Control the tongue with double care

While the eye, the ear and the nose serve as instruments of knowledge about one particular characteristic of Nature, the tongue makes itself available for two purposes: to judge taste and to utter word-symbols of communication.

You must control the tongue with double care, since it can harm you in two ways.

Without the control of the senses, saadhana is ineffective; it is like keeping water in leaky pot,when the senses are given full sway.

Pathanjali (the celebrated sage author of the Yogasuuthras) has said that when tongue is conquered, victory is yours. When the tongue craves for some delicacy, assert that you will not cater to its whims.

The monks and monastic dignitaries in this land have fallen prey to the tongue and are unable to curb its vagaries; they wear the robes of renunciation but clamour for tasty delicacies and thus bring the institution of monkhood into disrepute.

If you persist in giving yourself simple food that is not savoury or hot, but amply sustaining, the tongue may squirm for a few days, but it will soon welcome it. That is the way to subdue it and overcome the evil consequences of its being your master.