The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad gita-20.4
08/12/2017
The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad gita-20.4
Chapter 20: We are the Fruits and Leaves of the Cosmic Tree -4.
1.
There was a great philosopher called Schopenhauer in Germany who propounded a doctrine which is revolting to ordinary understanding, though it has some connection with what I am saying now. The whole universe is a drama of the devilish will, says he, which projects or creates this intellect we call the prerogative of the human being.
The point made out here is that there is a cosmic unconsciousness, a screening out, a clouding, an eclipsing of the reality before the individual affirmation or assertion commences. We cannot be aware of ourselves unless we forget God at the same time—the two things cannot go together. For the person to know that he is Mr. John, at the same time he must be totally oblivious of his relationship to God.
So this oblivion is the preceding factor; it conditions the very existence of the so-called intellectual consciousness of one’s individuality. Therefore we are far from being as great as we imagine ourselves to be.
2.
In this distortion and separation of the individual by the work of rajas, something very unfortunate has been done. Nothing can be more unfortunate than to forget the truth and to cling to untruth. We are the untruths appearing here as so-called individuals, having no connection of one with the other. The truth is that we are basically united.
As I mentioned originally, God in His sattva aspect cosmically exists even now, just as we as individuals exist even in deep sleep where we are practically unconscious of our own being. That is why, in spite of all our self-affirmation and clinging to personalities and things of the world, we also have a subtle impulse from within us to unite ourselves into a body, an organisation and a friendly community of people.
Even rustics and boors and very crude intelligences that are undeveloped and are comparable to the apish type of humanity have this group mentality. Even monkeys and cattle have this sense to group themselves into bodies or species or types, which is a very faint reflection of the necessity for garnering such a thing called the unity behind the diversity, or the division worked out by rajas.
To be continued ...
Comments