A Study of the Bhagavadgita :13.7. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, August 20, 2022. 07:30. 

Chapter 13: The Positivity and the Negativity of Experience-7.

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Sri Krishna says, "There are varieties of faith." Trividhā bhavati śraddhā (Gita 17.2): 

Faith also is not of one kind. Conscience is associated with faith, and everyone does not have the same kind of conscience. In some people conscience pinches, as they say. But in some people the conscience may not pinch. It is dead. If the conscience is dead and they are only automatons looking like human beings but acting like machines, then where is the question of conscience? Does the tiger have a conscience when it rips the bowels of a cow? Poor little thing, it has not done any harm, and the tiger kills it. Where is the conscience of the tiger? Its conscience is in the rudimentary stage. It is through the process of evolutionary ascent that the conscience, which is the root of what you call faith, becomes more and more purified, and we have varieties of consciences even among human beings.

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Do we expect every human being to behave in the same way always? 

Are there not cannibals in the world? 

Are there not intensely selfish people who mind their business and care a hoot for others? 

Are there not people of that kind? 

There are people who are a little better; they will do tit for tat: "If you are good, I am good. If you are bad, I am also bad." That is another type. But there are some people who are always good: "Whatever you say, whatever you do, I shall not change my attitude towards you. I shall always do good to you." This is ethical perfection reaching its logical limits. But then there are people in the world who are saints. They are not merely good people, they are divine persons; they are God-men. So even among human beings there are varieties of consciences and acts of perception and faith.

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Commenting on this question, Sri Krishna goes into details of threefold faith in various ways – three kinds of food, three kinds of happiness, three kinds of charity, three kinds of tapas, etc. 

This threefold distinction is also based on the three gunas of Prakriti. 

You can, of course, act on faith and conscience; there is no objection to it, but it should be a sattvic conscience, a harmless and purified conscience. It should not be rajasic, and it should not be tamasic. You may say, "This is all right," because you are tamasic in nature, or you may say, "This is all right," because you are intensely distracted in rajas, or your 'all-rightness' may depend on the sattvic preponderance in you. 

So how do you judge your action? 

How do you know if an idea that arises in your mind is justifiable or not? 

How do you know whether it arises from sattva or rajas or tamas?

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Wherever tamas is the root of your viewpoint, you will see that you do not consider the consequences of your action. You are somehow or other bent upon doing something. "Heaven may come or hell may come, but I have decided to do that." You do not care for what result will follow from your action.

 Anubandhaṁ kṣayaṁ hiṁsām (Gita 18.25), etc., are involved in certain actions which are tamasic in nature. In the case of tamas, you consider the improper as proper, and you have decided that it is okay and it has to be done; adamant is your nature. These are the despots, the tyrants, the dictators and whatever you call them, of this world. They simply grab and destroy, and care only of themselves, thinking they are gods and others are devils. This kind of attitude may take possession of you when tamas preponderates. You have made a decision, and there is no duality or wavering in your mind.


But when you are not able to take a decision – this seems to be all right or perhaps the other thing also seems to be all right, and do things with a wavering mind, not knowing which is proper and which is improper, and act in a pendulum-like fashion without coming to any conclusion as to what it is you are expected to achieve through the action – 

it is a rajasic action.

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To be continued ....

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