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human reins religions is of educated they will obey wise slow figure ever us through
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 journey through the streets of the village, the Bralimin priests were doing Puja before it. As I stood, an interested spectator in the crowd, an Brahmin, entered into conversation with me, and obligingly explained the symbolic meaning of the festival. He said the car, he said, symbolised the human body, the of the god seated in the car, the soul, or reason. In front of the car were two wooden horses represented as galloping, and were attached to their mouths and were held in the hands of the image of the god. He said these horses, he said, represented the passions, and the reins in the hand of the god symbolised the necessity of restraining and guiding the passions by reason. The car's journey the village represented the progression of life, and the lesson was that a man must control and guide his passions with reason throughout his life.
This a good parable of the nature and necessity of self-control. All men have strong desires, urgent appetites, and powerful emotions. Some philosophies, like Stoicism, and , like Buddhism, have taught that these are evil and must be suppressed and stamped out. But this is a mistake. These passions are the source life's motive power, the driving force. Unrestrained and unguided, they will wreck a man's life; but kept under control and guided in the right way, 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 , becoming slaves to our passions. Self-control is not easy. The natural thing is to let one's passions have their way. It requires considerable strength of to say no to them. But we can learn to discipline ourselves if we are earnest about it, and unless we learn self-control, we cannot achieve success in any walk of life. Before we can rule others, we must first rule ourselves; before we can command, we must learn to . A man who can control himself is strong. As a man once said, "He that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city."