The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 11.2. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Monday, May 17, 2021. 07:44.AM.
Chapter-11. Participating with the Intention of the Universe -2.
The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita
(Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti)
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There is a rapid movement of forces – sattva, rajas, tamas. They never are stable in themselves. The whole universe is a movement, it is a velocity, it is an ocean of inwardly active, moving and energising elements, so that the inward activity of this threefold force called sattva, rajas and tamas in a particular or given manner, at a given moment of time, projects a kind of universe, a particular pattern or form of the coming together of these three forces, is a world. These forces can assume another pattern if the need be, and another world can be created.

Varieties of pictures can be painted with the same kind of inks. There can be only three inks, say red and blue and yellow. There are three inks in three bottles, and the artist manufactures a picture out of these three inks only, by the act of his brush. You can know and appreciate that he can bring about any picture out of the very same inks. He can paint a dog, a horse, a man, an angel, a tree, a hill, or a landscape. Any blessed thing can be created by the manipulation of these three inks only. The proportion of distribution, the intensity of the ink, and so on, will decide what kind of picture is to be presented. Similarly, varieties of worlds are there. Endless are the possibilities of space-time complexes. This is one kind of space-time complex, and one kind of picture is before us. We may think that this is the only world that is possible and no other world is possible. It is not so. It is like imagining that with the inks you can have only one picture, and not more than one picture.

The energies – sattva, rajas and tamas – can arrange themselves in any form; a particular form that they take is called a world, and we are a part of the world. Inasmuch as our mind, our consciousness, our intelligence is tethered to this particular form only, we cannot visualise any world other than this particular world. Our consciousness is tied to this body so forcefully that we cannot imagine that there can be anything other than this body. It is the only reality. In a similar way, the perceptive consciousness gets accustomed, by a vehemence of association, with this particular picture presented by a given pattern of the arrangement of these three forces, sattva, rajas, tamas, and makes us believe that there is only one world, that there is no other world, that this is the only reality. Many a time we are likely to imagine thus. We are caught up within a single prison, and therefore we do not know what is outside it. Infinite worlds are possible. Infinite possibilities there are of experiences, and endless are the potentialities in the bosom of prakriti.

Why should the gunas, or the properties of prakriti – sattva, rajas, tamas – arrange themselves in a particular form only, and not in any other form? This is something like asking, “Why I am born into this body only? I could have been born into some other body. What is the reason for my being what I am, and why am I not something else?” The answer is given. The propulsion of consciousness in a given direction is the reason for the shape it takes as the body, and the total action and reaction of the cumulative, concentrated direction given by a group of individuals, a set of individualities, is said to determine the kind of shape that the gunas should take in the form of a manifested universe. It does not mean that the same pattern will be maintained in every cycle, though there can be the same form maintained once again, if the necessity arises. A passage from the Veda says: The Creator creates the world in the same way as He did in various cycles or eons of creation.

To be continued ...

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