Many drug dealers give drugs free to gullible kids. Though the drugs may be delivered free, those dealers do take a price: the price of making the kids attached, addicted, afflicted. And once the kids are hooked, the dealers start charging — and charging heavily. Till the poor kids start doing reprehensible things just to get one more shot. 

The same principle applies to the Internet, which opens for us a whole universe of indulgence, much of which touts itself as free. People get hooked to indiscriminate net surfing, till it becomes an addiction that alienates them from their loved ones and even from themselves. Even if people don’t stoop to criminal activities – as they might with drug addiction – still Internet addiction by seeming less harmful becomes even more widespread. It robs people of their mental balance, moral compass and spiritual purpose. 

When we indulge in any sense object repeatedly, an invisible shackle is formed between our consciousness and that object. With every future indulgence, that rope thickens and tightens till we become puppets who are pulled toward that sense object. And the providers of that object become our puppet masters. 

The Bhagavad-gita (03.39) cautions that self-destructive desire – the lust for sensual pleasure – can be an eternal enemy. That desire torments us lifelong, and in our future lives too; the impressions stored in our mind go with us souls to our future bodies. 

Is the bondage really eternal? No, nothing except spiritual love and joy are eternal. But the bondage can feel eternal when we are tormented. And that torment will end only when we resolve to say no and stick to that resolve. 

If we will have to abstain eventually, why not abstain immediately and protect ourselves from immeasurable torment? 

 

Think it over:

  • How are free pleasures actually not free?
  • Why is the torment of sensual pleasure considered eternal?
  • Do you know anyone who has lost their freedom to free pleasure? How can you protect yourself from repeating their sorry story? 

 

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03.39 Thus the wise living entity’s pure consciousness becomes covered by his eternal enemy in the form of lust, which is never satisfied and which burns like fire.

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