Desires and enjoyment

         There is no problem in desiring. What matters is that it should not lead you away from your true Self. Vedic wisdom does not give a list of do's and donts'. All it says is that always remember your true Self - "Know Thy Self". In our journey to know Consciousness, we should  give more importance to intellect and be in the state of awareness , rather than sink in the ocean of mind waves. Always being aware of our true self and doing actions of enjoyment of senses will not cause problems, sufferings and pain. Only when we lose awareness of our self we end up accidents in life.

Like driving a car

    While driving a car, it is not a bad idea to listen to music or talk to fellow passengers. You will end up in a head on collision only when you lose the awareness that you are driving a car. You can enjoy music or talk while driving but never give up the awareness of driving. Similarly there is no problem in enjoying the senses of  pleasures. Only when we indulge in the sensual pleasures forgetting our  Self, we end up in pain and suffering.

    Pain and suffering comes then as big accidents. Before that there will be a forewarning like a police cop giving us a ticket for bad driving. If we ignore that we will then end up in serious consequences. Similarly we will get warning from our own Awareness and if we ignore that, we will then confront with dire consequences.

   Whatever actions we perform if we are always aware of our true Self, then we are free from pain and suffering. If not, the evolutionary force or nature (our own awareness) will force us to with pain and suffering.

   To reiterate, there is nor problem in enjoying the sensual pleasures but not at the cost of forgetting the real Self of us, like listening to music and talking while driving a car without losing awareness of driving.

Spiritual practices and abstinence

     But in spiritual practices we are asked to abstain because we have lost the awareness of the Self, like a driving instructor asking the student driver to abstain from listening to music and talking. Once we learn car driving then we can even hold the steering in one little finger and drive. Life will be that easy and fun when we become aware of our real self.