The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity 9-4: Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday 09, November 2024, 06:15.
The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity:9-4.
Chapter 9: The Classification of Society-4.
The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita: 
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti

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In one place the Gita says that there is nothing on earth or in heaven which is free from these inner constituents called sattva, rajas and tamas. Everything that is living, non-living, visible, invisible, empirical or transcendent is constituted of these properties sattva, rajas and tamas. There is nothing in the whole of creation which has not these three ingredients making up its constitution. Hence, each person is also an embodiment of these three gunas.

What are these gunas? Sattva, rajas, tamas – what do these imply? What is meant by sattva, rajas, tamas? It is an impulsion, a tendency and an instinct for behaviour, conduct and operation. It is a tendency, a kind of implied projectile which wishes to take a direction. Every individual has a potentiality to take a particular direction of behaviour and action. That potentiality may be considered as the guna, or the property, of each person. This property, this guna, may be manifest or unmanifest. The gunas may sometimes be manifest, sometimes not. Your tendencies may be submerged as a potentiality or a possibility, or they may be actually manifest in your visible behaviour and conduct. Whatever that be, the tendency decides what kind of person you are.

Now, these tendencies are sattva, rajas and tamas. Rajas is a term implying a tendency to extrovert direction, action in an outward sense, the urge of the inner constituents of the personality to move outward in the direction of space, time and objects. The tendency of these three gunas decides, marks, indicates the nature of your subtle body. The subtle body is called the linga sharira in Sanskrit. Linga is a mark or an indication, an insignia which indicates what kind of person you are. It is the force behind your physical body. It is mould into which the physical body is cast. In a way, we may say the physical body is just a visible form of this invisible inner potentiality called the subtle body.

The three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas, manifest themselves as the various limbs of the subtle body. What are these limbs of the subtle body? They are many in number. For instance, the character of your intellect, the manner of the performance and the action of your intellect, is also decided by the proportion of the distribution of these three forces in your personality. The preponderance of any one of these sattva, rajas or tamas gunas in your intellect, in your understanding, will decide the extent of your understanding. Hence, it does not mean that everyone can understand things in the same way. Tamas can predominate, rajas can predominate, or sattva can predominate. Your emotions are also decided by the proportion of the distribution of these three gunas. The manas, the mind, is also conditioned by these three gunas.

Then there are the sense organs – the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue and the sense of touch. These are the senses of knowledge, and the senses through which the desires of the psyche inside get manifested outside. The eye has a desire, the ear has a desire, and all the senses have desires. It does not mean that every eye has the same desire. But what kind of desire can the eye have? What do you want to see, what do you want to hear, what do you want to taste, what do you want to touch? This nature of the object that the sense organs in a particular individual crave will depend upon the kind of preponderance of the gunas in that particular individual, so it does not mean that everyone wants the same thing. You may not like to see what I want to see, and so on. The sense organs operate in different individuals according to the particular vehemence of the gunas in the individual.

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Continued

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