258
Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam
[Canto 2, Ch. 5]
fying the senses of the Supreme Lord. The Supreme Lord, being the supreme possessor of spiritual senses, is the master of the senses,  Hṛṣīkeśa .  Hṛṣīka  means the senses, and  īśa  means the master. The Lord is not the servant of the senses, or, in other words, He is not directed by the dictation of the senses, but the conditioned souls or the individual living entities  are  servants of the senses. They are conducted by the direction or dictation of the senses, and therefore material civilization is a kind of engagement in sense gratification only. The standard of human civilization should be to cure the disease of sense gratification, and this can be done simply by becoming an agent for satisfying the spiritual senses of the Lord. The senses are never to be stopped in their engagements, but they should be purified by engaging them in the pure service of sense gratification of the master of the senses. This is the instruction of the whole  Bhagavad-gītā . Arjuna wanted first of all to satisfy his own senses by his decision not to fight with his kinsmen, etc., but Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa taught him the  Bhagavad-gītā  just to purify Arjuna's decision for sense gratification. Therefore Arjuna agreed to satisfy the senses of the Lord, and thus he fought the Battle of Kurukṣetra, as the Lord desired.
The  Vedas  instruct us to get out of the existence of darkness and go forward on the path of light ( tamaso mā jyotir gamaya ). The path of light is therefore to satisfy the senses of the Lord. Misguided men, or less intelligent men, follow the path of self-realization without any attempt to satisfy the transcendental senses of the Lord by following the path shown by Arjuna and other devotees of the Lord. On the contrary, they artificially try to stop the activities of the senses ( yoga  system), or they deny the transcendental senses of the Lord ( jñāna  system). The devotees are, however, above the  yogīs  and the  jñānīs  because pure devotees do not deny the senses of the Lord; they want to satisfy the senses of the Lord. Only because of the darkness of ignorance do the  yogīs  and  jñānīs  deny the senses of the Lord and thus artificially try to control the activities of the diseased senses. In the diseased condition of the senses there is too much engagement of the senses in increasing material needs. When one comes to see the disadvantage of aggravating the sense activities, one is called a  jñānī , and when one tries to stop the activities of the senses by the practice of  yogic  principles, he is called a  yogī , but when one is fully aware of the transcendental senses of the Lord and tries to satisfy His senses, one is called a devotee of the Lord. The devotees of the Lord neither try to deny the senses of the Lord nor do they artificially stop the actions of the senses. But they do voluntarily engage the purified senses in the service of the master of the senses, as was done by Arjuna, thereby easily attaining the perfection of satisfying the Lord, the ultimate goal of all perfection.