Commentary on the Bhagavadgita : 42 - Swami Krishnananda.
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Monday, June 27, 2022. 05:00.AM,
Discourse 46: The Seventeenth Chapter Begins – The Threefold Character of Faith : 2.
POST-42.
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Śraddhāmayoyaṁ puruṣaḥ: So faith, of course, is embodied in a person. Whatever we do is according to our faith, not necessarily according to our considered reason.
Yo yacchraddhaḥ sa eva saḥ: As our faith is, so is our person.
Whatever we do, whatever we speak, whatever we think, the manner in which we behave, and the ideology that we hold aloft before us are some indications as to what kind of person we are, and are indications as to what kind of faith a person is entertaining—yo yacchraddhaḥ sa eva saḥ.
Briefly, in only two verses, the answer to Arjuna comes like a bombshell. This set of two verses is very concentrated, on which one could write a monograph explaining the implications of every word that is used. Though the answer seems to be only in two verses, it is a complete answer, I should say, in the pregnant expression of these two verses.
Now the Lord goes into details of the manner in which sattvic, rajasic and tamasic faiths operate. Sattvic people adore the gods in heaven. Ganesha, Devi, Durga, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Lord Siva, Vishnu, Narayana, Siva, Skanda are the gods whom they worship if their mind is sattvic. Nara-Narayana, Vyasa, Vasishtha—these are their adored beings.
Yajante sāttvikā devān (17.4): Lofty transcendent realities are the objects of people who are sattvic in their nature.
Yakṣarakṣāṁsi rājasāḥ: Rajasic people worship demoniacal, lower spirits which are likely to bless them with immediate results and then possess them and keep them under subjection. Yakshas, rakshasas and demigods are the objects of worship of people who are entirely rajasic, because they cannot wait for the blessings of a god in heaven. They want immediate results to follow, so they go to lesser divinities. But people with tamasic qualities worship actual demons—bhutas, pretas and spirits who hang in the air, working through Ouija boards and planchets, summoning dead people who speak through those who make this their profession. Pretān bhūtagaṇāñś cānye yajante tāmasā janāḥ: This is the tamasic way of living, where the lower spirits are considered as objects of adoration. Bhutas and pretas are their objects of worship.
aśāstravihitaṁ ghoraṁ tapyante ye tapo janāḥ dambhāhaṁkārasaṁyuktāḥ kāmarāgabalānvitāḥ (17.5)
karṣayantaḥ śarīrasthaṁ bhūtagrāmam acetasaḥ māṁ caivāntaḥśarīrasthaṁ tān viddhyāsuraniścayān (17.6)
There are people who appear to be very religious, and practice austerities of an intensely painful nature for the purpose of showing to people that they are highly evolved individuals. These tortures in the name of religious austerities are not prescribed by the Shastras, or scriptures. They are terrific in their nature. Those people who adopt this kind of behaviour in the name of religion but are motivated by their inner vanity, egoism, desire for approbation from people, with an eye to the fruit or result that may follow from this kind of tapasya, torturing the inner soul, are completely deluded. Such people are to be considered as asura nischayat. They behave like rakshasas on account of the preponderance of an intensely rajasic nature with a touch of tamas.
Ᾱhāras tvapi sarvasya trividho bhavati priyaḥ, yajñas tapas tathā dānaṁ teṣāṁ bhedam imaṁ śṛṇu (17.7):
“There are three kinds of food—sattvic, rajasic and tamasic. There are three kinds of sacrifice—sattvic, rajasic and tamasic. There are three kinds of tapas, or austerity—sattvic, rajasic and tamasic. There are three kinds of charity, or philanthropy, which are also classifiable into sattvic, rajasic and tamasic. I shall tell you what these classified forms are.”
That kind of food which energises the system, which contributes to the enhancement of life, which increases strength in the body, which ensures health, which is delighting to the taste and enjoyable at all times, which is full of delicacy and the heart opens up, as it were, when we eat such food—that food is sattvic.
Ᾱyuḥ sattva balārogya sukha prīti vivar-dhanāḥ, rasyāḥ snigdhāḥ sthirā hṛdyā āhārāḥ sāttvikapriyāḥ (17.8):
A sattvic diet is that which delights us by even thinking of it, delights us when we actually take it, and delights us even after we have taken it. An alcoholic drink may delight us in the beginning, but it will lead us to sorrow afterwards. But a sattvic diet will be delightful in the beginning, in the middle, as well as in the end.
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To be continued .....
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