Study of the Bhagavadgita : Chapter-3 : Post- 5. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday, December 02, 2020. 11:45. AM.
Chapter 3: The Transmigration of the Soul - 5.

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When I speak of consciousness, I am actually referring to the Sanskrit word ‘Atman’ because you may be able to understand the meaning of ‘consciousness’ much better than the implications of Atman. Atman, consciousness, cannot perish, because the idea of consciousness perishing is there at the back and will not permit you to even entertain such a thought. Consciousness has to be there at the back of even the attempt to abolish the idea of consciousness. This is one aspect of the matter. Consciousness cannot perish. It is not temporal. It will not die. It is always there. It transcends time. It is conscious of the process of time. Consciousness is conscious of the process of time; therefore, it transcends time. Consciousness is conscious of the extension of space; therefore, it transcends space. The conclusion is that consciousness is neither involved in space, nor is it involved in time; therefore, it is neither finite spatially nor finite temporally. It is infinite and eternal. If that is so, there can be only one consciousness. If there are two consciousnesses, there would be a necessity to bring about a rapprochement of the two states of consciousness, which imagines that there are two, three, or many consciousnesses. There would be the necessity to posit someone who is aware of the existence of multiple consciousnesses. Who is it that is saying that there are three consciousnesses or four consciousnesses? That person, that thing which is aware of three consciousnesses must be above the region of the activity of the three consciousnesses, so it should be only one consciousness appearing. You can imagine what the conclusion is, finally. Consciousness is one only.– It is universal in its nature, eternal, non-spatial, non-temporal. That alone is, and nothing else can be.

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Therefore, birth and death, which was the sorrow of Arjuna, constitute not the characteristics of the soul. It cannot be drenched by water, it cannot be burned by fire, it cannot be cut by any kind of weapon. It is unaffected in every way because it is a consciousness that transcends the idea of the duality of subject and object. A condition of being affected by something is the condition of accepting the existence of an object totally different from one’s own self. But, applying the same logic that we were referring to earlier, you will find unless there is a consciousness that is transcendent to both the subjective and the objective side, you will not even know that the world exists. So in your perception of the world which is apparently outside you, you are acting on behalf of a consciousness which is neither you, nor the object.

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Three Sanskrit terms will subsequently occur in the Bhagavadgita: adhyatma, adhibhuta and adhidaiva. The perceptive consciousness, your position as a seer of the world, is the state of the adhyatma, or the so-called individuality. Atma is the subjective consciousness. Anything related to the Atman, or subjectivity of consciousness, is the adhyatma. Adhibhuta is the objective side, the entire universe of perception. The whole world of humanity and everything is the external, poised or counterpoised before the perceiving consciousness. Inasmuch as there is a difference between the objective side and the subjective side, there would not be any possibility of the subject knowing that the object is existing at all. As the world is totally outside you – it is not clinging to your skin – how would you know that it exists unless there is a relationship between the subjective side and the objective side? That relationship also has to be conscious. Unconscious connections cannot produce conscious apprehension of the object outside.

To be continued ....

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