कर्मेन्द्रियाणि संयम्य य आस्ते मनसा स्मरन्।
इन्द्रियार्थान्विमूढात्मा मिथ्याचारः स उच्यते।।3.6।।
One who, after withdrawing the organs of action, sits mentally recollecting the objects of the senses, is called a hypocrite, for they have a deluded mind.
Osho’s Commentary
A tremendously profound statement. Krishna calls such a man a mithyachari, a hypocrite, one who lives a lie. And not just that, he calls him a vimudhatma, a deluded soul, a fool. This is a direct blow to all so-called religious asceticism that is based on suppression. The senses themselves are innocent. The eyes have no desire to see; the mind desires. The hands have no desire to touch; the mind desires. The senses are simply windows, doors. The master is sitting inside. To suppress the senses is to fight with the servants while ignoring the master. What happens when you suppress the senses? You may lock the doors from the outside, but the mind inside starts projecting. The man who fasts all day will dream of royal feasts all night. The mind is a great creator. What it cannot get from the outside, it will create on the inside. Freud stumbled upon this truth five thousand years after Krishna. He saw that the whole culture of Christian suppression had only created a neurotic humanity. People who suppressed their senses became perverted. They became obsessed with the very things they were trying to escape. Krishna is not a foolish man. He says the one who controls his senses with force, while his mind continues to wander in the fields of desire, is a hypocrite. He is deceiving others, but more dangerously, he is deceiving himself. His outer life becomes a performance, a show of piety, while his inner reality is a turbulent hell of repressed desires. This division between the inner and the outer is mithya, the lie. This is the state of schizophrenia that so-called religion has created. Man becomes split. He shows one face to the world and hides another within himself. And in this split, all possibility of music, of harmony, of joy, is lost.