What is bitter in the beginning becomes sweeter in the end. That's how fasting and sacrifice feels. By cultivating self discipline and overcoming the mind and senses, one can achieve a better state of being.
Any sort of training requires sacrifice. This leads in the end to mastery. There may be pain but it leads to real gain.
The mind and senses crave stimulus in the form of the objects of the senses, like touch, taste and sight. If we let them run uncontrolled, we'll lower our quality of life, on one level or another.
By controlling the senses, we can gain a higher taste over time, backed by knowledge and experience. Self mastery is a lifelong process because the mind and senses are always with us and pushing us to fulfill their desires.
Maturity brings forethought and control of the senses. For the young it is harder to control the senses because they're so much stronger. That's when it pays to put in the most work and effort.
If you are tough on your mind and senses in youth, under good training in good association, those senses will become harnessed and far easier to control throughout the rest of your life.
Neglect the training of the mind and senses, along with the cultivation of self discipline, and in old age it will be harder to curb them. They will be lax and habituated to their indulgence.
And in advanced old age, they will eventually be like a dog that loses its teeth and become jaded and weak anyway. However, the mind may fight on, like a caged tiger, never losing it's base instinct to enjoy. That's a sad space to be.
So better we catch the opportunity in youth to really train hard and work at self discipline and sense control. It's bitter in the beginning but becomes sweeter in the end. Otherwise we're like a perverted old man, still staring at young girls as if they are objects to be enjoyed, even when they are old enough to be your grand-daughter, and you're too old to even act on your fantasy anyway.
The mind that is unbridled in youth will lust after the objects of the senses way after it's too late to do anything about it, and thus be trapped in that cage of lust in the final years, when one should actually be focusing on renunciation and Transcendence.
So whatever age, don't become that perverted person who leers lustfully at women as if they are yours to be enjoyed. It's low class, basically animal, and shows lack of training, self discipline, and makes you look like a dancing dog in the hands of the witch called Maya.
Bhagavad Gita ch4:30
sarve 'py ete yajña-vido
yajña-kṣapita-kalmaṣāḥ
yajña-śiṣṭāmṛta-bhujo
yānti brahma sanātanam
SYNONYMS
sarve—all; api—although apparently different; ete—all these; yajña-vidaḥ—conversant with the purpose of performing; yajña—sacrifices; kṣapita—being cleansed of the result of such performances; kalmaṣāḥ—sinful reactions; yajña-śiṣṭa—as a result of such performances of yajña; amṛta-bhujaḥ—those who have tasted such nectar; yānti—do approach; brahma—the supreme; sanātanam—eternal atmosphere
TRANSLATION
All these performers who know the meaning of sacrifice become cleansed of sinful reaction, and, having tasted the nectar of the remnants of such sacrifice, they go to the supreme eternal atmosphere.
PURPORT
From the foregoing explanation of differents types of sacrifice (namely sacrifice of one's possessions, study of the Vedas or philosophical doctrines, and performance of the yoga system), it is found that the common aim of all is to control the senses. Sense gratification is the root cause of material existence; therefore, unless and until one is situated on a platform apart from sense gratification, there is no chance of being elevated to the eternal platform of full knowledge, full bliss and full life. This platform is in the eternal atmosphere, or Brahman atmosphere. All the above-mentioned sacrifices help one to become cleansed of the sinful reactions of material existence. By this advancement in life, one not only becomes happy and opulent in this life, but also, at the end, he enters into the eternal kingdom of God, either merging into the impersonal Brahman or associating with the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa.
Reference: Bhagavad Gita As It Is, translation and commentary by Swami A C Bhaktivedanta, original MacMillan 1972 edition, freely available at prabhupadabooks.com.
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Edited on my mobile device and published onto the Hive blockchain for those who would be masters and not slaves.