that man has fallen into a low state, and his paramount duty is to understand his degradation and reclaim himself from that state.

So long as man, however learned, remains in this bondage of illusion, there is hardly any difference between him and the meanest worm. God has given them both the power to know and power to do. Both remain attached to bodily senses; both seek worldly pleasures and suffer greatly. Man can hardly consider himself superior to other creatures so long as he fails to use his reason properly for breaking the bondage he is in. if it only serves to bind him faster to the world, if it only gives sorrow and servitude, how can it make man superior to other animals?

Everywhere around us we find people who are bound to the body and who inexorably pursue the illusive pleasures of the senses under the belief, “I am this body.” If this is what reason does, who can fail to say that reason is the cause of greater bondage and greater sorrow?

With reason man has great thins to achieve. Properly utilized, it is the chief requisite for breaking the illusory bondage and realizing God. But the mere possession of it cannot make man worthier than other creatures. It ennobles man to the extent that it serves to achieve the main purpose of human life, namely, the conquest of maya.