Grooming one's Intellect

Astro Guide Mysore

It’s innate that everyone loves his face.  In fact loves himself.  He grooms himself to put up a good appearance in the world of perceptions.  In social gatherings most of the conversations start with “Oh, look at you, you look stunning” or “Have you gained weight recently?” or “You look out of place, you require having dressing sense”.  These opinions make a person unknowingly concentrate more on his looks and appearance. Since, this is more in women folk generally they get immersed into it so deep that, they become specialists in appearance counseling.

Men get into body building, show off, buying extravagant gadgets, etc., which they hope will upkeep their status of youth in their circles. 

This, since has a very big impact on an individual from the date of his birth, he really thinks that the appearance or looks of a person is the utmost important factor.

Generally, we stick to our routine every morning.  We brush our teeth, take  bath, scrub our bodies clean using our favorite soap, comb our hair, get dressed up, a minimal makeup in case of women, have a sumptuous breakfast, put on our best shoes and off we go to our offices.

All this time we were in the process of grooming our physical self and have forgotten the intellectual self which is really who we are. The importance given to this physical self over shadows the intellectual self.

It will be apt at this juncture for me to give a small example: -

This is a well known story of a shepherd who went on to marry a princess, who was deceived by the minister, who made the shepherd dress like a Sanskrit Scholar.  That night, the princess comes to know about the shepherd when he spills the beans by talking to her. The princess feels deceived.  She in her anger tells her newly married husband to sit in front of the idol of Goddess Kali and ask her for knowledge.  Innocently the shepherd does what is told. I hope everyone knows the later part of the story.  The shepherd is non-other than the great Sanskrit poet Kalidasa.  Once he gained the knowledge or Jnana, he was recognized as a great scholar.  No one gave any importance to what he wore or how he lived. 

It will be the best day in a person’s life when he is recognized for what he intellectually is, rather to what he looks like.

So it is our responsibility to groom our intellectual self thrice every day.  This in our olden days was performed as sandhyavandana. It was done three times a day to cleanse ourselves from any ill/evil thoughts. Let’s now start this practice of grooming our intellectual self and start talking to ourselves. 

Do we want an external life where we will only perceive things through our five senses or do we prefer our mind, intellect and consciousness to get involved in the process of perception? 

Now it will be easy for us to understand why, we give importance to taste, colours & design, music, feeling of touch and fragrance.

Lingering towards all these physical entities becomes lesser if the intellectual self starts to blossom.  The perception of food as a required source of energy and not a medium to enjoy the sense of taste will set into our mind.

Likewise all the other four senses will come under the control of our intellect and our consciousness, making us more oriented towards bigger goals.

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Author:

Sheshachalam Iyengar : iyengarastro@gmail.com