Sense gratification (Lectures, BG chapters 1 - 3)

Expressions researched:
"gratification of the senses" |"gratifying his senses" |"gratifying me senses" |"gratifying my senses" |"gratifying our senses" |"gratifying senses" |"gratifying the senses" |"gratifying their senses" |"gratifying your senses" |"sense gratification" |"sensual gratification"

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

Introduction to Bhagavad-gita As It Is -- Los Angeles, November 23, 1968 :

If our senses are gratified, we think we are now satisfied. So this is the gross type of existence, I mean to say, existence of ignorance. Illusion. Māyā. When one is under the thought that "I am this," this is illusion. Illusion means you accept something, something is presented as reality, and you accept it. Just like the example is given water in the desert. Mirage. There is no water, but a, an animal is hankering, is running after water in the desert. That is practical, that due to sunshine there is a reflection, it appears in the desert. Sometimes you might have seen—not here, in India we have seen several times—that exactly there is a vast water, and it is reflecting, the reflection. That is called mirage. There is not a drop of water, but the animal, when he is thirsty he..., it thinks that "There is water." He jumps into the desert and the water is going ahead, going ahead, and he is running after it and then dying. So this illusion, that "I am this body." So we are after this sense gratification. Body means the senses. So that is mirage, illusion. Just like the animal is running after water in the desert.

Introduction to Bhagavad-gita As It Is -- Los Angeles, November 23, 1968 :

So even this yoga system, the haṭha yoga system, that is also based on this illusion. They are trying to put this water under certain exercise and thinking that they are elevating themselves in spirit. But Bhagavad-gītā, in the beginning, says that you are not this body, neither this mind. This is the beginning of Bhagavad-gītā, and that is a b c d. Any person who does not know that I am not this body he has no even a-b-c-d knowledge of spiritual kingdom. If one is attracted with this bodily function or mind, mental function, he is outside the spiritual purview altogether. He rejected immediately. That test is in the Bhagavad-gītā. These people, the so-called yogis, so-called karmīs... Karmīs means the ordinary worker, those who are running in the street with motor car, this way and that way, very busy. You see. What are they? They are karmīs. Karmīs means under the bodily concept. They are thinking that comfort of this body and sense gratification is the end of life. That is karmī. If they have got very nice apartment, a nice wife and good bank balance and a very nice dress, oh, there is perfection. That's all. That is karmī.