The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 10.7. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Monday, April  26, 2021. 07:37. PM.
Chapter - 10 : The Need for Sankhya -7.
The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita
(Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti)
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Now, the impulsions within a human being, mental as well as sensory, are also to be attributed to the activity of these gunas. It is not merely the physical body that is a product of these gunas. Gunas mean the properties of prakriti: sattva, rajas, tamas. They are called gunas in Sanskrit. It is not merely the physical body that is made up of the gunas, but even the inner constituents of the human personality, what is called the subtle body, are also products of the gunas. Now, our contact with things, our longing for things and our relationship with things, in any manner whatsoever, is a wondrous dramatic activity of these gunas among themselves. This is a very interesting thing to contemplate.

What is meant by ‘relationship’? All life is a kind of relationship of some type or the other. You cannot conceive life without relationship contact. Sensory contact and psychological contact are the principal contacts. Now, these contacts constitute what is called your earthly mortal existence, but these contacts with relationships are a play of the gunas. How do they play? There is a mysterious manner in which the forces of prakriti operate. These forces can become anything and everything.

A juggler’s tricks are sometimes brought out as illustrations of the way in which the forces of nature can work. One thing can appear as many things. There are jugglers in India who perform tricks of various types. Some of the tricks are difficult to understand. You will be flabbergasted even to see them. There is one kind of trick called the rope trick, which is not easily performed these days. A magician stands there alone; there is nobody else. He says, “Now a war is taking place in the heavens. I am called there to assist the gods. I am a soldier. I will go there. How will I go? I will go with this rope.” He throws the rope up to the sky. 

You cannot understand how a rope is thrown like that. He climbs the rope. He goes up, and he tells people around, “Now you see heads falling, and bloodshed. All this indicates a war is taking place.” And after some time, you see heads falling down. You will be wondering what is the matter. From the skies, heads fall. There is blood dropping from all places. War is taking place. And then the man is suddenly found in the same place where he had been standing. There is neither the rope nor the blood nor the heads. These are interesting things. He has become the rope, he has become the heads, he has become the blood, he has become the warrior, and he is the person who is talking to you.

In a similar manner, a magical performance is projected before us, as it were. The miracle of this magic is very dramatically portrayed before us in certain great texts like the Yoga Vasishtha, and also in smaller texts such as the Tripura Rahasya. They are interesting things. You must read the Yoga Vasishtha to know what these mysteries are which make us believe that there is a world outside.

Actually, what we call the world is nothing but an outsideness in the mind. If the outsideness has vanished and is not there, then there is no world. Imagine a condition where externality is lifted up. Let the mountains be there, let the trees be there, let the sun be there, let the moon be there, let the river be there, but externality is not there. The world ceases to be, in one second. The world is nothing but externality. It is not a substance. Inasmuch as externality is necessary for experience of the world, and externality itself is not a substance, the world is considered as unsubstantial. It does not exist as a substance. This is one side of the matter.

To be continued ...

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