Early morning when one wants to get up and the body says “just sleep a bit,” anyone can feel the difference between the pull of the consciousness and the  pull of the body (unconsciousness), where it is intense that wins. The lazy person often is pulled by the body.

Not only body, when a person is pulled by the senses — like some people can’t control their food habits, I’m not talking about being hungry, I’m taking about eating excessively, something like a dog which can’t stop itself when finds a piece of bone. Or,  some can’t control the sex habits even they sometimes don’t leave indulging in the child abuses.

Anyway,

The thing is when one flows and goes according to the senses and the body, that person loses his consciousness (as he doesn’t use it) and he keeps on programming himself in the unconscious patterns of the mind, and later on this pulling becomes so strong,  it takes lot of work to leave those habits.

The ascetic life:

It raises consciousness, as a person when isn’t pulled away by the body and senses — feels far more in awareness. In fact, he isn’t torturing himself,  he is just controlling and pushing aside the unconscious aspects of the life, though he uses them but isn’t lost in them. The path of Hatha Yoga is also like that to live in the awareness without being lost in the body and mind.