SOUL MATTERS, PART 16 -- Capt Ajit Vadakayil

 

THIS POST IS CONTINUED FROM PART 15, BELOW--

IMPORTANT--  PART 16 AND 17, EXPOUNDS THE BHAGAVAD GITA VERSES IN PART 2..

 

shraddha is the force that urges humanity towards  what is better, not only in the order of knowledge but in the whole order of  spiritual life

 if there is no  matter, the latent dynamic energy of the spirit ( purusha )  will not have a field for its  expression.  the matter by itself is  dormant and it cannot function unless the spirit is there to activate it, to  enliven it. an example of this principle is electricity and the bulb.  the bulb is the inert matter and the  electricity is the dynamic spirit. it is obvious that one is of no use without  the other. when the spirit functions through the five layers of the matter it  finds a place to express itself.

the  combination of the higher and lower natures (prakritis) is the womb of all  beings i.e., these two are the cause for the origin of all creatures or  manifestation.  the lower nature  manifests itself as the material body and the higher nature as the enlivening  soul, the experiencer.

 

to show that the soul is  one and the same in all created beings on the earth it is stated in bhagavad gita that purusha is the supporter of the universe just as the string is of the gems on a  garland. without the string the gems will be scattered.

 

the  substance with which gems and thread are made is different. similarly the world  is constituted of infinite variety of names and forms which are held together  by the spiritual truth into a complete whole.   even in an individual, the body, mind and intellect are different from  one another but they work in harmony and in unity because of the same spiritual  truth, the principle of consciousness.

the  word `sin' means an error of judgment in man which veils the soul from him.  they are said to be free  from delusion in the form of pairs of opposites who do not lose their balance  of mind either in joy or sorrow. that is the life eternal, release from the  cycle of birth and death.

brahman indicates the one  changeless and imperishable essence behind the phenomenal world. it is the self  or the principle of consciousness which illumines the body, mind and intellect.  its presence in each individual body is called adhyatma, the individual  soul.

the supreme  brahman alone exists in every individual body as the pratyagatman, the  ego, the inmost self and is known as the adhyatma. at the culmination of the  spiritual discipline, the soul self is realized as one with brahman. though  brahman is formless and subtle and therefore all pervading, its power is felt  by every living embodiment. the soul expressing through a given embodiment, as  though conditioned by it, is called the adhyatma.

constant practice is the  uninterrupted repetition of one and the same idea, with reference to the brahman  as the sole object of meditation. such practice by which one surrenders his  heart and soul to god alone is known as yoga.

 

the benefit accruing on realization  of the soul is that having attained brahman . the jivan mukts are no more  subject to rebirth because the world of rebirth is the starting point for all  pains and miseries and also impermanent .

those who die without attaining moksha come back again to the earth. life on earth, in spite of many moments  of happiness, is intrinsically painful.

shraddha  or unswerving conviction of the existence of god, the soul and immortality is  the prerequisite of spiritual life. those without shraddha  mean those who regard  the physical body as the soul and do not believe in the indestructibility and  immortality of the soul.

all things in the universe denote from the highest brahma, to a blade of grass. nothing can exist in this world  unless the field of brahman  forms its substratum. 

 

upanishads declare that purusha after creating the objects entered them as their indwelling consciousness  to enliven them. brahman, god, exists as the unmanifest reality and pervades  everywhere. nothing exists other than brahman. yet because of delusion we see  only the manifested world of beings and not it’s underlying reality. we  superimpose the illusory world on the eternal reality, brahman.   the field of brahman exists  without the world, but the world’s existence depends upon brahman.

a  thing devoid of inner reality cannot exist or be an object of experience. brahman is the inner reality of everything. the reality of brahman makes real  everything in this world. but the reality of brahman does not depend upon the  world. he always exists whether the universe of names and forms exists or not.

brahman is incorporeal and therefore has no real contact with the material world.  he cannot be contained in any object. he is self-existent and self-luminous.  only a fraction of his majesty illumines the sun, the moon and the universe.  but he himself is transcendental.

while  in dream state we do not see the connection between the dream world and our  mind. only on waking up we understand such connection. our mind alone projected  the dream world which on waking up disappeared. similarly, on tuning to  god-consciousness, upon realizing the self, we see the relation between the  universe and god, brahman.

 

the infinite lord cannot be contained in a finite universe.  then why cannot the universe and the beings dwell in him?  brahman, in reality,  is neither the container nor the contained. in him there is not the slightest  trace of duality. in his purest essence he is above the law of cause and  effect. in the final realization, the object and the subject become one; the  whole universe merges in the lord. in that state brahman remains as one  without a second, a homogeneous concentration of consciousness. 

the concepts of  container and contained, cause and effect, apply to the realm of manifestation  or maya. through maya even though brahman manifests in the tangible, relative  universe, and appears to be its cause and support, yet he is always one without  a second, transcendental, incorporeal and unattached. this is his eternal  mystery - ‘my divine mystery’ as the krishna as mouth piece of brahman puts it..

it  is really difficult for the ordinary intellect to comprehend the idea that a  substance which exists everywhere, allowing everything to exist in it, but at  the same time it in itself does not get conditioned by the things existing  in it.

 

although  the wind moves everywhere in the space, exists in the space and is supported by  the space yet the wind does not put any limitation on the space. space holds  them all but is touched by none.

brahman can never be touched by  anything happening in time and space. as a light cannot be affected by the good  or evil deed done with its help, so the soul, which in its essence is one with  brahman the mother field, cannot be affected by the good and evil action of the body and mind.

  

the  soul is a non-doer and as it is immutable; it is neither the agent nor the  object of the act of slaying.  he who  thinks `i slay' or `i am slain' really does not comprehend the true nature of  the soul.  the soul is  indestructible.  it exists in all periods  of time - past, present and future.  it  is the existence itself i.e.`sat'.   

the physical body undergoes inevitable changes every moment but the soul  is not affected in the least by such changes. when the body is destroyed, the  soul is not. both of them who think that they have been slain when their bodies  have been slain and those who feel that they are the slayers of the bodies of  others do not know the real nature of the soul.

the  agent of slaying is the ego (aham) and the object of slaying is the body.  therefore the soul which is different both from the ego and the body is neither  the slayer nor the slain. but by identifying with the body it assumes itself as  the doer of actions performed by the body. if the man does not identify himself  with the body he is not at all doer of any activity. one who holds the soul as slain is also ignorant because the soul remains unaffected and unchanged. only  that which is perishable and changeable can be slain.  the imperishable and unchangeable can never be slain..

an  enlightened person who knows the changelessness and the indestructibility of  the soul cannot perform the function of slaying or cause another to slay.   krishna emphasizes that those who know the nature of  the soul shall have no dejection or sorrow in the face of the realities of  life. therefore, one while discharging duty should not grieve, while slaying  anyone or causing anyone to be slain, but should discharge one’s duty, in  accordance with the dharmic ordinance of the vedas.. 

 

the word 'dehi' used by krishna means the jiva - the individual person, who is made up of  the perceptible gross physical body, the imperceptible subtle and causal  bodies, together with the atman ( soul ).

just as an individual person  gives up worn out or old clothing and takes up new  ones, similarly, the same jiva, on giving up  the worn out or old gross physical body,  naturally takes up an appropriate new gross  physical body. by giving up the old clothes and putting on new ones, the person  does not change. similarly, by giving up the old body and assuming a new one,  the soul in the jiva - the individual person - does not change.   the `worn out condition of the body' does not  refer to its biological condition but to the capacity of the body, mind and  intellect equipments to earn the required experiences from the available  environment for facilitating their evolutionary journey. this  change is for the physical bodies and not for the soul.

by virtue of one's  own 'karma' the jiva already becomes ready to assume a new body, prior to  casting out the old worn-out body which has served its purpose.  in other words, the mental make-up of a person  does not die along with the death of the gross body. the mental make-up of the  person, along with its karma-born tendencies and dispositions is called the  subtle-body which is the core of every jiva and it survives the death of the  physical frame. in its next step of evolution, the jiva assumes a new physical  frame more suited to the fulfillment of its natural tendencies and  dispositions. in all these changes, the self or soul or the atman remains  unchanged. in reality, the soul being immobile and non-active does undergo any  change whatsoever.

brahman has granted the choice to the living beings to make proper use of  their lives and to rediscover ultimately their own transcendental nature.  through innumerable births in the relative world they gain experience, through  experience knowledge and through knowledge attain freedom or liberation or moksha from this cycle. 

 

krishna says that if a thing cannot be  annihilated by any means of destruction discovered by man such an object must  be everlasting.  since the soul is  indestructible, it is necessarily everlasting. that which is everlasting or  eternal will pervade everywhere. all-pervading indicates that it has only itself  all around it and it is unconditioned by anything other than itself.

that  which is eternal and all-pervading must be stable meaning no change can ever  happen to it.  that which is stable is  immovable.  mobility or moving implies  the transfer of an object or person from one set of time and place to another  set of time and place where they were not there already.  since brahman is all-pervading there cannot be  any place or period of time where it was not there before. 

 

the  sense objects reach out to only those who is badly in need of them and not to  those who do not want them. even then, the sense objects are capable of leaving  their taste behind even in an abstinent seeker who may find it difficult to  erase them completely from his mind.  krishna says here that all such  longings created even at the mental level because of ego will be made  ineffective when the seeker transcends ego and comes to experience the soul -  attains wisdom. but the reverse i.e. with the disappearance of the taste a  striver attains steadfast wisdom is not true.

krishna is explaining the difference between outer abstention and inner  renunciation. we may reject the object but the desire for it may remain. even  the desire is lost when the supreme is seen. the control should be both at the  body and mental levels. liberation from the tyranny of the body is not enough;  we must be liberated from the tyranny of desires also which presupposes  realization of brahman , the supreme.

thus  in the restraint of the senses evinced by a man of realization, not only the  sense objects turn away from him  but  also attachment itself with its roots vanish. 

 

krishna says that the one who was not able to attain perfection in yoga or the one  who achieved some progress in yoga but had fallen due to lack of dispassion or  on account of turbulent senses, attains the worlds inhabited by those pious  souls who performed great religious sacrifices while living on this earth.  having lived there as long as the merit of his past spiritual life lasts he is  born again in the house of those whose conduct is governed by religion where he  can continue his spiritual journey from the point where he had left in the  previous birth.

 

krishna says that those who are possessed of genuine dispassion but yet fail to  achieve success in yoga are born in the family of enlightened yogis poor in  resources but rich in wisdom. a birth in such families is rare to obtain than  the one mentioned in the preceding verse. it is rare because he is placed right  from the beginning of his life in an environment which is conducive for the  practice of yoga so that he could start his spiritual journey from a very early  stage. considering the greatness of the illumined souls, a birth in their  families is stated to be very difficult to obtain.

mundaka  upanishad (iii-ii-9) says “in the family of a knower of brahman, none remains  ignorant of brahman. transcending both grief and sin, and freed from the knot  of ignorance in the heart, the member of such a family becomes immortal, i.e.  attains freedom for all time from birth and death”.

 

a  yogi’s mind is attached to brahman alone setting aside all the disciplines and  worships the lord with complete concentration.  brahman alone is the whole basis  of the yogi’s being and the goal of his action. practicing yoga means being  united with brahman in contemplation. knowing the lord in full implies knowing  all his six attributes viz., infinite greatness, strength, power, grace,  knowledge and detachment. as arjuna has the necessary qualifications,  krishna assures that he will give him a complete or integral knowledge of the  divine, not merely the pure self but also its manifestations in the world.

krishna describes how his power of maya is instrumental in  the process of creation and dissolution of the universe.

the  whole process of creation, preservation and dissolution is due to purusha’s  maya, his lower prakriti or nature consisting of the three gunas in  their undifferentiated state and yet he is unaffected by it. vedanta while  recognizing the fact of creation does not approve of the act of creation. purusha does not create the universe from nothing or void, for nothing only can  come out from nothing. therefore vedanta believes that purusha because of his  power of lower nature, maya, projects out of himself (manifests) all the names  and forms at the time of creation. consciousness or his higher nature endows  them with life.

  

at  the end of the time-cycle, the names and forms of the manifested universe go  back into the seed state and remain merged in prakriti. at this state the three  gunas of prakriti remain in equilibrium. when this balance is disturbed, again  creation takes place. this process of creation and dissolution is without  beginning.  thus the better terms to  indicate creation and dissolution are manifestation or evolution and mergence  or involution. purusha, in his pure essence, remains unaffected by the  activities of his maya, though the insentient maya is activated because of its  proximity to purusha...

purusha  with the help of prakriti manifests the universe. because  of his very proximity, insentient nature acts. maya or prakriti is under his  control. but jiva or the created being is under the control of maya.

living  beings come out of prakriti which remains dormant at the end of the previous cycle.  dissolution or the state in which the three gunas remain at perfect balance is  called the sleep (dormant state) of prakriti.

the  beings at the end of the previous cycle merged in prakriti are still under the  influence of maya or ignorance. as prakriti becomes active at the beginning of  the next cycle, the beings also assume appropriate births according to their  past karma.

since  the creation is falsely superimposed upon purusha , what is perceived to be the  universe existing in time and space is, from the point of reality, nothing but purusha himself.

 

people of wisdom who possess divine or saatwic nature and are  endowed with self-restraint, mercy, faith, purity etc., know purusha as the origin  of all beings just as those who know the mud to be the origin of all mud pots  will see the mud in all pots. they worship him with single minded devotion.  their whole life becomes a continuous adoration of the supreme and hence they  are mahatmas.

  

to  become conscious of divine love, all other love must be abandoned. if we cast  ourselves entirely on the mercy of god, he bears all our sorrows. we can depend  on his saving grace and energizing care. brahman promises  final merger of the sannyasi’s soul with him. moksha can be attained only if ego is zero , karmic baggage is zero and soul has highest frequency.. praying to god is no use

 

the word ‘kshetra’ signifies both  ‘body’ and matter. the body is called ‘field’ because the fruits of action are  reaped in it as in the field or it is subject to constant decay. it is the body  in which events happen; all growth, decline and death take place in it. just as  seeds sown in a field yield the corresponding crops in course of time, even so  seeds of karma sown in this body yield their fruit at the appropriate time. hence  the body is called the field, the object.

 

 the word ‘kshetrajna’ or  knower of the field means the individual soul ( atman ) , which is, in reality one with  the supreme soul ( brahman the field ) who is the subject. the entire range of objective reality, the prakriti, the matter, which is open to knowledge through the equipments of  mind, intellect and senses, are material in their constitution, perishable in  their nature and mutable in their essence.

the conscious self is wholly  different from the aforesaid material world of objective reality. it is the  knower of the matter consisting of perceptions, feelings and thoughts. prakriti is unconscious activity and purusha is inactive consciousness. the  conscious principle, inactive and detached, which lies behind all active states  as witness, is the knower of the field. it is the lord of the matter and runs  through it. this is the distinction between consciousness and the objects which  that consciousness observes. kshetrajna is the light of awareness, the knower  of all objects and he is neither the embodied mind nor an object in the world.  he is the supreme lord, calm and eternal and does not need the use of the  senses and the mind for his witnessing. it is the ‘para prakriti’ or the  higher nature ..

not only the gross body, mind and intellect but also the perceptions  experienced through them, the world of objects, emotions and thoughts are  included in the term `field' - this body. all the world of objects, which  includes emotions and thoughts, are `knowable' put together in a bunch. this is  called the field, the object. the knowing principle or the knower is the  subject. real knowledge consists in understanding the distinction between the  object and the subject.

prakriti alone performs all actions:  actions depend upon the quality of the matter. if the mind is evil, actions  arising out of it cannot be good. the soul is perfect and there is no desire in  it. where there are no desires, there is no action. he who recognizes the  imperishable amidst the perishable is the right perceiver. he alone sees who  sees. the true self is not the doer but only the witness. it is the spectator,  not the actor. actions affect the mind and understanding and not the soul.. 

 

to know that the self is the  ultimate truth behind names and forms is only half knowledge. it can become  complete only when we understand how the multiplicity of names and forms arise  from the self and spread to become the universe. when the variety of nature and  its development are traced to the eternal one, we assume eternity. he realizes  the all pervading nature of the self, because the cause of all limitation has  been destroyed by the knowledge of unity with brahman.

the chhandogya upanishad (vii.xxvi.1) says “from the self is life, from  the self is desire, from the self is love, from the self is akasa, from  the self is light, from the self are the waters, from the self is the  manifestation and disappearance, from the self is the soul”.

 

the soul is altogether changeless. these changes are the source of all sorrows  and miseries in every mortal's life.  all  these are denied to the self to prove its changelessness.  birth and death are for the physical bodies  only and they cannot touch the immortal self just as the waves are born and die  in the ocean but the ocean itself is not born with the waves nor does it die  when the waves disappear.

arjuna  was grieved about the death of his kinsmen in the war. so krishna explains  that the soul is not killed when the body is slain and hence he should not  grieve.

 

 those who die without attaining moksha ( merging with brahman at the sevent astral layer ) is inducted back again from astral layers one to six..  life on earth, in spite of many moments  of happiness, is intrinsically painful. 

 

purusha seated in prakriti,  experiences the qualities (gunas) born of prakriti.

when  the knower of the field (purusha) identifies himself with the field (prakriti),  he becomes the experiencer.

purusha identifies with the body and the senses which are the  effects of prakriti (matter). pleasure and pain, heat and cold etc. arise out  of matter envelopments. the experiences of matter become the experiences of the  spirit because of the latter's contact with the former. purusha not only  experiences the sorrows and joys of life but develops attachment with them  which is the cause of its birth in good or evil wombs.

 

 prakriti (nature) is the material  from which the body and the sense organs are produced. the five elements out of  which the body is made and the five sense-objects are included under the term  ‘body’ or ‘karya’ used in the verse. the sense organs are thirteen  namely five organs of perception, five organs of action, the mind, intellect  (buddhi), and i-consciousness (ahamkara). pleasure, pain, delusion and the rest,  which are born of three gunas of prakriti, are included under the term organs  or ‘karana’ since they cannot exist independently of the sense-organs.

purusha and prakriti are stated  to be the cause of samsara or phenomenal existence. prakriti transforms itself  into body and senses, as also into pleasure, pain and so on and purusha  experiences pleasure and pain. this union between purusha and prakriti makes  relative life possible. even though the purusha, the soul, identifies himself  with the body and appears to experience pleasure and pain, yet in reality he  remains unchanging. it is this apparent experience which constitutes his  illusory world or samsara and which makes him a samsari or phenomenal being.

 

prakriti alone performs all actions:  actions depend upon the quality of the matter. if the mind is evil, actions  arising out of it cannot be good. the soul is perfect and there is no desire in  it. where there are no desires, there is no action. he who recognizes the  imperishable amidst the perishable is the right perceiver. he alone sees who  sees. the true soul is not the doer but only the witness. it is the spectator,  not the actor. actions affect the mind and understanding and not the soul.

prakriti, matter or nature is  inert.  matter is that out of which all  forms (from intelligence down to the gross body) and gunas (qualities such as  sattva, rajas and tamas, which manifest themselves in the form of pleasure,  pain delusion so on,) come into existence. all changes or modifications are  related to matter. prakriti is maya, the sakti or power of brahman. it is the  cause of the manifestation of the relative universe.

since prakriti or maya is the  eternal source of all forms and gunas, brahman (purusha) remains ever  changeless and immutable. purusha, self, soul, spirit, is the changeless  substratum in the presence of which all changes take place.

matter (prakriti) and spirit  (purusha) are both beginningless. they are the two aspects of god.  the play  of matter and spirit causes the origin, preservation and dissolution of the  universe.

  

the  imperishable is the quality attained by the spirit with reference to the field  surrounding it. when the field of the matter is removed from the  knower of the field what remains is the knowing principle, the pure knowledge.

consciousness is itself perishable, field in another form and as the knower  of the field the same consciousness is the imperishable reality in the  perishable conditionings. but when these conditionings are transcended the same  self is experienced as the supreme self - the paramatman, purushottama. 

 

the supreme self, pure  consciousness, is described as spectator, a silent witness, upadrashtaa, when it sees evil actions performed. when noble actions take place it is  referred to as the approver, anumantha. when noble actions are done in a  spirit of surrender to the lord, the supreme is referred to as bharta,  the fulfiller. the individual in his eternal conscious state initiates all  actions and reaps the fruit. therefore, he is referred to as the experiencer, bhokta. 

 

the field and the knower of the field are the two  aspects of prakriti, matter. both of them function on the substratum, the  absolute. when the supreme functions in the field he becomes the enjoyer of the  field and therefore the knower of the field. when detached from the field, he  becomes pure absolute consciousness.

purusha is the soul of the cosmos..  the father and the mother of the universe.  matter and spirit are his two aspects which are inherent in him. as the father  or the supreme soul he casts the seed; as the mother or nature, or matter or  prakriti, he receives the seed. from the embryo thus formed, which is termed as hiranyagarbha, are produced all  created beings.

purusha is the cosmic seed. with reference to this  world, he becomes hiranyagarbha, the cosmic egg. the world is the play of the  infinite on the finite. it is the development of the form on the non-being. the  forms of all things which arise out of the abysmal void are derived from god.  they are the seeds he casts into non-being. 

 

every expression of life is matter combined with  spirit. krishna, the supreme consciousness, says that he is the  father of the entire universe. a field in itself has no existence without the  knower of the field vitalizing it. body, mind and intellect are mere inert  matter till consciousness enlivens them

 

purusha presides over only as a witness; nature does everything. by  reason of his proximity or presence, nature sends forth the moving and the  unmoving. the prime cause of this creation is nature or prakriti.

  

spirit  is the illuminator. it cannot be tainted by the qualities of the illumined.  krishna now concludes that man's life is fulfilled only when he with his  discrimination meditates upon and realizes the constitution of and relationship  between the field, the knower of the field and the soul in himself.  this can be achieved through the eye of wisdom or intuition which is opened up  by meditation, introspection, and study of scriptures or teachings of eminent preceptors. one who realizes  this is liberated and attains eternal freedom.

it has been very clearly and  emphatically laid down in the bhagavad gita that the means of deliverance from  maya or ignorance are meditation/ introspection , renunciation and other spiritual disciplines. 

 

krishna explains what the gunas are and how they bind the spirit within matter  to create individualized ego sense in us.   sattva has the characteristic of effulgence. it is harmony, goodness or  purity. rajas is passion or activity. tamas is inertia or dullness. these three  qualities indicate the triple mentality which produces attachment in the  individual self, delude it and bind it down to the worldly life.

just as childhood, youth and old age are found in the  same body these three gunas are found in the same mind. the individual self  gets identified with the body and the three qualities and thereby it feels the  changes in the body as its own changes.   it becomes subject to sorrows and joys of the body till it realizes its  identity with the supreme self. this delusion is on account of the influence of  the gunas. when the soul identifies itself with the modes of nature, it forgets  its own reality and uses the mind, life and body for the egoistic satisfaction.

gunas are not merely qualities but they are the  primary constituents of nature. they are the base for all substances. they are  the three different influences under which every human mind expresses itself in  a variety of ways at different moments of changing environments.

the gunas depend for their existence on the knower of  the field whom they bind very fast. the knowledge of gunas is therefore  necessary to come out of their clutches. these three gunas are always present  in all human beings and none is free from them. however, they are not always constant;  every time any one of them will be predominant.

one should analyze all phenomena in terms of these  three modes of nature and know their characteristics. one should stand as a  witness of these qualities but must not identify with them. rising above these gunas  one should become gunatita and attain supreme peace, immortality and eternal  bliss.

krishna  says that there is no creature either on the earth or among the gods in the  heaven who is free from the influences of these three gunas. the play of these  three gunas is the very expression of prakriti. put together they are the  manifestations of maya which make the individuals differ from each other.

with  these three measuring rods krishna classifies the entire humanity under  four distinct types. the criterion of this classification of man is the quality  of his inner equipments responsible for achievements in the field of his  activities.

the  fourfold division of society is based on this principle. certain well defined  characteristics determine these four classes in the community. they are never  determined by birth. caste system was created by the white invader

 

https://captajitvadakayil.in/2022/02/25/the-untouchables-capt-ajit-vadakayil/

 

the gunas modify themselves into the outside world, the body and the senses  which are called the modes of prakriti. they are classified into twenty three  categories viz. intellect, ego, mind, the five subtle elements of ether etc.,  the ten organs of perception and action, and the five objects of senses viz.  sound, touch, sight, taste and smell. these are the performers of all action. 

the  word ‘action’ includes all the functions of the organs of perception and action (jnana indriyas and karma indriyas). the soul looks on without  participating in any way in the action done by the body and the senses. whatever  actions take place in this world are nothing but the operations of the  aforesaid modes of prakriti and the absolute and formless atma or the soul has  really nothing to do with them.

an  ignorant man, however, identifies the soul with the aggregate of the body and  the senses and calls it as ‘i ‘and thinks that the soul is the doer.

even  though the self or the soul has no relation with actions, the unwise man  identifying himself with the body and the senses associates himself with the  different actions of the body and thus assumes himself to be the doer of those  actions. in other words he thinks it is he who resolves, he who reflects, he  who hears, he who sees, he who eats, he who drinks, sleeps, walks and so on and  thus traces every action to himself. thus he ascribes to the soul all the  characteristics that really belong to the gunas. that is why action becomes the  cause of bondage to him. it is the reason for him to go through the process of repeated  births and deaths to reap the fruits of those actions

  

krishna describes how his power of maya is instrumental in  the process of creation and dissolution of the universe.

the  whole process of creation, preservation and dissolution is due to purusha’s maya, his lower prakriti or nature consisting of the three gunas in  their undifferentiated state and yet he is unaffected by it. vedanta while  recognizing the fact of creation does not approve of the act of creation. purusha does not create the universe from nothing or void, for nothing only can  come out from nothing. therefore vedanta believes that purusha, because of his  power of lower nature, maya, projects out of himself (manifests) all the names  and forms at the time of creation. consciousness or his higher nature endows  them with life.

 

at  the end of the time-cycle, the names and forms of the manifested universe go  back into the seed state and remain merged in prakriti. at this state the three  gunas of prakriti remain in equilibrium. when this balance is disturbed, again  creation takes place. this process of creation and dissolution is without  beginning.  thus the better terms to  indicate creation and dissolution are manifestation or evolution and mergence  or involution. purusha in his pure essence, remains unaffected by the  activities of his maya, though the insentient maya is activated because of its  proximity to purusha..

purusha with the help of prakriti manifests the universe. because  of his very proximity, insentient nature acts. maya or prakriti is under his  control. but jiva or the created being is under the control of maya.

living  beings come out of prakriti which remains dormant at the end of the previous cycle.  dissolution or the state in which the three gunas remain at perfect balance is  called the sleep (dormant state) of prakriti.

the  beings at the end of the previous cycle merged in prakriti are still under the  influence of maya or ignorance. as prakriti becomes active at the beginning of  the next cycle, the beings also assume appropriate births according to their  past karma.

since  the creation is falsely superimposed upon the lord, what is perceived to be the  universe existing in time and space is, from the point of reality, nothing but purusha.

 

 the sun, earth, plant  kingdom and man and his capabilities etc, consisting of the field of the matter  are nothing other than the supreme self. thus the field of the matter is the  spirit, the consciousness, the difference being that when the spirit expresses  as matter it looks as if it were subject to change and destruction. thus the  realm of the matter is described in this verse as kshara purusha - the perishable. with reference to this kshara  purusha the spirit is the imperishable, akshara  purusha. with reference to the ever changing world of the matter,  consciousness is imperishable and changeless. this consciousness principle is  referred to here as akshara with reference to and contact with the kshara.

the soul in the midst of changes remains changeless and all changes can take place  only in contact with it just as an anvil (kootastham) remaining changeless allows all the iron pieces kept and hammered on it to  change their shapes.

 

those who are abiding in sattva go upwards, the rajasic dwell in the middle and the  tamasic abiding in the function of the lowest gunas go downwards.

 

•go upwards: those who are living a pure life of discrimination, clear thinking, right judgment and self-discipline cultivate more and more sattva qualities in themselves. when the mind is thus quiet it evolves to a higher level.

•dwell in the middle: those of rajasic nature, with all their desires and agitations, ambitions and achievements again and again manifest as human beings till they acquire the required purity.

•go downwards: those of tamasic nature that are full of misconceptions and deluded in their own lust and passions devolve themselves into the lower natures.

all the three gunas bind  man to attachment; including sattva which binds us to knowledge and happiness.  then when will man become free from the contacts of the pluralistic world to  attain godhood?

there  can be release from these bondages only when we transcend all the gunas. the  three gunas may be in different proportions present in each one of us but the  true release comes not only when all the gunas are transcended but also when we  are established in the spiritual experience. this process of escaping ourselves  from the subjective shackles on our psychological and intellectual nature is  called liberation or moksha.

 

krishna explains the attitude of the wise man who knows that the soul  is entirely distinct from the gunas, their classification and functions.

the  enlightened man who has obtained insight into the categories of the gunas and  actions, attributes every action of the mind, intellect, senses and the body to  the fact that it is the product of these gunas in the shape of all instruments  of perception such as the mind, intellect and senses that are moving within the  sphere of their respective objects, which are also products of the gunas and  that he has no relation with either.   therefore, he does not get attached to either any action or to their  fruits in the shape of agreeable or disagreeable experiences.

the  difference between the active enlightened man and the active ignorant man is  that the former is beyond the influence of the gunas and considers himself as a  non-doer while the latter is controlled by the gunas and feels that everything  is being done by him.

 

when  the influences of rajo guna predominate, the mind gets full of passions.  passion denotes urges, desires, emotions and feelings. these fall under two  categories viz. desires and attachments which are said to be the very sources  of passion.

passion gives rise to thirst and attachment: thirst  means insatiable desire. a human personality longs for the satisfaction of any  desire that grows in him. satisfaction of one kind of desire leads to  attachment to the object desired. desire is the mental relationship towards the  objects that have not been possessed and attachment is the mental dependence on  the objects so acquired.

bind by attachment to action: when the rajas predominates  innumerable desires originate for things not acquired and deepest attachment  sets in for things already possessed.

to fulfill the demands made by these two, one should  necessarily undertake endless actions earning, spending, saving, procuring, protecting  and thirsting for more all the time to keep up with the joneses.  people go on foreign tours to put pictures in facebook and make friends jealous.. goaded by anxiety to possess more and to  prevent from losing what he already has he has to act in many spheres. thus he  enters into a whirlpool of successes and failures arising out of his own  actions.

actions emanate from passions and passions arise out  of desires and attachments all of which are the symptoms of the predominance of  rajo guna on the mind. if sattva guna binds one with anxieties for happiness  and peace, wisdom and knowledge, rajo guna binds him to inexhaustible actions.  thus though the self is not acting, rajas makes him act with the idea that `i  am the doer'.

 

sattva makes us attached to the inward happiness arising from  life fully lived. rajas makes one passionate, thirsty of desires and deep  attachments in fulfilling of which one perforce has to undertake endless  actions. tamas conceals right judgment and knowledge of the soul. it  results in indiscrimination and creates attachment to wrong comprehensions. 

 

gunas cannot be defined directly without explaining  their symptoms and processes

luminous, free from evil and unblemished:

under the influence of sattva, it being pure and hence  luminous and without any blemish, the mind is steady and will constantly  reflect on the self. though sattva is thus the most divine mental attitude,  still it binds us and limits our spiritual nature.

it binds us by attachment to happiness and knowledge:--

when the mind is cleansed from all its agitations and  evil thoughts the seeker achieves greater inward peace, happiness, better  understanding and intellectual comprehension.

sattva does not rid us of the ego-sense. it also  causes desire though for noble objects. the self which is free from all  attachments is here attached to happiness and knowledge. happiness and  knowledge are attributes of mind, which is form of matter. they belong to the  category of the object and pertain to the kshetra.  the soul which is of the nature of freedom and totally unattached, becomes  bound by identification with matter. this is how sattva binds a soul to the  world.

 

‘that’  is brahman or the unchangeable consciousness. it is the self of all. it is the  real that envelops everything that exists. it is the very substance of all the  world of perceptions, the world of names and forms, which we experience.  brahman is the witness and the innermost essence of the changeable world.

different  mud pots have different names and shapes depending upon the things they contain  or the purposes for which they are made use of. yet all of them are permeated  with the same stuff i.e. mud without which no pot can exist. all the pots come  from mud exist in mud and when they are destroyed all their forms and names  merge back in mud.  so the mud is the  reality holding all pots together.

so  too, the world of finite objects and changes is enveloped by the real, the  changeless brahman.  krishna says  that there is no possibility of this real ever getting destroyed at all. destruction  of an object is caused by the loss of its parts as in the case of the body or  by the loss of something belonging to it. as brahman is without parts and is  one without a second, there is no question of its destruction.

the  immutable consciousness or atman in the individual is the same as the all  pervading consciousness or brahman in the universe.

while the soul is imperishable, the body is perishable and is  perishing every day. nobody can check the process of such destruction. whether  arjuna wages the war or withdraws from it, the imperishable cannot be destroyed  and the perishable cannot be saved from destruction.

  

where  ego ends and the individuality is completely wiped out, a state of selfhood, the  state of brahman - existence, knowledge, bliss absolute - sat chit ananda - dawns.  renouncing every thing and living in the self is the brahmi state or the state  of god-realized soul. if the aspirant attains this state he never falls into delusion  again; never again deluded by the world.  it is the highest state of  happiness.

the sage of steady wisdom lives a  life of disinterested service. working  without attachment and desires, egoism and vanity, always equanimous with pairs  of opposites is to control the ego and experience the soul. this a technique of karma  yoga such a sage of steady wisdom lives a life of disinterested action.

right  interpretation of life involves knowing what is real and what is un-real. the  real is that which has no change and remains the same in all periods of time -  past, present and future. it always is. the unreal is that which does not  remain the same for two successive moments. 

whatever did not exist in the past  or will not exist in the future cannot really exist in the present. that which  is not in the beginning and which will not be in the end, but which seemingly  exists in the present is called un-real. any object conditioned by the law pf  cause and effect is not absolutely real because every effect is a change  brought about by a cause and every cause is temporary.

the  life is finite. the body changes every moment, mind evolves and intellect grows  with the passage of time.  each change in  the body for example from childhood to youth and from youth to old age results  in the constant death to its previous state. body, mind and intellect  constitute the continuous succession of the changes and all of them cannot be  real. a thing which never remains the same for any given period is un-real.  the whole of the phenomenal world must be  unreal because no one state in it endures even for a fraction of the time.

but  there must be some real entity behind these changes.  for the changes to take place there must be  some changeless substratum just as a river bed is necessary for the rivers to  flow.  in order to hold together  innumerable experiences at the levels of body, mind and intellect and to give  them a cohesive whole which is called life, a changeless substratum is required  for all.

that  something which remains unchanged all through the changes is the real and it is  nothing other than the self in all, the pure awareness, and consciousness. what  is changing must be unreal and what is constant must be real. when the soul is  overpowered by ignorance, the un-real which is the names and forms of the  phenomenal world, veils the unchanging reality - the atman, consciousness  -  which is for ever manifest and which  is not conditioned by causality. this soul is the unchanging witness of the  changes in the relative world as in the case of the river bed and a flowing  river.

this  awareness by which one becomes conscious of things in one's life - because of  which one is considered alive, but for which one will have no existence in the  given embodiment - that spiritual entity, eternal, all pervading, unborn and  undying, the one changeless factor is the infinite in him.  and this is the atman, consciousness which is  the real.

therefore  the men of knowledge and wisdom have known the implications of these - the real  and the un-real, the self and the non-self, which in combination is called the  world.

 

 arjuna's  grief which deters him from his duty is born of ignorance as to the true nature  of the soul.  hence krishna’s  persisted attempts to illumine him on the subject.

the  physical body may be injured or destroyed by illness or death. the soul is  subject to neither of these. the soul is said to be incomprehensible because it  is not comprehended by the senses, by the mind, or by any other instrument of  knowledge. the soul is svatah-siddha, determined by itself. being the  knowing consciousness, it cannot be known by any other instrument. everything  is known by the self just as no other light is required the see the light of  the sun which is self-effulgent.

krishna  is not really commanding arjuna to fight as it is commonly understood. arjuna, following  his dharma, had come to the battlefield to fight. he refused to fight on  account of his erroneous perception of the true nature of the soul and the  body. the efforts of krishna are towards removing this unawareness and leave  him to do what he (arjuna) considers to be right.

this  is really not a command to fight but a call to arjuna and through him to all of  us to discard the defeatist mentality and face whole heartedly and sincerely  all the situations in every field of activity at any given moment of existence  in life. in sanatana dharma nobody is strait jacketed or pulled by hooks inside the nose

 

the  changeless self is explained with the aid of ever changing world which is  familiar to arjuna and others.  in the  world of change, objects meet their end by means of instruments of destruction  like weapons, fire, water and wind.

arjuna’s  grief was based on the assumption that he would be killing the elders and other  realtives by striking them with lethal weapons. hence in order to remove his  grief krishna points out the immortality and formlessness of the soul by  pointing out the inability of all the four elements of earth, water, fire and  air to destroy it. the body is perishable and possessed of a form; the soul is  everlasting and formless. therefore, the soul can never be destroyed by the  elements of earth in the form of weapons or by the elements of water, fire and  air and so it is sheer ignorance to lament for it.

  

krishna says that if a thing cannot be  annihilated by any means of destruction discovered by man such an object must  be everlasting.  since the soul is  indestructible, it is necessarily everlasting. that which is everlasting or  eternal will pervade everywhere. all-pervading indicates that it has only itself  all around it and it is unconditioned by anything other than itself.

that  which is eternal and all-pervading must be stable meaning no change can ever  happen to it.  that which is stable is  immovable.  mobility or moving implies  the transfer of an object or person from one set of time and place to another  set of time and place where they were not there already.  since soul is all-pervading there cannot be  any place or period of time where it was not there before.  as the soul is unconditioned by the concept  of time it is said to be ancient.

the  soul is not an object of perception.  it cannot  be perceived by any one of the senses. therefore, it is unmanifest. the mind  can think only about an object perceived by the senses. as the  soul cannot be  perceived by the senses, it is unthinkable and beyond comprehension.. as the soul is infinite and without any form it cannot undergo any change.  hence it is changeless or immutable.

 

the upanishadic method of meditation for  the withdrawal of ego from the outer world of sense objects to the inner world  of the soul for the purposes of curbing desire oriented tendencies and thereby  achieving self-discovery is commended . the  physical body is gross, external and limited. as compared to this the senses  are superior because they are subtler and more internal and have a wider range  of activity.  superior to the senses is  the mind as it can direct the function of the senses (as it can undertake the  work of the senses also). superior to the mind is the intellect because it is  endowed with the faculty of discrimination and finality; when the mind doubts,  the intellect decides. but the soul is superior to even the intellect because  the intellect draws its power to illuminate from the soul alone. the soul is  the indweller in the body, the witness of the activities of the body, senses,  mind and intellect.

krishna points  out that a man of discrimination and dispassion will be able to achieve this by  increasing his sattwic quality and by appealing to the indwelling presence, the soul, through meditation. this controlling of the lower self i.e. the mind with  the knowledge of the higher self is termed here as ‘restraining the self by the  self’.

the  technique of meditation is a conscious withdrawal of all our identifications  with our body, mind and intellect and thereby turning our awareness or  desire-faculty towards our diviner existence where the ego is under the perfect  control of the soul with no desires to agitate the mind any more. 

 

practicing yoga means being  united with the lord in contemplation.

 

brahman indicates the one  changeless and imperishable essence behind the phenomenal world. it is the self  or the principle of consciousness which illumines the body, mind and intellect.  its presence in each individual body is called adhyatma, the individual  soul.  the supreme  brahman alone exists in every individual body as the pratyagatman, the  ego, the inmost self and is known as the adhyatma. at the culmination of the  spiritual discipline, the soul is realized as one with brahman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED

CAPT JIT VADAKYIL