The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad gita-21-4.

-

15/02/2018

21.The Lord Dwells in the Hearts of All Beings- 4.

Our understanding, our volition, our feelings and our actions are therefore sattvic, rajasic or tamasic. The gross understanding or the tamasic, objective-motivated understanding is that which clings to objects as realities in themselves and pours forth all one’s affection upon the objects, transferring oneself into them in some manner, so that there is a loss of personality in the love that one evinces in regard to the object of attachment.

This is the lowest kind of understanding of the nature of reality. For the mother, the son is all reality—there no reality more than that. She will die for her son. People die for wealth, people die for name, fame, honour and many other things of that kind. These are examples of how the self within is transferred to outside factors and features that are visibly substantial, or merely psychological or conceivable, and become objects rather than subjects.

When one, as a true subject, sell oneself as a belonging of an object outside and are contented to remain as an object rather than a subject, one is in a tamasic condition. This is the worst state of knowledge, where particular things are regarded as universals and one’s concentration goes entirely to these particular elements—whether property, family relations, wealth, name, fame, power, authority, and the like.

The higher understanding is the logical acumen that intellectual geniuses possess. By scientific investigation into the nature of things, they recognise the interconnectedness of all objects and realise that the world is an organism, completeness in itself, rather then a medley of scattered particulars.

For the lowest understanding, everything is confusion and nothing has any connection with any other thing, whatsoever. Everything is totally independent of everything else—this is the lowest type of knowledge. “I have nothing to do with you, and you have nothing to do with me, and no object in this world has anything to do with anything else.”

This is tamasic knowledge, the lowest type of understanding. So we think we can cling to anything or hate something with impunity, without any kind of nemesis or retribution following there from.
To be continued ...
Swami Krishnananda

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch-5. Part-5.( Last Part)

-
Image
5: God is Our Eternal Friend-5. ( Last Part ) We are filled with doubts in our minds—we can prepare a dictionary of all our doubts—they are endless. Everywhere we have a suspicious attitude about the world, about things, about people, about ourselves, about the past, about the present, and about the future. These doubts cannot be dispelled until knowledge arises, and we know what knowledge means, an insight into which we have been given in the second chapter of the Gita. Knowledge is the knowledge of God ultimately, and as a result, knowledge of the nature of the world in its reality, as mentioned in the third chapter. This is true knowledge, and when we are awakened to this real knowledge, all doubts get dispelled. Then what happens? Atmavantam—we become truly possessed of the Self that we really are. We are people who have lost ourselves and are in pursuit of things outside. Yes, this is what has happened; we have grasped the world and lost our own selves, and we are
Read more

The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad gita : Ch-10. Part-3.

-
Image
Chapter 10: The Imperishable Among All that is Perishable : Part-3. We are told in the Puranas that Narayana or Vishnu takes incarnations for the preservation of creation. Vishnu is regarded as yajna itself. It is the highest sacrifice—God sacrificing himself every moment of time for the sustenance of His creation. As adhiyajna He is the administrative power and the methodology of the working of the cosmos. All activity is comprehended under this yajna of the cosmos. Therefore God is present in all activity when it is considered as a passage to God, when it is regarded as a manifestation of God as rays emanating from the sun. Those wise souls who envisage God as adhibhuta, adhidaiva and adhiyajna, which means to say, who encounter God as a comprehensive Absolute and not merely existing only here or there, such devotees are true knowers. They can entertain or maintain this consciousness even at the time of passing from this world—they are not deprived of th
Read more

The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch-9. Part-8.

-
Image
9: The Unity of the Lover and the Beloved : Part-8. The distressed souls seeking God are of one type. One who is baked in the fire of samsaram,who is tortured in this hell of earth, suffering through various sorrows, seeks riddance from the grief of the world by resort to God under the impression that God is like a parent—a father or a mother or a supreme saviour. The intention behind this devotion is redress—freedom from sorrow, the inability to bear suffering. This is the reason here behind the devotion to God. Whether this could be an adequate reason, anyone can contemplate independently for oneself. Can we love God merely because He is the only source of redemption from our sorrows? Do we want freedom from sorrow, or do we want God? That is a different question that will come up later on. Swami Krishnananda To be continued  ....
Read more