Radhanath Swami on Restraining Our Senses

Penance means the willingness to forego, to put aside, our egos & desire for selfish pleasure for the higher principle of pleasing God. Pleasing God in the beginning often means to deny ourselves what our mind and senses are expecting. Animals simply follow the dictations of their senses and the mind has no power to discriminate. The animals are slaves of their minds and senses without the power to question. Today people also are not taught how to control their mind and senses, in fact they are trained as how to surrender to their minds and senses. But human life is meant for self-realization. So we must try our best to restrain our senses from those things which are not favorable in our quest for self-realization; rather we should perform the austerity of engaging our senses in those activities which are favorable. We should regularly take association of saintly people and hear and chant the glories of the Lord. This is the supreme most function and responsibility of every human being. And if we are not doing it then we are nothing more than a sophisticated animal.