The five senses of sound,touch,vision,taste and smell, while being indispensable for human body to exist,can also mislead them towards downfall. Adi Sannkaracharya,in his treatise"Vivekachudamani" lucidly expounds on his truth. The five sense organs, unless controlled,can bind man to himself, just like the chords which tether cattle to the pole from which they cannot free themselves. Once man falls victim to uncontrolled sense attractions,he commits various misdeeds in order to fulfill his desires, in the process adding to his baggage of wrong doings. This is never ending cycle, like a court hall upstairs and then downstairs and then leads them downstairs in a continuous cycle. As an illustration of the dangers of giving in to the senses, Sankaracharya gives five telling analogies.
It is said deer is enticed by the sweet sound of the music of the flute played by the hunter , forgetting that it has to run away.
A wild elephant tempted by the touch of the tamed female elephant and thus gets trapped. A moth sees the bright flame and is attracted by it, goes near to it
and is burnt to death. The fish, wanting to eat the bait dangled by the fisherman pays its life for succumbing to the call of taste. The bee, unable to resist the overpowering fragrance of the champaka flower, inhales too much of it and falls down dead. If this is the fate of creatures, which are victims of only one of five elements, what needs to be said in the case of man ,in whom all the five are active? In order to drive home this fact ,Sankara employs another powerful example.
The king cobra's venom is the deadliest poison which can kill a man in a few minutes .But it is lethal only if man is bitten and the venom enters the bloodstream.
There is no danger in just looking at the snake. Where as , merely looking at an object of sense pleasure is enough to destroy man.The meaning her is that the sense objects ensnare man,unless he controls the wild horses of his senses.
Thus, too much of attachment to sense pleasure is fraught with great dangers,like being caught in the tentacles of a sea monster. It is only he who kills this monster with the sword of right discrimination between good and bad elevates himself to higher planes of existence.
Shankara warns that death and obstacles haunt every step a man of impure mind who travels on the road of sense pleasures. A man overcome by sense desires is like a stupid frog ,caught in the mouth of a snake and which, unaware of its impending fate , stretches its tongue to catch an insect. Sense objects induce desire.Failure to satisfy desire leads to anger. Anger leads to delusion. Delusion causes loss of memory which destroys the intellect. Thus man himself destroyed.