The Tree of Life: 2.3. Swami Krishnananda.

-

 

=====================================================================================================================

Thursday 10, April 2025, 10:50.
Shrimad Bhagavad Gita
The Tree of Life: 2.3.
Discourse 2: The Search For Wholeness - 3.
Swami Krishnananda. 

=====================================================================================================================


So every one of us is a cosmic atom, and every thought, every idea and every impulse that arises in our mind has the power of the ocean of the Supreme Being, whose will works as the seed of the manifestation of this tree of life. We can appreciate to some extent how wondrous we all are, each one of us. We are not ordinary men, women, children, officers, subordinates, clerks—nothing of the kind. This is an illusion that is before our eyes. Unfortunately, we are content with being individuals in a family, citizens of a country, human beings on this Earth, masters and servants, wealthy and poor. All these are the delusions cast by the mind as a web before our eyes, succeeding to completely keep us out of touch with the realities of life, so that our sorrows are endless because our ignorance is abysmal. We are Masters of Arts in the field of ignorance, and this darkness of ignorance manifests itself in a worse form when we begin to perceive an external world. “While men of ignorance go to darkness, men of knowledge go to greater darkness,” says the Isavasya Upanishad. We will be surprised how it is possible that men of knowledge go to greater darkness. It is because the knowledge that we have in this world is an expression worse than the ignorance of reality. Not to know a thing is ignorance enough, and to know a thing which is not there is a worse form of ignorance.

The avarana, as it is called in Vedantic parlance, is a screen over the reality which keeps us out of touch with it. That is what is known as ignorance. We are not only screened away from what is there but are presented with what is not there, so that we are made a double fool. Not only are we ignorant of the presence of God, but we are conscious of the presence of a world outside, so we are deceived in two ways. There is a double deception taking place at the same time. Not only are we completely cut off from the vital root essence, the parent of all things, which is sustaining us here—mātā dhātā pitāmahaḥ (B.G. 9.17)—but we are completely forgetful of this great sustaining power. Well, that one thing is bad enough; but a worse thing is that we are clinging to what is not there, an externalisation of that which is universal.


The tree of life is a universal manifestation and not an externalised form, as it may be made to appear before us. The world is not an object, but it presents itself as an object. Na rūpam asyeha tathopalabhyate nānto na cādir na ca saṁpratiṣṭhā (B.G. 15.3): It has no form whatsoever, but we see the world as if it has a form. The power of the senses is such that they give a form to what is formless, just as a sculptor can give shape to a shapeless block of stone. The visualisation of the pattern of the statue inside the block of stone is in the idea of the sculptor. He can see the required form of the statue within the block of stone, out of which any form can be engraved or carved out. But the block of stone itself is not a form, although any form can be extracted out of it by the manipulation of the idea of the sculptor.



The tree of life is not like the tree that we see in front of us. Therefore, a magnificent, uncanny, veiled comparison is chalked out in the expression of the verses of the Bhagavadgita here. Adhaś cordhvaṁ prasṛtāstasya (B.G. 15.2); na rūpam asyeha tathopalabhyate (B.G. 15.3): It is there, above and below; it is in all directions everywhere. Because it is everywhere, it cannot have a form. To have a form is to be in some place, and to be everywhere is naturally not to have any form. But the senses carve out the figure of a form as the sculptor carves out a figure from a block of stone. The ink and the canvas have no picturesque conditioned form, but a form is given by the painter who utilises the ink which he splashes over the canvas according to the manner of the working of his mind.

*****

Continued

======================================================================================================================

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gita : Ch-3. Slo-43.

-
Image
Srimad Bhagavad-Gita : Chapter-3. ( Karma-yogam ) Slokam-43. ( Thus, knowing the atma to be superior to intelligence, O brave and strong Arjuna, steady the mind by self-realisation and conquer this insatiable enemy, in the form of lust. ) evam  buddheh  param  buddhva  samstabhyatmanamatmana, jahi  satrum  mahabaho  kamarupam  durasadam. mahabaho  =  O,  strong  brave   Arjuna; evam  buddheh  param   =   thus  superior  of  intelligence; atmanam  buddhva  =  knowing  the  atma,  by  atma,  the   intelligence (the  vivekam/discrimination  and  vicharam/ realisation ); atmanam  samstbhya  =  keep  the  atma  steady  without  oscillations;  (controlling  the  mind   from,  vishayas)     kamarupam  du...
Read more

A Study of the Bhagavadgita : 33 - Swami Krishnananda.

-
Image
================================================================================= Saturday 01, June 2024 06:40. Chapter 7: The Entry of the Absolute into the Relative -3. Post-33. ================================================================================= There are endless connections of this type. The relationship of adhyatma and adhibhuta is involved in an infinite variety of degrees of ascent and descent. This imperative of the presence of a consciousness between adhyatma and adhibhuta in various degrees is the reason why you sometimes feel there are many gods. Sometimes the question arises: Are there many gods, or only one God? There is only one God, the Absolute, but inasmuch as it manifests itself as an interconnecting link between subject and object through millions of degrees of ascent and descent, it looks as there are millions of gods. It is as if there are millions of governments merely because there are millions of officials in a centrality of administration. There is...
Read more

The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita - 8.1. Swami Krishnananda.

-
Image
  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, March 21, 2021. 07:57. AM. Chapter 8: Creation and Life After Death -1. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Bhagavadgita is a moksha-shastra, a scripture on the science of the liberation of the spirit. Thus it follows the course of the return process along the same lines as the evolutionary process of the descent of the soul from the Supreme Being. The first six chapters may be said to be engaged in an exposition of self-discipline from the individual point of view, the integration of the human personality and the preparation of the whole man for the greater task which is yet to come – namely, the at-one-ment of the individual with the set-up of the universe. Some of the interpreters and commentators on the Bhagavadgita hold that the first six chapters have a relevance to the significance of the term 'twam' in the famous Upanishadic p...
Read more