EIGHT FOLD PATH CONTINUED

     I talked about the eight fold path to follow to get to ultimate 'goal', in the past blog . The question may arise , how does it help .Is it to 'purify' our mind or what is the purpose behind it . The answer is simple . When we try to meditate , thoughts will come to our mind . These are based on our previous actions /deeds and if we have followed the eight fold path , we are not likely to have ' disturbing ' or distracting thought . If we have avoided 'killing ' or hurting others , we have followed principle of 'nonviolence', we will not be worried about someone taking revenge . If we have told the truth, we don't have to worry about 'remembering'  , what we lied about or in process of lying , if we have hurt someone , if he would come after us . The other commandments or yama, not to steal, celibacy not to do hoarding will add to peace of our mind .This in turn will help reduce our flights of thoughts and help achieve the goal.
        So now the next one is not to steal . We all understand simple things like if we take anything which does not belong to us , we are stealing. But there is more to this commandment than this simple meaning. The God made the sense organs to help us 'survie '. So it is natural if we eat when we are hungry or drink water when we are thirsty etc.But when we 'indulge ' in any of these activities , we are stealing.Let us say a mother allowed the child to take 2 cookies. He (or she ) decides to take more without asking mother or does not share with his brother , it will be considered stealing. If we are in a party and appetizer looks good , so we decide to take more than what was suppose to be for us and this action leads to some other guests not getting their ' share ',the we are stealing .So what is reasonable and what is not ?Only way to get the 'correct ' answer is from 'clear ' intellect. Our intellect can not be clear if our 'living ' is not 'Satwic ' or pure or good . This can come only if we eat , drink , and live 'good ---satwic ' life. If our food is not satwic or our company is not satwic or our reading , writing .watching(TV, movies )are not conducing for satwic promotion , then our thinking is not going to be correct.and our decision and on turn action are not going to be good and then our mind is not going to be quite and we will not be in position to calm it and achieve the ' Samadhi '.
      The celibacy is the next one . This does not mean no sexual action . The sexual relationship is allowed , but only for the purpose of  having children . It is the most difficult one to follow . This certainly excludes premarital or extramarital relations, but it also (ideally ) excludes relationship which is not for having children . We all can easily understand how this one can can disturb our mind and not allow concentration that is required for the Samadhi. I will not go in to the detail as to what days are god for the relationship to have children , but in the religion they have specified these days.
     All of us understand the sexual intercourse. But there is more to the sexual temptation , than avoiding the intercourse. Sometimes we indulge in to some actions that we may not consider as sexual or promoting sexual thoughts.But there is downward spiral in this action when we continue the path that is dangerous . These steps are,"Prekshun ",(watching observing females with lust ), " Smarun "(remembering -the females  ), " Kirtun "(talking  -about females and their beauty),the next one is "Kely ( playing with females" )," Guhyabhashan "(Talking with females in a suggestive way about sex )," Sanket "' (both parties giving indication for getting together ), decision to meet alone is next step called "Adhyawasay", and the last and 8th is "Kriyaniwruti "( the actual sexual action ). As one can see , each is worse then the previous one and all of them are bad and so one needs to avoid all the situation where we may be tempted to  proceed and slowly get deeper and deeper . We may not think much about talking to females or telling or making  sexual jokes and so on , but it will disturb our mind and will take away from our goal.