senses lead even the best astray..

senses lead even the best astray..

तीव्रे तपसि लीनानामिन्द्रियाणां न विश्वसेत्।

विश्वामित्रोपि सोत्कण्ठः कण्ठे जग्राह मेनकाम्॥३६

क्षेमेन्द्रप्रणीते चारुचर्यायाम्॥

tīvre tapasi līnānāmindriyāṇāṁ na viśvaset|

viśvāmitropi sotkaṇṭhaḥ kaṇṭhe jagrāha menakām||36

kṣemendrapraṇīte cārucaryāyām||

Another strong warning from Kshemendra in his Charucharya

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Even those who engaged in intense penance should never trust their sense organs and the mind completely.

Vishvamitra who was doing penance with highly pointed concentration landed up with the nymph Menaka tied to his neck..

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The story of Visvamitra and Apsaras Menaka is very famous.

The sage Visvamitra was a very intense person.. 

He was a king first and got defeated by sage Vasishta in battle of spiritual power against physical strength

Then he turned into a sage.. who did austerities and penance many times and managed to achieve even the most impossible.. 

But he was very mercurial in his character and many a times he would fritter away his power of penance by applying that power on very silly or frivolous acts or by giving curses in the wrong places..

Finally he set out on a penance to become a Brahmarishi and a very powerful human being.. 

The king of gods, Indra was always jealous of persons who could achieve great things, especially through penance..

He always feared that such persons would pose a challenge to his status as the leader of Gods sooner of later..

So watching Vishvamitra doing penance, the jealous and cunning Indra hatched out plan to stop such great act and he knew that this could nullify the powers of the sage.

So he engaged Menaka, the beautiful dance in the heavenly court to do her amorous tricks before the meditating sage with a view to cause his downfall..

Indeed Menaka tried all her tricks, and initially failed..

But with time, the concentration of Vishvamitra started to veer away from penance to the attractive body of the nymph..

Finally he lost control of all his senses, and received Menaka in his romantic embrace and threw to winds his intense penance..

The damage was done 

This is an instance where the physical senses and emotions could distract the intense self discipline of even the most intense and learned person and could thwart his mission and reduce to naught all that he had accumulated by way of spiritual wealth..

The product of the amorous union of Visvmitra and Menaka was Shakuntala... the immortal Shakuntala of Kalidasa..

The fickleness of human nature is underlined in this sloka.. 

Even the best and earnest people who would be righteous and would yearn to be so for ever can fall to momentary temptations.. and could pay heavily for that.. 

Sounds like a" Me too..."

Not surprising