The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 11.3. Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday, May 23, 2021. 7:14.PM.
Chapter-11. Participating with the Intention of the Universe -3.
The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita
(Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti)
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There are, therefore, patterns of the projection of these forces – sattva, rajas, tamas. The variety that we see in the world is an illusion, as the illusion of the difference of presentation is made possible by the distribution of ink, though the inks may be only a few – one, two or three. Though variety is there, the basic substance of this variety need not be so multitudinous as the picture is made to look.

Now, the painted picture gives the semblance of a wholeness. Every part of the painting is sustained in a given manner in order that the wholeness of the picture can be made possible. Every particular dot of the ink should be in a particular position only. It should not be in some other position. And the presentation is entirely dependent on the total action of these many dots. 

There is a mutual collaboration, contribution, made, as it were, by these little dots. Every dot of ink cooperates with every other dot of ink, and it is this cooperative accumulation of presentation that gives us the idea of a wholeness which we call the picture. Actually, there is no such thing as the picture. It does not exist; yet, it appears to be there. What is there is only little dots of three kinds of ink, and these three dots variegatedly presented by the expertness of the artist give the impression of a manifoldness and a total vision of something.

In a similar manner, we seem to have an individuality of our own. I am a man, and a complete man, not a half man or a one-fourth man. Yet, this total man that I am, this individuality that I am assuming, is a picture presented by the three gunas. There is nothing in me except these three forces. I have many things. Everyone feels there are many things in this body, this mind, and so on. It is a big factory of varieties of treasure, as it were, but all these contents of this wondrous factory of human personality contain only three items, nothing more – the properties of prakriti: sattva, rajas and tamas.

In the intensity of expression, in a differentiated manner, they look like various bodies – the physical body, the astral body, the causal body, or, as you might have heard, there are five layers of our individuality. These are called, in our Sanskrit language, annamaya, pranamaya, manomaya, vijnanamaya and anandamaya koshas. The physical, the vital, the mental, the intellectual, and the causal layers are not five shirts put on by the Atman. They are a thick layer of cloud distributed in a variegated intensity of expression, as a cloud may cover the sun and we cannot say there are many kinds of cloud. 

Cloud is cloud, but it can be thick or thin, and it can be distributed in layers of depression and pressure. It can be dark, it can be lighter, it can be anything whatsoever. The variety in the distribution of the density of the cloud does not mean that there are many clouds. There is only a difference in the intensity of their expression as layers, as it were. They are not even layers of one thing over the other. It is one thing only appearing as many. Likewise is the apparent distribution of the so-called fivefoldness of our five sheaths. 

There are not five sheaths. There is one sheath only, in the same way as there is one cloud covering the sun, but they look like five, or sometimes we call them three, because of the intensity of their expression. We have a physical body with legs and hands and feet and eyes and brain and heart and lungs and sense organs and mind and intellect. A wonderful mechanism we have in our so-called layers of expression, but they are only these threeforces playing a drama, three things appearing as many things. Therefore, our so-called stability of individuality, our independence that we are assuming, is an illusion. 

We are not independent persons; nobody is independent in this world. The independence is a tentative, illusory presentation of a stability created by a concentration of these three forces at a given moment of time, for a particular purpose, and when that purpose is fulfilled, the pattern will change suddenly, and there will not be this particular individuality of ours. We will shed this individuality, and we will assume a new form by a rearrangement of the constituents which are nothing but these.

To be continued .....

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