The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita : 16.3. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday, 12  Jan  2024 06:15. 

Chapter 16: The Supreme Person-3.

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The Bhagavadgita admonishes us that this tree has to be felled down by cutting it at its root with the axe of non-attachment. The tree grows by attachment, and it withers away by detachment. The universe is a bundle of egoisms, centres of self-affirmation, which well up into avid activity and strength by the fulfilment of desire through the indulgence thereof. And when desire dries up, the universe also is parched out, and it cannot exist any more, even as when the threads of the cloth are pulled out the cloth also ceases to be.

The universe, ultimately, is not made up of substances, but of desires. The warp and woof of this universe are the desires of the individuals that constitute it. In a way we may say that the universe does not stand outside the individuals, even as the cloth does not stand outside the threads of which it is constituted or formed.

To cut at the root of the universe is not an easy task. It requires a great understanding of the structure of the universe. It would mean that to cut at the root of phenomena would be to cut at our own roots, to fell the tree of ego, and nothing can be a harder job than to deal with one's own self. We cannot tackle our own selves because we are not any more an object to ourselves. We are accustomed to deal with things and objects, but we do not regard ourselves as objects or things, and therefore we are incapable of handling or dealing in any way. We remain a hard-boiled indescribable something, and the source of our sorrows are our own selves. Nobody causes grief to us. We tie ourselves up like silkworms in a cocoon by our own desires which wind themselves around the centre, which is the ego. And, unless there is the wisdom of the creative God surging forth in our souls, this detachment is impossible.

Viveka, or discrimination, is a precedent requisite for vairagya, or non-attachment. One cannot detach oneself from anything unless there is an understanding of the nature of the relationship of that thing with oneself. Both attachment and detachment are difficult things to understand, because the relationship between the two terms of experience is also difficult to decipher. One clings to an object or is averse towards something on account of a lack of understanding of the mutual relationship between the two. When knowledge dawns, there is a spontaneous dropping out of all relationship. And the highest form of detachment is not a sundering of oneself from anything existent, but the raising of oneself to a consciousness of the pervasive character of the Reality that exists equally in the subject and the object, as well as in between the two.

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To be continued

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