The Tree of Life -3.6: Swami Krishnananda.

-

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

Tuesday, 16 Jan 2024 06:45.

Discourse 3: Severing the Root of this Tree of Life - 6.

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

Therefore, emotional relationships with objects are tantamount to a perpetual sorrow in the beginning, in the middle, as well as in the end. That is why it is called klishta or sorrow-giving, grief-ridden. This is the crudest form of mental connection with an object. That is bad enough, and no one would endorse the presence of such an attachment in respect of things. But there is a very subtle condition which the system of yoga lays before us. Even if we have no emotional attachment to an object, we may be bound by the very consciousness of its presence. There is a wall in front of us. I cannot say that any one of us is emotionally attached to this wall. None of us has an affection towards this wall as a mother may have towards her child, for instance. But we are aware that there is a wall. We are conscious that we are inside a hall. This consciousness itself is a bondage. This is an aklishta vritti, or a non-painful operation of the mind, yet conditioning the mind to objectivity.

Now we can imagine the extent to which we have to go in the control of the mind in order that it may be steadfast in the practice of yoga. If yoga is steadfastness of the mind in the Ultimate Reality of things, no thought, ordinarily speaking, can be regarded as a healthy thought in the light of the requirement of yoga. There is a morbidity attached to every thought, even if it be a so-called unconcerned thought. As the mind operates, it takes a form in the shape of the object; therefore, it is a vritti. When I see a wall, the mind is connected to that operation of the sight. The feature, the structure, the form, the limitation, the finitude of the wall is due to the character of abstraction in which the mind engages itself when it perceives anything whatsoever, for the matter of that.

All perceptions of objects, whatever be their nature, are abstractions from the infinitude of content in nature. Nature has no walls. There are no buildings for nature. It is doubtful if the whole of nature is aware that there are buildings in the world. It is a different type of experience altogether. But we are aware of limited things—marble stones, electric lights, rainfall, wind blowing, people sitting. These are all limited experiences which assume an importance in reality on account of an assumption of isolatedness of these contents abstracted from the totality of nature, in which function the mind engages itself perpetually. It does not mean that the universe is made up of only what we are seeing with our eyes. There are infinitudes of content in the structure of the cosmos, and one phase, one particular characteristic of experience, is culled out from the infinite possibility of the universe for the purpose of present experiences of the jivas or individuals living in this cosmos, which means that in the next creation the world may not take this shape.

As I mentioned yesterday, any image or form can be taken out from the block of stone by a sculptor. From the block of stone the sculptor can carve a tiger, or a Bhagavan Sri Krishna. He can carve a donkey or a monkey. Everything is present in that block of stone. Any thing, any form, any structure, any pattern can be said to be present in this impersonal block of stone. In the same way, every type of universe is present in the Divine Mind. Any universe of any kind of experience can be extracted out of it. This is not the only world that can be created by the will of the Supreme Being. This is why God is sometimes called Ananta Koti Brahmanda Nayaka—the Lord of infinite crores of universes. How many crores are there, nobody can know, just as we cannot say how many crores of images are there inside a block of stone.

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

To be continued

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

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