The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad gita : Ch-9. Part-18.

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9: The Unity of the Lover and the Beloved :


Part-18.


So the seventh chapter of Gita tells us that jnana is the highest type of devotion.

In the earlier stages of devotion, our hair may stand on end.

There may be perspiration; there may be chocking of the throat; there may be trembling of the voice and a shutter of the whole system, a feeling of melting, as it were, into nothingness.

A kind of swooning also takes place in ecstasy of devotion.

These are the bhavas of bhakti.

But the swooning is not a morbid psychological swooning of a patient who is bereft of consciousness—it is the shock that is injected into the soul by the presence of God.



When God touches us, we may become unconscious, and this unconsciousness is not a disease, like an ordinary unconsciousness that comes to us when we fall from a tree, for instance, and get hit on the head.

How is it possible that we can be in a swoon when God touches us?

Yes, it is possible, on account of a particular situation in which the individual soul finds itself when it is bordering upon merger into God.

The impact of God upon the individual soul creates an unconsciousness of a spiritual type, which is not an unconsciousness of the tamasic character.


Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ....



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