The Bhagavadgita – A Synthesis of Thought and Action-9 : Swami Krishnananda
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21/11/2019
(Spoken on Gita Jayanti in 1973)
A Synthesis of Thought and Action-9.
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“This is wonderful.” “This is very nice.” “This is no good.” We pass such remarks on persons and things on the basis of a sensory evaluation of them. But this is an incorrect attitude. The world is not made up of good things or bad things, pleasurable things or miserable things, our things or other things. It is made up of things in general. It is not our things. They are there even if we are not there. We too belong to it. It is very difficult to conceive what the world is. When the world starts thinking, it is not you or I who thinks. This is Sankhya – the nature of the world in its essential being, quite different from what it appears to us in our sensory perception.
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Srimad Bhagavad Gita : Chapter-3. Slokam-28.
"Tattva-vit tu maha-baho guna-karma-vibhagayoh
guna guneshu vartanta iti matva na sajjate"
" O mighty-armed Arjuna, illumined persons distinguish the soul as distinct from gunas and karmas. They perceive that it is only the gunas (in the shape of the senses, mind, etc.) that move amongst the gunas (in the shape of the objects of perception), and thus they do not get entangled in them."
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“The world is not outside us,” says the Third Chapter of the Bhagavadgita in a very pithy, pointed half Slokam : guna guneshu vartanta iti matva na sajjate (Gita 3.28).
The perception of the world is not the perception of an object, really speaking. The world is not an object. It is a set of forces impinging upon another set of forces within us, called the senses. A group of fabricated structure, a bundle of energy outside, produces an impact of another bundle of energy in our own individuality, called the sensory structure. The colliding of forces from outside in respect of the very same forces inside produces a reaction. That reaction is called perception.
The gunas are nothing but forces of nature, prakriti’s attributes – sattva, rajas, tamas, as we call them – present equally in objects outside and the senses inside, and these gunas present in the individual as the forces of sense and mind become responsible for the cognition of the objects outside, whose embodiment are also the very same gunas.
The gunas perceive gunas. We do not perceive the world. Forces come in contact with forces. Energy collides with energy. Nature perceives itself. We do not perceive nature. Therefore, in this cognition of nature by its own self there cannot be any such thing as pleasure or pain. There is only an impersonal demand for duty on the part of every individual, irrespective of caste, creed, colour, sex, age, etc.
What nature demands of us does not depend upon our age, our culture, our understanding, etc. It is universally applicable, like the law of gravitation. The law of gravitation does not apply only to old people or young people or learned people, etc. It is for all and sundry. The law of gravitation is one of the forces of nature, and hundreds of others exist in its bosom.
Thus, on the basis of this Sankhya knowledge of the uniformly applicable structural pattern of nature, our actions have to be gauged.
Arjuna became giddy. “Very difficult, sir! What are you saying? I cannot act. My mind is giddy. I cannot understand what you are saying.”
Then Arjuna's thoughts are raised step by step from one stage to another stage through the various chapters of the Gita until the apotheosis or the apocalypse is reached in the Universal Viratsvarupa in the Eleventh Chapter.
Unless we have the cosmic vision of the Absolute, we cannot understand the world. “Arjuna, you cannot even lift your finger unless you see the Universal Form.”
And after the Universal Form was visualised, the proper location of the individual was known. The correct position of each person in respect of the Universe was understood. My status is known only when I know what the Universal is.
So Arjuna could not take a single step until the Vision Supreme was bestowed upon him – Sankhya, knowledge, melting into an experience of the very basic creative will and power of the cosmos.
To be continued ...
========================================================================
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
21/11/2019
(Spoken on Gita Jayanti in 1973)
A Synthesis of Thought and Action-9.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“This is wonderful.” “This is very nice.” “This is no good.” We pass such remarks on persons and things on the basis of a sensory evaluation of them. But this is an incorrect attitude. The world is not made up of good things or bad things, pleasurable things or miserable things, our things or other things. It is made up of things in general. It is not our things. They are there even if we are not there. We too belong to it. It is very difficult to conceive what the world is. When the world starts thinking, it is not you or I who thinks. This is Sankhya – the nature of the world in its essential being, quite different from what it appears to us in our sensory perception.
======================================================================
Srimad Bhagavad Gita : Chapter-3. Slokam-28.
"Tattva-vit tu maha-baho guna-karma-vibhagayoh
guna guneshu vartanta iti matva na sajjate"
" O mighty-armed Arjuna, illumined persons distinguish the soul as distinct from gunas and karmas. They perceive that it is only the gunas (in the shape of the senses, mind, etc.) that move amongst the gunas (in the shape of the objects of perception), and thus they do not get entangled in them."
=======================================================================
“The world is not outside us,” says the Third Chapter of the Bhagavadgita in a very pithy, pointed half Slokam : guna guneshu vartanta iti matva na sajjate (Gita 3.28).
The perception of the world is not the perception of an object, really speaking. The world is not an object. It is a set of forces impinging upon another set of forces within us, called the senses. A group of fabricated structure, a bundle of energy outside, produces an impact of another bundle of energy in our own individuality, called the sensory structure. The colliding of forces from outside in respect of the very same forces inside produces a reaction. That reaction is called perception.
The gunas are nothing but forces of nature, prakriti’s attributes – sattva, rajas, tamas, as we call them – present equally in objects outside and the senses inside, and these gunas present in the individual as the forces of sense and mind become responsible for the cognition of the objects outside, whose embodiment are also the very same gunas.
The gunas perceive gunas. We do not perceive the world. Forces come in contact with forces. Energy collides with energy. Nature perceives itself. We do not perceive nature. Therefore, in this cognition of nature by its own self there cannot be any such thing as pleasure or pain. There is only an impersonal demand for duty on the part of every individual, irrespective of caste, creed, colour, sex, age, etc.
What nature demands of us does not depend upon our age, our culture, our understanding, etc. It is universally applicable, like the law of gravitation. The law of gravitation does not apply only to old people or young people or learned people, etc. It is for all and sundry. The law of gravitation is one of the forces of nature, and hundreds of others exist in its bosom.
Thus, on the basis of this Sankhya knowledge of the uniformly applicable structural pattern of nature, our actions have to be gauged.
Arjuna became giddy. “Very difficult, sir! What are you saying? I cannot act. My mind is giddy. I cannot understand what you are saying.”
Then Arjuna's thoughts are raised step by step from one stage to another stage through the various chapters of the Gita until the apotheosis or the apocalypse is reached in the Universal Viratsvarupa in the Eleventh Chapter.
Unless we have the cosmic vision of the Absolute, we cannot understand the world. “Arjuna, you cannot even lift your finger unless you see the Universal Form.”
And after the Universal Form was visualised, the proper location of the individual was known. The correct position of each person in respect of the Universe was understood. My status is known only when I know what the Universal is.
So Arjuna could not take a single step until the Vision Supreme was bestowed upon him – Sankhya, knowledge, melting into an experience of the very basic creative will and power of the cosmos.
To be continued ...
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