14^th verse of the Isavasya Upanishad.

sambḥutiṁ ca vināśaṁ ca yastad vedobhayaṁ saha |

vināśena mṛtyuṁ tīrtvā sambhūtyāmṛtam aśnute || 14 ||

Listen. Understand. Cognize your existence, cognize the existence of the life, universe, God, everything with the larger vision. Listen, why you do what you do? Why you think the way you think? – should be based on larger vision of life not just an immediate ‘agitational gratification’. Please understand, all your so-called luxury, the sensory pleasures are agitation gratification. Please understand, the agitation you feel in the tongue you gratify it with the food which destroys your health, but gives you temporary gratification.

Please understand. In Agama, Mahadeva describes – what is taste? If your whole tongue and the mouth experiences the saliva, that is taste. That will never happen with the food which gives you the pleasure of agitational gratification. Please understand, high spicy or this junk food, all this if you see, it will not allow the whole mouth to work. If you look little deep, even you know all this junk food after eating within 3-4 minutes you are depressed, tired, bored, want to sleep. How many of you have recognized the immediate effect of junk food on your body, raise your hands?

That is what is agitational gratification. I can give you some more example. The music which agitates your lust and gives you gratification. The scenes like a pornography which agitates you and gratifies you. The vulgar, hardcore pornography which agitates you and gratifies you. Whether it is through the eyes or ears or the nose or the tongue or the touch, the ‘agitational gratification’ items will always be short-term goal, with a very short vision. If you see the agitational gratification items, you will not have even vision about your own 100 years life span. The more and more you expand your cognition of your life span, better and better your strategies for life become.

Please understand, if you think you are going to live for 100 years, you know from the beginning how you are supposed to maintain your stomach, how you are supposed to maintain your body, how you are supposed to keep your mind. If you are too brilliant and understand, it is not just going to be 100 years, it is going to be birth and death, birth and death, then you know how you are supposed to keep everything.

The shorter you cognize your Existence, you will go for ‘agitational gratification’ practices; means which gratifies you now, whether agitation or hook or crook, whatever, which excites you now, which agitates you now, that becomes ‘pleasure’. Please understand, even the word ‘pleasure’ has a different meaning for a different kind of people. If you think you are going to live for 100 years, beef and the non-veg can never become part of your diet. It can never become part of your diet, because that food agitates you to gratify you. By agitating you anything brings gratification. The pleasure itself is very low-level pleasure because your cognition about ‘you’ is very low, so your cognition about your pleasure is very low.

If you think your life span, your Existence is much more, then the idea of your pleasures will become different. The ideas about your pleasure will become different. Understand, if you think you are going to be having births and deaths, births and death, that’s the truth, till you are enlightened the births and deaths is going to be your lifecycle, then simply you know what is going to be your pleasure, what is going to be your pain, what should be your pleasure, what should be your pain. Having a larger vision, more clear vision about you! Actually when you have more clear vision about you, all your actions will be aligned to that. Your pleasure, what do you consider as pain, what do you consider as pleasure, what do you consider as good, what do you consider as bad, everything will become different – if what you consider as ‘you’ changes. What do you consider as ‘you’ if that changes; If you start understanding, what do you consider as YOU is little more than the immediate life you are observing. A common man looks at only the 20-25 years he is supposed to live healthily with all the so-called pleasures. By the time 25, he will have little money and freedom to do what he wants, by the time he is 50, over everything. So this 25 years only you consider as life. If you consider this 25 years only as ‘you’ and plan, that is what is what I call very, very short vision. Then all your strategies about you, life and everything will be – vināśaṁ ca – means destructible, based on destructible. If your strategies are based on something destructible, do not enjoy, do not expect long-term peace or bliss because your strategy itself is not for that. When you are building your house itself, you are building with bamboo concrete, which life span is only 20 years, and then you expect your 4^th generation to live in that house? You make a wall. This is for the photograph of all my first generation. Then this is my sons’ and daughters’ and that is for my grandsons and granddaughters. That is for my great grandsons and great granddaughters. The house itself is going to live only 20 years.

Agitational gratification. Understand, today I am using a new word. If you look in and analyze; a little bit of looking in is required. Look in and analyze. All your short-term goals will be agitational gratification, which agitates you and gratifies you. Even laziness, early morning how you are breathing and life, that decides how you are going to be whole day. The morning kirtan, why this kirtan you know? Two reasons. One, when you sing and dance, the joy becomes your bio-memory, muscle-memory. Second, you will have a strong long breath. Morning having a strong long breath is very good for your health. 

Understand, this two word – agitational gratification, delayed gratification. When you think you are going to exist only this 20-25 years which is in front of your eyes, you will always opt for only agitational gratification things. Now, what, what, what, what, what, what, what next, what next. If you understand your life is 100 years, your pleasures, pain also will transform. It will take a different shape. And if you understand you have many births and deaths in front of you, your ideas about pleasure will change, your ideas about pain will change. Your life will not be hormonally hijacked. This hormonal hijack, understand the word I am using – hormonal hijack. Hormones hijacking you – is one of the worst thing can happen to a human being. When the hormones hijack you, gone. Before even you open your eyes, life is over. I always tell people, marriage is the bailable offense and child is the non-bailable offense. Marriage is the bailable, anytime you can get bail and escape. Once you have a kid, non-bailable. It’s non-bailable. Anyhow, that is much on lighter note.

Listen, we don’t even need to look into those things. At least look into this two word – agitational gratification and delayed gratification.