“Inside Out”
Vaisesika das: Recently, while walking through the airport in Irvine, California, I saw an advertisement for a movie by Pixar entitled, Inside Out.
The sub-titles were:
“Meet the Little Voices Inside Your Head. A major emotion picture.”
The advertisement features pictures of some of the characters that will be in the film: cartoon caricatures of various qualities such as sincerity, arrogance, greed, and so on. These personified emotions live inside the heads of the main characters of the film and influence their lives, each in their own way.
Most people will relate to the idea behind this movie, even if they never plan to see it. The reason? People really do hear voices inside their heads (even mentally healthy people) and often times these voices are contradictory. One voice might say, “Throw caution to the wind and enjoy your senses.” While another voice intervenes and says, “Don’t do it. It’s not good for you.”
In the Bhagavad-gita Lord Krishna give us an idea of where these unseen influences come from. For example, Krishna depicts lust as an enemy who takes up a sitting place in our senses, mind or intelligence; and from these strategic places, Krishna says, lust covers our knowledge and bewilders us. (Bg. 3.40)
In his purport to this verse, Srila Prabhupada writes: “The enemy has captured different strategic positions in the body of the conditioned soul, and therefore Lord Krishna is giving hints of those places, so that one who wants to conquer the enemy may know where he can be found.”
We can be sure that Pixar has created a character representing lust.
By the practice of devotional service bhakti yogis not only come to know the voices – like lust – in their heads, but they also learn how to tame and transform them.
Srila Prabhupada writes: “Krishna consciousness is so powerful that even a late beginner can become a lover of God by following the regulative principles of devotional service. So, from any stage of life, or from the time of understanding its urgency, one can begin regulating the senses in Krishna consciousness, devotional service of the Lord, and turn the lust into love of Godhead–the highest perfectional stage of life.” (Bg. 3.41; purport)
Pixar’s new movie title, Inside Out, marks a need that most people feel: the need for inner purification, integrity, and self-discipline.
One who recognizes this need to improve oneself can take to devotional service, beginning with the regular chanting of the Hare Krishna mantra.
Om Tat Sat