Self Control

I remember once watching a temple-car festival in
Southern India. The car had been brought out of the temple, and, before
it started on its slow journey through the streets of the village, the
Brahmin priests were doing PUJA before it.

As I stood, an
interested spectator, in the crowd, an educated Brahmin entered into
conversation with me, and obligingly explained the symbolic meaning of
the festival. The car, he said, symbolized the human body; the figure
of the god seated in the car, the soul or reason. In front of the car
were two wooden horses represented as galloping; and reins were
attached to their mouths, and were held in the hand of the image of the
god. These horses, he said, represented the human passions, and the
reins in the hand of the god symbolized the necessity of restraining
and guiding the passions by reason.

The expedition of the car
through the village was an emblem of the steps forward of life; and the
lesson was that all the way through his life a man have to manage and
direct his fervors by his reason. This is a good parable of the nature
and necessity of self-control. All men have passions-strong desires,
urgent appetites, and powerful emotions. Some philosophies, like
Stoicism, and religions, like Buddhism, have taught that these are in
themselves evil, and must be suppressed and stamped out. But this is a
mistake. These fervors are the incentive power, the dynamic strength of
life. Unrestrained and freehand, they will destroy a man’s life; but
kept under control and guided in the right way, they will lead to
success.

They are like spirited horses, on which we must keep a
tight rein. If we do not master them, they will master us, and we shall
become the slaves of our passions. Self-control is not easy. The
natural thing is to let one’s passions have their way. It requires
considerable strength of will to say no to them. But we can learn to
discipline ourselves if we are in earnest about it; and unless we do
learn self-control, we cannot ever achieve success in any walk of life.
Before we can rule others, we must rule ourselves; before we can
command, we must learn to obey. And a man, who can control himself, is
a strong man. As a wise man once said, “He that rules his own spirit is
better than he that takes a city.”