A Study of the Bhagavadgita : 31 - Swami Krishnananda.

Swami Chinmayananda:

Should one believe in astrology?

Disclaimer: This is one of the perspectives given by Swami Chinmayananda. One may agree to disagree! 

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Thursday 23, May 2024 07:30.
Chapter 7: The Entry of the Absolute into the Relative -1.
Post-31.

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The involvement of everyone in the principle of sacrifice is stated briefly when the Gita tells us: (Gita 3.10). When Prajapati, the Creator, manifested this universe and projected individuals like us, he also ordained, at the same time, that the life of an individual is inextricably involved in the process of the whole of creation through the bond of the principle of sacrifice.

We live on account of the result that spontaneously follows from the act of the sacrifice that we perform in this world. We will wither away into airy nothing and will not be able to even survive for three days if some sort of sacrifice is not done by way of our participation in the work of cosmic creation. Our interconnection with all things in the world is the reason why we require to be conscious always of this need to participate by way of sacrifice. We are not totally independent individuals. Our independence is only a grant, a special permit issued to us, as it were, for the time being, like the permission given to a cow to move freely within the distance of the rope with which it is tied. If a cow is tied to a peg with a long rope, to the extent of the length of the rope there is freedom for the cow to roam about wherever it wants, and it feels totally independent. It may feel a great freedom to move anywhere, but only to the extent of the length of the rope. The moment it reaches the terminus of the rope, it is pulled back and it cannot go further. So our individuality, which appears to be a kind of freedom that we enjoy in our own so-called personality, is limited by the necessity to participate in a cosmic purpose, and we are free only to the extent our sacrifice is complete as ordained.

Inasmuch as the freedom of individuality is not real finally, as is apparent in the context of our assertion of personality through egoism, the point of sacrifice assumes great importance, and we seem to be living more for things beyond ourselves than for our own selves. The need that you feel for social service, for cooperation with people outside, to work for the betterment of anyone in the world – this need that you feel as an urge from inside you is not a whim or fancy; it is an upsurge of a necessity that is emanating from the root of your personality itself. Your very soul calls for this activity on your part, saying inwardly in its own voice that you cannot exist by yourself. You exist also for something more than yourself.

The existence that you enjoy in this world is not conditioned by external factors, as you imagine that the service that you do to people is a service that you do to somebody other than you. It is not so. The service that you render to people, to humanity, is not something that you do for the good of that which is outside you, but that which is above you. You have to make a distinction between that which is above you and that which is outside you. The social context it is that is compelling you to do service in this world. Society, which is a big subject of sociological science, is not merely a group of people. A million people sitting together do not constitute society because they will be like bricks thrown higgledy-piggledy somewhere, and the bricks do not constitute an edifice. Society is a conceptual organisational feature that transcends the multitude of parts, which are the individuals. The organisational feature that is involved in what you call society is the transcendent feature which is immanent in all individuals so that every individual feels a sense of belonging to the society and, at the same time, no individual can be regarded as the whole of society because there is a transcendent element in the very consciousness of society. It is a society of principle, and not a multitude of people.

So your service, your sense of belonging, your compulsion to act for the welfare of people is actually not motivated by your consciousness of the otherness of people, which is an empirical concept that you are wrongly introducing into yourself, but a transcendent aspect – that is, a Selfhood, an Atman, a consciousness, a reality which is above your personality, and above the personality of everybody else also, so that there is a little bit of divinity, a consciousness of a godhood involved even in social service. Otherwise, who will do work merely for the sake of other people? The very consciousness of otherness frees you from having any interest in people. You will not like to have love for anything that is other than you; but still, you love something. Why do you love? It is not because of the otherness of the object, because if it is 'other', the matter is closed. You have already severed yourself from the other man. The very word 'other' is anathema because it cuts you off from your vital connection with that thing which you call the other.

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Continued

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