Divine Wisdom – Key to Understanding Shrikant Vasudeo
General Commentary on Upanishad
The Upanishad are held in very high respect by the Indian population throughout the ages. However, the correct understanding of these Upanishads is lacking. In order to understand the true wisdom of these Upanishads, we need to know the background of their origin.
First of all, we must understand that these Upanishads assist us in directly reaching the state of ‘illumination’ of our inner being. They are not ‘step by step’ instructions for achieving it.
Secondly, these Upanishads are not for ‘dummies’. They are not ‘simple and clear’ explanation of the Divine. They assume an understanding of Vedic thought.
Thirdly, these Upanishads are not a ‘textbook’ of divine knowledge. They are not to be learned in a classroom. In other words, one needs to have a personal experience of the basic truths of our life. They are not just ‘bookish’ knowledge.
Fourthly, the style of expression of the Upanishad for development of the thought of divine knowledge is not explicit. The real knowledge is implicit and one needs to ‘meditate’ on these expressions to truly understand their implicit meaning. The words used in reasoning of the central idea are ‘suggestive’ in nature. They do not directly strike our intelligent mind.
Fifthly, we do not have the ‘reading’ of these texts. We have ‘hearing’ of them directly through the Divine Source. What it means is that the wisdom ‘dawns’ on our innermost being in a state of contemplative meditation.
Sixthly, the ‘hearer’ of these divine wisdom proceeds from light to Light. It helps him to confirm his intuitions, live his experience in the new light. He is not supposed to do the ‘logical analysis’ of these intuitions and experiences.
Here comes the difficulty to our modern intelligent man of ‘digital’ technology. We are used to ‘break-down’ everything to very ‘elemental’ level. We work by our brains. Intelligence is our basic means of understanding any idea or notion. We analyse, we rationalize every idea or thought. Precisely for this reason, to the modern man, the Upanishad offers insurmountable difficulty in understanding the true inner wisdom contained in them. In order for the modern man to fully understand the Upanishads, we need to explicitly bring out the hidden wisdom, give rational explanation, highlight the central theme, bridge the gap between two successive thoughts by necessary clarifications and interpretations and thus try to make him ‘understand’. This is indeed a very daunting task. However ‘hard’ we try, it is bound to fall short of the complete understanding the wisdom inherent in the Upanishad if we follow this ‘modern’ style. However, even with this lacunae, it is absolutely necessary in the present circumstances. At present, due to the horribly erroneous interpretations of these ancient scriptures, the modern man has lost out on the wealth of wisdom contained in them. We are truly very ‘rich’ in knowledge but bankrupt in understanding of the divine wisdom. We see around us stark contract in what we preach and what we practice. We are torn apart between the pulls of our desires and cravings on one side and our yearning for the long-lasting happiness and truth realization on the other. This dichotomy creates the undercurrent of anxiety, guilt feelings, a feeling of hollowness and a sense of drifting – having lost our directions in this life.
Isha Upanishad is our saviour. It is precisely dong the job of reconciling these opposites, harmonizing the different ideas and thoughts and bringing out the underlying unified truth. This we will see in the next note given separately.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Genetics, Free Will, Destiny and Karma
Genetics, Free Will, Destiny and Karma
Shrikant Vasueo
18th May 2008
Since ancient times there is a debate about the role and importance of Free Will, Law of Inevitability due to Destiny, Law of Karma.
Law of Free Will states that we have a choice to become who we want to be, by planning, hard work, intelligent choices and learning. On the other hand, the role of Destiny is exactly opposite to that of Free Will. The law of Destiny states that our fate is ‘pre-determined’ and we can do nothing about it. Whatever has to happen will happen anyway – inspite of the human effort in the opposite direction. The Law of Karma states that we will have to reap what we have sown. It is a spiritual version of the Newton’s law – every action has equal and opposite reaction. It is a mixture of Free Will and Destiny. Once you do your actions, you incur Karma. The result of your action gets determined by your action. The reaction to your action is bound to happen. It then becomes your destiny – an inevitable thing. However, the first action which set into motion the law of Karma is of Free Will. In other words, the Free Will action invites Karma and becomes Destiny for the reaction to happen. The whole thing is not as simple as that. I have put it into over simplified form for easy understanding and brevity.
In the backdrop of above laws, the study of genetics puts in very interesting insights into human nature, destiny, free will etc. I believe that the findings of the science of genetics should form an integral part of the metaphysical discussion about Free Will, Destiny etc. This is because the science of genetics is throwing up shocking information upsetting the old paradigms about human nature.
Let us see how.
We consider human being is the most advanced species on earth. By comparison, plants are way below us in evolutionary scale. The genes in us are the basic building blocks of our nature – the computer program which decides who we are and how we will behave and what are our capacities etc. The science of genetics has discovered that the Plants have more genes than the human being !
It was thought that the human being is having 100,000 genes. When the human genome project was completed, scientists were shocked to know that we are only having 30,000 genes – far short of estimated. It made us wrongly believe that environmental factors are the determining factors of our nature and not the genes.
Here is another surprise. We are having about the same set of genes as other animals. We differ by just a single atom (Gc enzyme) on a humble sugar molecule with Chimpanzee. No – this single molecule does not make us human – the LACK of this molecule makes us human. The Chimpanzee has it. We do not.
In 1960s, a geneticist Dmitri Belyaev has done a very novel experiment on foxes. He had a fur farm. He tried to tame the foxes and train them for working on his farm. It was a very difficult task. After 25 generations of the foxes, he was able to tame the foxes completely. This is not much of surprising. What is surprising is that the physical features of the foxes also changed ! They now resembled to that of the pet dogs ! The exactly same set of genes of the 25th generation fox as that of the 1st generation fox – but with vastly different physical features. How could this be explained as per the genetics science ?
Over the decades, scientists have conducted numerous studies of identical twins to study the effect of genes on human nature. In as early as year 1874, a well known geographer named Francis Galton conducted studies identical twins. He selected 35 pairs of identical twins and 23 pairs of non-identical twins for his study. He observed that the identical twins remained similar throughout their lives in many diverse aspects. This similarity was not shared by non identical twins. Even the identical twins reared apart exhibited the similarity in traits.
From all the various studies of the heritability of IQ in twins, adeptees and combinations of the two, conducted over a period of time and by different scientists and at different places, we come to a common conclusion. IQ is about 50 % ‘additively genetic’, 25 % influenced by the shared environment (family life, schooling, neighbourhood etc) and the balance 25 % is influenced by environmental factors unique to the individual (events of his life).
If we put the above observation onto a time scale of the life of an individual, we get a very interesting and apparently intriguing phenomenon. Scientists have discovered based on numerous studies that the influence of genes is least in the early part of the life of an individual. During that period, the influence of the environment is maximum. On the other hand, during the later part of life of an individual, he ‘expresses’ the ‘genetic influence’ more strongly – over-riding or even altogether eliminating the early life influence of environment. Suppose a child of parents with very low IQ is adopted by those of very high IQ parents. Such a child will show bright results during his school days and also probably during his college days. However, by middle ages, he will have adopted to a job which requires very less of intelligence or application of mind.
There is another very interesting aspect to the genetics study. The genes themselves do not cause the result. The result is caused by the individual acting in a particular manner. The gene responsible for high intelligence will not by itself make an individual intelligent. It will ‘prompt’ the individual to study – by making him enjoy his learning experience. Unless the individual with intelligent gene makes an effort to study, the intelligence gene will not have an opportunity to express its ‘intelligence’ attribute. Similarly, the fat causing gene will not by itself make an individual fat person. It will induce the individual to feel hungry for a pizza. The individual with fat gene will gain weight only when he ‘obeys’ his natural instinct to eat pizza.
People staying in extreme poverty get influenced by the environmental factors. When their standard of living is raised, the genetic factor comes into importance – upto a limit. After having reached affluence, it again matters little as to how much wealth the individual is amassing. It becomes influenced by genetics.
Let us now look at the role of environment vis-à-vis gene in ‘sculpting’ the life of a person. A person with intelligent gene brought up in the conditions of extreme poverty is less likely to become an intelligent person. He needs basic resources like access to library, good tuition, computer etc to develop his intelligent faculty. Scientists have discovered that only when the standard of living of the people living in extreme poverty is raised that the genetic influence becomes prominent. Again this is true only upto a limit. After having reached affluence, it again matters little as to how much wealth the individual is amassing. It becomes influenced by genetics. On the other hand, the person brought up by very rich parents with intelligent gene, will become an intelligent person from early age. But the proportion of his intelligence will not be maintained with the amount of wealth his parents are having.
Now we come to the main part of our note. What is the influence of Free Will in bringing up the individual ? So far we are talking of genetics. And you must have observed that genetics more or less support the idea of destiny. Our genes are our destiny ! It is written – not on our forehead or on the palm of our hands but in our genes. And we have no choice in choosing our genes. Our parents are our only source for the genetic material. Even here we share (nearly) exactly half from mom and half from dad. We have no choice to choose the genes from our mom or dad. To be honest and frank – this is depressing. I hate the idea of being a puppet in the hands of my gene. If I do not have the gene for poetry ( I do not know as to whether scientists have so far discovered any such gene – most likely not), I will not become a poet – no matter how hard I try. This goes diametrically against the theme of Sri Anand Yoga. In Sri Anand Yoga, we strongly believe that we are architect of our life. We need to manifest our dreams through consistent efforts and JOYFULLY traversing our journey of Life. But if our genes hold the key, how do I unlock the door to my destiny ?
Now wait a minute. It is not over yet. What I have mentioned above about the science of genetics is not the whole story. For many scientists, this is mostly that matters for the purpose of their investigation. Not for me. There is also another discovery about how the genes themselves behave – rather the gene of the gene itself ! How the whole system works. When we study the system of gene working, the philosophy of Sri Anand Yoga becomes very logical, practical and achievable system.
There are proteins called ‘transcription factors’. Their job is to ‘switch on’ other genes. A transcription factor becomes effective when it attaches itself to a region of DNA called a ‘promoter’. The sensitivity of promoters of a gene is crucial in determining its ‘switching’ process. The ‘hox genes’ are the recipes for proteins called ‘transcription factors’. Now what are the hox genes ?
Hox genes are a small group of genes. Their job is to induce the proteins of the ’transcription factors’. DNA promoters express themselves in the fourth dimension – the dimension of time. Take the example of music composition. Forgive me for the crudity of my language as I am not literate on this subject. However, it is very crucial for my explanation of the working of hox genes. The music composition without the ‘time dimension’ will not make a symphony. Just the alphabets of the music will not make the symphony. Their correct sequencing will also not make a symphony. We need to add the factor of time – how long a particular note is played is the crucial missing link in making a music composition into a fine symphony. This is precisely the role of hox genes through transcription factors. A chimp has a different head from human being not because it has a different gene for its particularly shaped head. It is because the hox genes of chimp grows the jaws for longer and the cranium for less long than does the human being. The difference is all in timing and NOT in genes.
These hox genes set out the blueprint for the body of fly during its early development. It tells where to put the head, the legs, the winds and so on. Surprisingly, the mouse also has the same hox genes. Not only that, these genes are in the same order. They are designed (destined ?) to do the same job. In other words, the same gene tells a mouse embryo where to grow ribs as tells a fly embryo where to grow winds. If the message is still not yet clear to you, let me be more blunt. You can even swap this gene between species - EVEN A HUMAN BEING !. Not joking. I am serious. We are all brothers and sisters – humans, mouse, chimps, pigs. This is not a religious talk. This is the science of genetics. Buddha and Jesus must be smiling.
This discovery is having very far reaching effect on our understanding the divine plan of the Creator. I will therefore again put it in different words. Same genes can be REUSED in different places and at different times. All we have to do is put a set of different promoters beside it. Even small changes in the promoter can have subtle effects on the EXPRESSION of a gene.
Promoter is part of DNA. It is a paragraph of 200 letters. Between the two species, only a handful of letters vary – even a change in as few as 2 of the letters can make all the difference.
When we want to write an original novel, we do not need to invent new words for it. To paint a beautiful scenery, we do not need new colours. The basic elements are the same. Similarly, to make grand changes in the body design of different animals, we need not invent new genes. All we need to do is do the ‘switching on and off’ the genes in different PATTERNS. With the same genetic stuff, we can create an altogether new specie by adjusting the sequence of a promoter.
There is one more side observation from the study of genetics. For me it is very important as I will explain shortly. This is about the size of the brain. It is an accepted fact that the size of human brain has steadily increased over the millions of years of his evolution. It is also a fact that by and large (there are some exceptions though), the size of human brain proportionate to his body size is very high as compared with other species. Now here comes the surprise. No, the above observations are not wrong. They are still correct – actually they need a very small correction. And it is very significant for my purpose. During the last 15,000 years, the size of human brain has shown a steep decline ! If we put his evolution on a time scale of a day of 24 hours and if we assume that the human being was born on this planet at midnight yesterday, then upto the hour 23 and minutes 59, his brain size is increasing and suddenly – in a flash – during the last minute – the brain size has reduced ! What happened ? With all this digital world and space technology and scientific discoveries, one would have assumed that the brain size of a human being should have increased. Scientists ascribe the reason to the sedentary life style and ‘civilized’ world. I do not agree. The animals in the wild are living in a very precarious environment with great threat to their life. They do not have larger brain size. I feel the reason for this steep decline in the size of human brain is due to corresponding high development of his mental faculties and also the ‘complexity’ of the human brain. The size of the brain might have reduced, but the ‘mass’ might not have been reduced. The network of dendrites might have in fact increased. The ‘capacity’ of the human brain might have actually ‘increased’ even with the decrease in the overall brain size.
I have finished with the science of genetics. This is only the background of my note. My main thesis is now I am putting forth.
With all the knowledge of genetics as explained above, I am still absolutely confident about the ‘architect’ theory of mine. We are the architect of our life and not our genes. There is free will. This is a very involved subject and I will cover it in a separate note.
We have seen that the same gene is present in different people, in man and in animal. Even the hox gene is also same. What is causing the difference is the fourth dimension of time. This is worked out through the mechanism of transcription factors. Now here exactly comes the matter of ‘human intervention’. We have no access to the micro level working of the gene. We can not therefore normally do any modification in this transcription factors. We need not. Sri Anand Yoga has a path which achieves the same result without even one becoming conscious of the same. We should also note that the gene itself will not cause a person become what it is destined to become. The person has to work it out. We have seen that the fat gene causes the person to become crave for pizza. It by itself does not make the person fat. If a person chooses not to succumb to his craving and follows the strict diet, he will not become fat inspite of him having a fat gene. Same is with gene for intelligence. This gene will make the person enjoy his learning experience. It will not by itself make the person intelligent. The person with intelligent gene must do the learning. If for any reason, inspite of the learning being an enjoyable experience for him he does not learn ( may be he is engrossed in some love affair), then he will not become intelligent. In other words, the genes are the inducers. I will now refine this last sentence in the light of Sri Anand Yoga. Genes are only one of the inducers for manifesting our destiny. They are NOT THE ONLY ONES. Here is the KEY to unlock the secrets of becoming the architect of our life. We need to become AWARE of our LIVING. At present we are like zombies. We are puppets in the hands not only of our genes but more importantly in the hands of our emotions, our passions, our cravings, our addictions and our mental blocks. We need to come out of this slumber. We are getting dragged by these horses. We need to ride on them.
Here I have to take note of the fact that inspite of the impact of environment in early childhood, the role of gene becomes inevitable as we advance in our age. However, it is not inevitable. Moreover, the severity of its impact can considerably be toned down.
I am now coming a very important observation which has to be snatched by reading between the lines. We have read about the scientific discoveries based on the population survey. Now, here we have to note that these surveys are mere ‘statistics’. Inspite of whatever scientific methods being applied to the method of surveying to eliminate the chance of error, human bias and defective observations being recorded, there still leaves an ample scope for re-interpretation and re-recording of the facts and re-angling of the observation itself. The canvas of life is very big and multi-dimensional. I do not grant to the scientists (with all due respect to their ingenuity and scientific expertise) the certificate of competency in ‘observing’ the life in a particular manner. Now here comes the punch line. We have seen the statistical observation that say, 60 % of the persons have exhibited such and such a trait, thus validating the particular theory. My question is, what happens to the balance 40 % ? It is a very large proportion of the population. Why they fall ‘outside’ the theory ? What are the factors responsible for they following a different path ? For the sake of arguments, let us assume that 90 % or even 99.99 % of the people surveyed have shown a particular trait thus certifying the theory beyond any doubt. You have guessed I right. What happens to the remaining 0.01 % of the population ? I would like to make micro level study of that person to understand how he defied the law of gravity (of a particular theory). He will offer the clue as to the new directions to look for in reaching the summit of the mountain. May be or may be not. But it is certainly worth the try. What I am trying to say is that we can not hard ‘define’ life. We can not put rigid theory into the life. It will at best only be an abstract direction. Life still offers ample scope for new methods, new theories, new approaches to conquer her.
It is not enough if we do lot of hard work to achieve our dreams. Machines do better job at that. There has to be JOY in our work. In fact it is not at all ‘hard’ work. It is not actually a ‘work’ also. It is a journey. It is a pilgrimage.
I do not wish to undermine the important role gene has to play in shaping our life. It does carry an element of destiny in its expression. It does to an extent undermine the role of environment in shaping of our life. To put it in other words, genes do hold a trump card in our life game of cards. It has the power of ‘cutting’ the non-trump cards – of even higher denomination than it. However, its capacity is limited by trump cards of higher denominations in our hand. And most importantly, we do have the MASTER TRUMP – AN ACE OF TRUMP. And that is our conscious aware joyful participation in the play of life.
The science of genetics also validate some of the principles of spiritual astrology. It is also confirming the ‘vortex’ theory of life. Every cell, every atom, every electron, quark, every point of existence in this world is having an astral field around it. This field is stronger at the core and it extends to the whole of the universe. This field is in the form of vortex revolving at very extreme speeds. It is having the defining aspects of speed, direction, depth, color, specific energy constant, intention and mass of experience. It is also having some other occult characteristics. Certain symbols and shapes also come into picture. The science of genetics conform to this science of life-cell. The answers to the question posed above as why the remaining non-conforming population falls outside the theory can be found to some extent in this science of life-cell. This science will fill the missing gaps in the science of genetics. It will be out of place and pre-mature to discuss them here. May be some other time I will dwell on these aspects.
This note is ongoing exercise. There are many more interesting aspects of genetic science. I will cover them as the time permits.
Shrikant Vasueo
18th May 2008
Since ancient times there is a debate about the role and importance of Free Will, Law of Inevitability due to Destiny, Law of Karma.
Law of Free Will states that we have a choice to become who we want to be, by planning, hard work, intelligent choices and learning. On the other hand, the role of Destiny is exactly opposite to that of Free Will. The law of Destiny states that our fate is ‘pre-determined’ and we can do nothing about it. Whatever has to happen will happen anyway – inspite of the human effort in the opposite direction. The Law of Karma states that we will have to reap what we have sown. It is a spiritual version of the Newton’s law – every action has equal and opposite reaction. It is a mixture of Free Will and Destiny. Once you do your actions, you incur Karma. The result of your action gets determined by your action. The reaction to your action is bound to happen. It then becomes your destiny – an inevitable thing. However, the first action which set into motion the law of Karma is of Free Will. In other words, the Free Will action invites Karma and becomes Destiny for the reaction to happen. The whole thing is not as simple as that. I have put it into over simplified form for easy understanding and brevity.
In the backdrop of above laws, the study of genetics puts in very interesting insights into human nature, destiny, free will etc. I believe that the findings of the science of genetics should form an integral part of the metaphysical discussion about Free Will, Destiny etc. This is because the science of genetics is throwing up shocking information upsetting the old paradigms about human nature.
Let us see how.
We consider human being is the most advanced species on earth. By comparison, plants are way below us in evolutionary scale. The genes in us are the basic building blocks of our nature – the computer program which decides who we are and how we will behave and what are our capacities etc. The science of genetics has discovered that the Plants have more genes than the human being !
It was thought that the human being is having 100,000 genes. When the human genome project was completed, scientists were shocked to know that we are only having 30,000 genes – far short of estimated. It made us wrongly believe that environmental factors are the determining factors of our nature and not the genes.
Here is another surprise. We are having about the same set of genes as other animals. We differ by just a single atom (Gc enzyme) on a humble sugar molecule with Chimpanzee. No – this single molecule does not make us human – the LACK of this molecule makes us human. The Chimpanzee has it. We do not.
In 1960s, a geneticist Dmitri Belyaev has done a very novel experiment on foxes. He had a fur farm. He tried to tame the foxes and train them for working on his farm. It was a very difficult task. After 25 generations of the foxes, he was able to tame the foxes completely. This is not much of surprising. What is surprising is that the physical features of the foxes also changed ! They now resembled to that of the pet dogs ! The exactly same set of genes of the 25th generation fox as that of the 1st generation fox – but with vastly different physical features. How could this be explained as per the genetics science ?
Over the decades, scientists have conducted numerous studies of identical twins to study the effect of genes on human nature. In as early as year 1874, a well known geographer named Francis Galton conducted studies identical twins. He selected 35 pairs of identical twins and 23 pairs of non-identical twins for his study. He observed that the identical twins remained similar throughout their lives in many diverse aspects. This similarity was not shared by non identical twins. Even the identical twins reared apart exhibited the similarity in traits.
From all the various studies of the heritability of IQ in twins, adeptees and combinations of the two, conducted over a period of time and by different scientists and at different places, we come to a common conclusion. IQ is about 50 % ‘additively genetic’, 25 % influenced by the shared environment (family life, schooling, neighbourhood etc) and the balance 25 % is influenced by environmental factors unique to the individual (events of his life).
If we put the above observation onto a time scale of the life of an individual, we get a very interesting and apparently intriguing phenomenon. Scientists have discovered based on numerous studies that the influence of genes is least in the early part of the life of an individual. During that period, the influence of the environment is maximum. On the other hand, during the later part of life of an individual, he ‘expresses’ the ‘genetic influence’ more strongly – over-riding or even altogether eliminating the early life influence of environment. Suppose a child of parents with very low IQ is adopted by those of very high IQ parents. Such a child will show bright results during his school days and also probably during his college days. However, by middle ages, he will have adopted to a job which requires very less of intelligence or application of mind.
There is another very interesting aspect to the genetics study. The genes themselves do not cause the result. The result is caused by the individual acting in a particular manner. The gene responsible for high intelligence will not by itself make an individual intelligent. It will ‘prompt’ the individual to study – by making him enjoy his learning experience. Unless the individual with intelligent gene makes an effort to study, the intelligence gene will not have an opportunity to express its ‘intelligence’ attribute. Similarly, the fat causing gene will not by itself make an individual fat person. It will induce the individual to feel hungry for a pizza. The individual with fat gene will gain weight only when he ‘obeys’ his natural instinct to eat pizza.
People staying in extreme poverty get influenced by the environmental factors. When their standard of living is raised, the genetic factor comes into importance – upto a limit. After having reached affluence, it again matters little as to how much wealth the individual is amassing. It becomes influenced by genetics.
Let us now look at the role of environment vis-à-vis gene in ‘sculpting’ the life of a person. A person with intelligent gene brought up in the conditions of extreme poverty is less likely to become an intelligent person. He needs basic resources like access to library, good tuition, computer etc to develop his intelligent faculty. Scientists have discovered that only when the standard of living of the people living in extreme poverty is raised that the genetic influence becomes prominent. Again this is true only upto a limit. After having reached affluence, it again matters little as to how much wealth the individual is amassing. It becomes influenced by genetics. On the other hand, the person brought up by very rich parents with intelligent gene, will become an intelligent person from early age. But the proportion of his intelligence will not be maintained with the amount of wealth his parents are having.
Now we come to the main part of our note. What is the influence of Free Will in bringing up the individual ? So far we are talking of genetics. And you must have observed that genetics more or less support the idea of destiny. Our genes are our destiny ! It is written – not on our forehead or on the palm of our hands but in our genes. And we have no choice in choosing our genes. Our parents are our only source for the genetic material. Even here we share (nearly) exactly half from mom and half from dad. We have no choice to choose the genes from our mom or dad. To be honest and frank – this is depressing. I hate the idea of being a puppet in the hands of my gene. If I do not have the gene for poetry ( I do not know as to whether scientists have so far discovered any such gene – most likely not), I will not become a poet – no matter how hard I try. This goes diametrically against the theme of Sri Anand Yoga. In Sri Anand Yoga, we strongly believe that we are architect of our life. We need to manifest our dreams through consistent efforts and JOYFULLY traversing our journey of Life. But if our genes hold the key, how do I unlock the door to my destiny ?
Now wait a minute. It is not over yet. What I have mentioned above about the science of genetics is not the whole story. For many scientists, this is mostly that matters for the purpose of their investigation. Not for me. There is also another discovery about how the genes themselves behave – rather the gene of the gene itself ! How the whole system works. When we study the system of gene working, the philosophy of Sri Anand Yoga becomes very logical, practical and achievable system.
There are proteins called ‘transcription factors’. Their job is to ‘switch on’ other genes. A transcription factor becomes effective when it attaches itself to a region of DNA called a ‘promoter’. The sensitivity of promoters of a gene is crucial in determining its ‘switching’ process. The ‘hox genes’ are the recipes for proteins called ‘transcription factors’. Now what are the hox genes ?
Hox genes are a small group of genes. Their job is to induce the proteins of the ’transcription factors’. DNA promoters express themselves in the fourth dimension – the dimension of time. Take the example of music composition. Forgive me for the crudity of my language as I am not literate on this subject. However, it is very crucial for my explanation of the working of hox genes. The music composition without the ‘time dimension’ will not make a symphony. Just the alphabets of the music will not make the symphony. Their correct sequencing will also not make a symphony. We need to add the factor of time – how long a particular note is played is the crucial missing link in making a music composition into a fine symphony. This is precisely the role of hox genes through transcription factors. A chimp has a different head from human being not because it has a different gene for its particularly shaped head. It is because the hox genes of chimp grows the jaws for longer and the cranium for less long than does the human being. The difference is all in timing and NOT in genes.
These hox genes set out the blueprint for the body of fly during its early development. It tells where to put the head, the legs, the winds and so on. Surprisingly, the mouse also has the same hox genes. Not only that, these genes are in the same order. They are designed (destined ?) to do the same job. In other words, the same gene tells a mouse embryo where to grow ribs as tells a fly embryo where to grow winds. If the message is still not yet clear to you, let me be more blunt. You can even swap this gene between species - EVEN A HUMAN BEING !. Not joking. I am serious. We are all brothers and sisters – humans, mouse, chimps, pigs. This is not a religious talk. This is the science of genetics. Buddha and Jesus must be smiling.
This discovery is having very far reaching effect on our understanding the divine plan of the Creator. I will therefore again put it in different words. Same genes can be REUSED in different places and at different times. All we have to do is put a set of different promoters beside it. Even small changes in the promoter can have subtle effects on the EXPRESSION of a gene.
Promoter is part of DNA. It is a paragraph of 200 letters. Between the two species, only a handful of letters vary – even a change in as few as 2 of the letters can make all the difference.
When we want to write an original novel, we do not need to invent new words for it. To paint a beautiful scenery, we do not need new colours. The basic elements are the same. Similarly, to make grand changes in the body design of different animals, we need not invent new genes. All we need to do is do the ‘switching on and off’ the genes in different PATTERNS. With the same genetic stuff, we can create an altogether new specie by adjusting the sequence of a promoter.
There is one more side observation from the study of genetics. For me it is very important as I will explain shortly. This is about the size of the brain. It is an accepted fact that the size of human brain has steadily increased over the millions of years of his evolution. It is also a fact that by and large (there are some exceptions though), the size of human brain proportionate to his body size is very high as compared with other species. Now here comes the surprise. No, the above observations are not wrong. They are still correct – actually they need a very small correction. And it is very significant for my purpose. During the last 15,000 years, the size of human brain has shown a steep decline ! If we put his evolution on a time scale of a day of 24 hours and if we assume that the human being was born on this planet at midnight yesterday, then upto the hour 23 and minutes 59, his brain size is increasing and suddenly – in a flash – during the last minute – the brain size has reduced ! What happened ? With all this digital world and space technology and scientific discoveries, one would have assumed that the brain size of a human being should have increased. Scientists ascribe the reason to the sedentary life style and ‘civilized’ world. I do not agree. The animals in the wild are living in a very precarious environment with great threat to their life. They do not have larger brain size. I feel the reason for this steep decline in the size of human brain is due to corresponding high development of his mental faculties and also the ‘complexity’ of the human brain. The size of the brain might have reduced, but the ‘mass’ might not have been reduced. The network of dendrites might have in fact increased. The ‘capacity’ of the human brain might have actually ‘increased’ even with the decrease in the overall brain size.
I have finished with the science of genetics. This is only the background of my note. My main thesis is now I am putting forth.
With all the knowledge of genetics as explained above, I am still absolutely confident about the ‘architect’ theory of mine. We are the architect of our life and not our genes. There is free will. This is a very involved subject and I will cover it in a separate note.
We have seen that the same gene is present in different people, in man and in animal. Even the hox gene is also same. What is causing the difference is the fourth dimension of time. This is worked out through the mechanism of transcription factors. Now here exactly comes the matter of ‘human intervention’. We have no access to the micro level working of the gene. We can not therefore normally do any modification in this transcription factors. We need not. Sri Anand Yoga has a path which achieves the same result without even one becoming conscious of the same. We should also note that the gene itself will not cause a person become what it is destined to become. The person has to work it out. We have seen that the fat gene causes the person to become crave for pizza. It by itself does not make the person fat. If a person chooses not to succumb to his craving and follows the strict diet, he will not become fat inspite of him having a fat gene. Same is with gene for intelligence. This gene will make the person enjoy his learning experience. It will not by itself make the person intelligent. The person with intelligent gene must do the learning. If for any reason, inspite of the learning being an enjoyable experience for him he does not learn ( may be he is engrossed in some love affair), then he will not become intelligent. In other words, the genes are the inducers. I will now refine this last sentence in the light of Sri Anand Yoga. Genes are only one of the inducers for manifesting our destiny. They are NOT THE ONLY ONES. Here is the KEY to unlock the secrets of becoming the architect of our life. We need to become AWARE of our LIVING. At present we are like zombies. We are puppets in the hands not only of our genes but more importantly in the hands of our emotions, our passions, our cravings, our addictions and our mental blocks. We need to come out of this slumber. We are getting dragged by these horses. We need to ride on them.
Here I have to take note of the fact that inspite of the impact of environment in early childhood, the role of gene becomes inevitable as we advance in our age. However, it is not inevitable. Moreover, the severity of its impact can considerably be toned down.
I am now coming a very important observation which has to be snatched by reading between the lines. We have read about the scientific discoveries based on the population survey. Now, here we have to note that these surveys are mere ‘statistics’. Inspite of whatever scientific methods being applied to the method of surveying to eliminate the chance of error, human bias and defective observations being recorded, there still leaves an ample scope for re-interpretation and re-recording of the facts and re-angling of the observation itself. The canvas of life is very big and multi-dimensional. I do not grant to the scientists (with all due respect to their ingenuity and scientific expertise) the certificate of competency in ‘observing’ the life in a particular manner. Now here comes the punch line. We have seen the statistical observation that say, 60 % of the persons have exhibited such and such a trait, thus validating the particular theory. My question is, what happens to the balance 40 % ? It is a very large proportion of the population. Why they fall ‘outside’ the theory ? What are the factors responsible for they following a different path ? For the sake of arguments, let us assume that 90 % or even 99.99 % of the people surveyed have shown a particular trait thus certifying the theory beyond any doubt. You have guessed I right. What happens to the remaining 0.01 % of the population ? I would like to make micro level study of that person to understand how he defied the law of gravity (of a particular theory). He will offer the clue as to the new directions to look for in reaching the summit of the mountain. May be or may be not. But it is certainly worth the try. What I am trying to say is that we can not hard ‘define’ life. We can not put rigid theory into the life. It will at best only be an abstract direction. Life still offers ample scope for new methods, new theories, new approaches to conquer her.
It is not enough if we do lot of hard work to achieve our dreams. Machines do better job at that. There has to be JOY in our work. In fact it is not at all ‘hard’ work. It is not actually a ‘work’ also. It is a journey. It is a pilgrimage.
I do not wish to undermine the important role gene has to play in shaping our life. It does carry an element of destiny in its expression. It does to an extent undermine the role of environment in shaping of our life. To put it in other words, genes do hold a trump card in our life game of cards. It has the power of ‘cutting’ the non-trump cards – of even higher denomination than it. However, its capacity is limited by trump cards of higher denominations in our hand. And most importantly, we do have the MASTER TRUMP – AN ACE OF TRUMP. And that is our conscious aware joyful participation in the play of life.
The science of genetics also validate some of the principles of spiritual astrology. It is also confirming the ‘vortex’ theory of life. Every cell, every atom, every electron, quark, every point of existence in this world is having an astral field around it. This field is stronger at the core and it extends to the whole of the universe. This field is in the form of vortex revolving at very extreme speeds. It is having the defining aspects of speed, direction, depth, color, specific energy constant, intention and mass of experience. It is also having some other occult characteristics. Certain symbols and shapes also come into picture. The science of genetics conform to this science of life-cell. The answers to the question posed above as why the remaining non-conforming population falls outside the theory can be found to some extent in this science of life-cell. This science will fill the missing gaps in the science of genetics. It will be out of place and pre-mature to discuss them here. May be some other time I will dwell on these aspects.
This note is ongoing exercise. There are many more interesting aspects of genetic science. I will cover them as the time permits.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Rituals
Rituals Shrikant Vasudeo
A ritual is a set of procedures to be performed in specified manner with specific material intended to produce the desired result. We are concerned herewith a spiritual ritual. It will be advantageous for a modern man to understand the science of ritual so that he can apply its underlying principles for achieving his objective in everyday mundane life – be it management, business, social or household. One should not discard the rituals as ‘mumbo-jumbo’ or ‘blind faith’. It is true that many who follow rituals do not understand it, apply it wrongly, do not get any result out of it, and still none-the-less have strong belief in them. This results in skepticism in the minds of rationalists. However this should not result in under-estimating its power or altogether scrapping the ritual itself as some ancient junk.
We have seven levels of existence. Each object on the physical plane has within it the appropriate substance of each of the other six planes of manifestation. Thus it can be seen that every material object is ‘connected’ with other six planes in a direct manner, though invisible to the common man. Symbols do the function of connecting to other planes through appropriate representation on the material plane. This enables to ‘tap’ the energy of other planes for results to be obtained on the material plane. To understand the power of symbols, let us take the analogy of sign language used to communicate with deaf and dumb persons. The sign language has been derived from the gestures we commonly use in our every day life. When we do ‘thumbs up’ to indicate our approval and appreciation and encouragement, there is no reason that the deaf and dumb person will not get the same meaning when we do the same gesture with him. The symbols serve in a similar manner as a sign language of communicating and connecting with the unseen world.
Symbols are an essential ingredient of any ritual. The ritual is designed by a Master who has been able to transcend our physical consciousness and rise himself up on higher planes. Depending on the level of plane which a Master is able to raise his consciousness, he is able to make appropriate ritual to tap the power of planes upto that level. The founders of religions have generally ascended to very high level of the plane. This is the reason they are able to exert great influence on humanity and establish the religion. The formation of religion is not just the function of the uniqueness, effectiveness and usefulness of the teaching the Master. Many of us can do it, and perhaps in a much better way than our Masters ! It has lot to do with the ‘level’ of the Master and his access to the vast reservoir of energy on higher planes. The rituals designed by the Master are often transmitted to his disciples in a secret manner. This is done in order to safeguard against the misapplication of the principles behind the rituals. This is the reason the ancient rituals have a very great value in them – even if we may not understand them clearly. The pre-requirement for effectiveness of the ritual has to be observed meticulously. Even if due to passage of time the secret behind these rituals has been lost to humanity, their effectiveness is not totally lost. They may still be effective. The Master may still be ‘active’ on higher planes and ready to guide and ‘channel’ the energy from his higher level to the deserving disciples.
Each material object of the ritual is a symbolic representation of the different nature of force functioning upon the plane to which it is connected. It is essential in order to raise the consciousness of the person performing the ritual to that appropriate level. When we create in our mind the image of a particular symbol, it establishes a point of contact with the force it is intended to represent. Form, movement, color, incense and sound strike to the physical sense organs. These sense organs in turn are connected to the subtle senses. This results in the symbol getting direct connection to the subtle world and tapping the energy therein.
Colour and sound have a special application in the ritual. There is a physical law of vibration. All colours are a vibration and can he ‘heard’ by certain sensitive people. This is called ‘Synaesthesia’. It is a form of chromesthesia. Some people may even perceive a ‘smell’ when they see color. If we spread sand on a plain surface and a violin bow is drawn across its edge, the sand will assume a particular pattern consisting of geometrical forms. Similarly light is a vibration of ether. Some people can ‘taste’ the shape. There is mathematical relationship between the air-vibration of sound and the ether vibration of the colour which it evokes in the consciousness. Every force on every level is having its own specific vibration-rhythm. If we are able to discover the specific formulae of these vibration-rhythm and get at its ‘root’ level of the sound (beeja mantra) and apply these roots in a specific sequence, we start a chain of events at subtle planes resulting in the manifestation of a particular symbol at that level. This manifestation is then ‘mirrored’ on the physical plane through the application of the rituals. All our sacred names and other words of power have this secret behind them. Same principle is in operation in the case of geometrical forms. They connect to the lines of force on higher planes.
Rituals involve an intelligent application of the science of force of the higher planes to the physical plane. The Latin root of the word ritual is related to the numbering or counting the different ways in which a thing can be done. Ritual is a sequence of events.
We can much profit from learning the science of rituals in our practical life. We are employing the secret laws of ‘energy in action’ for manifesting the desired result. We need to define the goal, design the method, establish the pre-requisites, decide upon the sequence of events, have clarity of objective, attain the required proficiency, apply our energy and most importantly, lay down the system comprising the above factors. This is the ritual. If we establish this ‘business ritual’ meticulously and follow it faithfully, we will be sure to reap bumper profit. What applies in the spirit world, equally is true in the material world. When any act, be it an act related to religious practice or a business venture, is done in a ritualistic manner as explained above, it carries the force from the unseen world and becomes as effective as an arrow on its path to hit the target. Many of the success stories of the business ventures have this secret behind it, whether the initiator is aware of this aspect or not.
We should also be careful in disdaining our ancient religious rituals. We may not have people who understand the secret principle behind these ritual. However, the effectiveness of these rituals may still be valid due the ‘ingraining’ the channel of energy through the ages of actual practice of this ritual by our ancestors who had the necessary knowledge of the secret behind these rituals. We can profit from this ‘readymade’ machinery of profit if we follow the rituals laid down by our ancestors with full faith, dedication and with attention to smallest details. However, this can not be taken for granted. One has to take his call after due process of study and insightful meditation.
Having graduated from the initial preparatory knowledge and understanding of the science of rituals, one is free to design his own ritual suited to his particular temperament, resources and the objective. Then one truly becomes the Master of his own world and starts a new religion of his own for his private world. This is another subject involving many other elements of life.
Shrikant Vasudeo
A ritual is a set of procedures to be performed in specified manner with specific material intended to produce the desired result. We are concerned herewith a spiritual ritual. It will be advantageous for a modern man to understand the science of ritual so that he can apply its underlying principles for achieving his objective in everyday mundane life – be it management, business, social or household. One should not discard the rituals as ‘mumbo-jumbo’ or ‘blind faith’. It is true that many who follow rituals do not understand it, apply it wrongly, do not get any result out of it, and still none-the-less have strong belief in them. This results in skepticism in the minds of rationalists. However this should not result in under-estimating its power or altogether scrapping the ritual itself as some ancient junk.
We have seven levels of existence. Each object on the physical plane has within it the appropriate substance of each of the other six planes of manifestation. Thus it can be seen that every material object is ‘connected’ with other six planes in a direct manner, though invisible to the common man. Symbols do the function of connecting to other planes through appropriate representation on the material plane. This enables to ‘tap’ the energy of other planes for results to be obtained on the material plane. To understand the power of symbols, let us take the analogy of sign language used to communicate with deaf and dumb persons. The sign language has been derived from the gestures we commonly use in our every day life. When we do ‘thumbs up’ to indicate our approval and appreciation and encouragement, there is no reason that the deaf and dumb person will not get the same meaning when we do the same gesture with him. The symbols serve in a similar manner as a sign language of communicating and connecting with the unseen world.
Symbols are an essential ingredient of any ritual. The ritual is designed by a Master who has been able to transcend our physical consciousness and rise himself up on higher planes. Depending on the level of plane which a Master is able to raise his consciousness, he is able to make appropriate ritual to tap the power of planes upto that level. The founders of religions have generally ascended to very high level of the plane. This is the reason they are able to exert great influence on humanity and establish the religion. The formation of religion is not just the function of the uniqueness, effectiveness and usefulness of the teaching the Master. Many of us can do it, and perhaps in a much better way than our Masters ! It has lot to do with the ‘level’ of the Master and his access to the vast reservoir of energy on higher planes. The rituals designed by the Master are often transmitted to his disciples in a secret manner. This is done in order to safeguard against the misapplication of the principles behind the rituals. This is the reason the ancient rituals have a very great value in them – even if we may not understand them clearly. The pre-requirement for effectiveness of the ritual has to be observed meticulously. Even if due to passage of time the secret behind these rituals has been lost to humanity, their effectiveness is not totally lost. They may still be effective. The Master may still be ‘active’ on higher planes and ready to guide and ‘channel’ the energy from his higher level to the deserving disciples.
Each material object of the ritual is a symbolic representation of the different nature of force functioning upon the plane to which it is connected. It is essential in order to raise the consciousness of the person performing the ritual to that appropriate level. When we create in our mind the image of a particular symbol, it establishes a point of contact with the force it is intended to represent. Form, movement, color, incense and sound strike to the physical sense organs. These sense organs in turn are connected to the subtle senses. This results in the symbol getting direct connection to the subtle world and tapping the energy therein.
Colour and sound have a special application in the ritual. There is a physical law of vibration. All colours are a vibration and can he ‘heard’ by certain sensitive people. This is called ‘Synaesthesia’. It is a form of chromesthesia. Some people may even perceive a ‘smell’ when they see color. If we spread sand on a plain surface and a violin bow is drawn across its edge, the sand will assume a particular pattern consisting of geometrical forms. Similarly light is a vibration of ether. Some people can ‘taste’ the shape. There is mathematical relationship between the air-vibration of sound and the ether vibration of the colour which it evokes in the consciousness. Every force on every level is having its own specific vibration-rhythm. If we are able to discover the specific formulae of these vibration-rhythm and get at its ‘root’ level of the sound (beeja mantra) and apply these roots in a specific sequence, we start a chain of events at subtle planes resulting in the manifestation of a particular symbol at that level. This manifestation is then ‘mirrored’ on the physical plane through the application of the rituals. All our sacred names and other words of power have this secret behind them. Same principle is in operation in the case of geometrical forms. They connect to the lines of force on higher planes.
Rituals involve an intelligent application of the science of force of the higher planes to the physical plane. The Latin root of the word ritual is related to the numbering or counting the different ways in which a thing can be done. Ritual is a sequence of events.
We can much profit from learning the science of rituals in our practical life. We are employing the secret laws of ‘energy in action’ for manifesting the desired result. We need to define the goal, design the method, establish the pre-requisites, decide upon the sequence of events, have clarity of objective, attain the required proficiency, apply our energy and most importantly, lay down the system comprising the above factors. This is the ritual. If we establish this ‘business ritual’ meticulously and follow it faithfully, we will be sure to reap bumper profit. What applies in the spirit world, equally is true in the material world. When any act, be it an act related to religious practice or a business venture, is done in a ritualistic manner as explained above, it carries the force from the unseen world and becomes as effective as an arrow on its path to hit the target. Many of the success stories of the business ventures have this secret behind it, whether the initiator is aware of this aspect or not.
We should also be careful in disdaining our ancient religious rituals. We may not have people who understand the secret principle behind these ritual. However, the effectiveness of these rituals may still be valid due the ‘ingraining’ the channel of energy through the ages of actual practice of this ritual by our ancestors who had the necessary knowledge of the secret behind these rituals. We can profit from this ‘readymade’ machinery of profit if we follow the rituals laid down by our ancestors with full faith, dedication and with attention to smallest details. However, this can not be taken for granted. One has to take his call after due process of study and insightful meditation.
Having graduated from the initial preparatory knowledge and understanding of the science of rituals, one is free to design his own ritual suited to his particular temperament, resources and the objective. Then one truly becomes the Master of his own world and starts a new religion of his own for his private world. This is another subject involving many other elements of life.
Shrikant Vasudeo
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Veda
Veda by Shrikant Vasudeo
Veda were chanted in Vedic language. The modern day Sanskrit language is a child of Vedic language. This makes it difficult to fully comprehend Veda in all its depth and dimensions. Panini was a Sanskrit scholar who had made very valuable contribution towards the scientific development of the Sanskrit language.
Originally Veda referred only to Rg Veda. Later on, the other three Veda were added to it. They are Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda. They are said to be Shruti which literally meant ‘what has been heard’. It actually implies ‘divine revelation’. The rhythm of Veda is not composed by the intellect but heard. It is a divine Word that came vibrating out of the Infinite to the inner audience of the man who had previously made himself fit for the impersonal knowledge.
Later on, the term Veda has encompassed in its fold the Brahmana, Aranyaka and Upanishads. In addition to above, we have Vedanga which literally meant ‘limbs of the Veda’. These include study of phonetics, correct pronunciation of the Veda, of metrics, etymology, grammar and astronomy. The Vedangas are mainly concerned with the ‘ritualistic’ part of the Veda. Kalpa is the correct way of performing the Vedic rituals. Astronomy guides us about the correct timing for performing the rituals. The basic Vedangas were written in a very brief aphoristic statements phrased with great economy of words. They are called Sutras. Later on we get Shastras which are extensive works of scholars on Vedangas. Vedanga cover all facets of life like domestic rituals, performance of samskaras or sacraments associated with birth, marriage, death etc. We also have the rules and laws governing the behaviour of the individual in society. At a later stage we have a fully developed Dharma Shastra covering the ethical rules governing every walk of life.
The Veda are actually divine songs of ecstatic revelation. They are not meant to be written down and analysed and philosophized. The words of Veda have inherent POWER in the vibration of its SOUND. They have to be chanted with full understanding of its meaning. This lifts us to a higher level of understanding coming from DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF THE REALITY. It is therefore absolutely essential that purity of body and mind has to established before the chanting of the Veda. The
Sama Veda is musical version of some parts of Rg Veda for ritualistic purposes. It contains detailed instructions of fasts and other austerities to be undertaken before and during the recitation of the Sama Veda.
In order to truly understand Veda, we have to do ‘Abhyasa’ of them. Abhyasa is much more than the study as we commonly understand the word. Study implies intellectual effort. Abhyasa is much more than study. It implies deep commitment, enthusiasm and sincere yearning from the heart. Veda have to become a real living experience for us. Veda is an experience and not a message. It is a universal form of human celebration. Man is called upon to do the Yajna which makes the world as well as the Gods subsist. Celebration is the joyful awareness of the rhythms of life and the festive observance of their frequent recurrence. By celebration I mean much more than dancing and singing. It is much deeper than that. Celebration conveys a sense of cosmic solidarity. It implies human fellowship. It is a divine process. This results in all our actions becoming liturgical, meaningful and expressive. They express both what now is as well as create what is about to be.
Looking from another angle, Veda is the journey of soul’s march on the path of Truth. On this march, as the soul progresses, it also ascends to new heights. This opens up the new vistas of power and light. Heroic efforts are needed on this journey. The central conception of the Veda is the conquest of the Truth out of the darkness of Ignorance. As a result of this conquest, we also achieve the conquest of Immortality. The true deeper understanding of Veda will make us realise that in the darkness of subconscient and in our ordinary daily life of ignorance is concealed the divine life. We have to realise this divine life by destroying the impenitent powers of ignorance. The lower life has to be made subjected to the higher life. By the penetrating action of the Light and the Truth the powers of the ordinary ignorant sense-activity becomes subject to the Aryan – the Light seeker.
Aryan means whoever aspires, labours, battles, travels ascends the hill of being. The work of the Aryan is Yagna which is at once a battle and an ascent and a journey. It is a battle against the powers of darkness. It is an ascent to the highest peaks of the mountain beyond earth and heaven into Swar. It is also a journey to the other shore of the rivers and the ocean into the farthest Infinity of things.
…….. to continue as time permits
Shrikant Vasudeo
Veda were chanted in Vedic language. The modern day Sanskrit language is a child of Vedic language. This makes it difficult to fully comprehend Veda in all its depth and dimensions. Panini was a Sanskrit scholar who had made very valuable contribution towards the scientific development of the Sanskrit language.
Originally Veda referred only to Rg Veda. Later on, the other three Veda were added to it. They are Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharva Veda. They are said to be Shruti which literally meant ‘what has been heard’. It actually implies ‘divine revelation’. The rhythm of Veda is not composed by the intellect but heard. It is a divine Word that came vibrating out of the Infinite to the inner audience of the man who had previously made himself fit for the impersonal knowledge.
Later on, the term Veda has encompassed in its fold the Brahmana, Aranyaka and Upanishads. In addition to above, we have Vedanga which literally meant ‘limbs of the Veda’. These include study of phonetics, correct pronunciation of the Veda, of metrics, etymology, grammar and astronomy. The Vedangas are mainly concerned with the ‘ritualistic’ part of the Veda. Kalpa is the correct way of performing the Vedic rituals. Astronomy guides us about the correct timing for performing the rituals. The basic Vedangas were written in a very brief aphoristic statements phrased with great economy of words. They are called Sutras. Later on we get Shastras which are extensive works of scholars on Vedangas. Vedanga cover all facets of life like domestic rituals, performance of samskaras or sacraments associated with birth, marriage, death etc. We also have the rules and laws governing the behaviour of the individual in society. At a later stage we have a fully developed Dharma Shastra covering the ethical rules governing every walk of life.
The Veda are actually divine songs of ecstatic revelation. They are not meant to be written down and analysed and philosophized. The words of Veda have inherent POWER in the vibration of its SOUND. They have to be chanted with full understanding of its meaning. This lifts us to a higher level of understanding coming from DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF THE REALITY. It is therefore absolutely essential that purity of body and mind has to established before the chanting of the Veda. The
Sama Veda is musical version of some parts of Rg Veda for ritualistic purposes. It contains detailed instructions of fasts and other austerities to be undertaken before and during the recitation of the Sama Veda.
In order to truly understand Veda, we have to do ‘Abhyasa’ of them. Abhyasa is much more than the study as we commonly understand the word. Study implies intellectual effort. Abhyasa is much more than study. It implies deep commitment, enthusiasm and sincere yearning from the heart. Veda have to become a real living experience for us. Veda is an experience and not a message. It is a universal form of human celebration. Man is called upon to do the Yajna which makes the world as well as the Gods subsist. Celebration is the joyful awareness of the rhythms of life and the festive observance of their frequent recurrence. By celebration I mean much more than dancing and singing. It is much deeper than that. Celebration conveys a sense of cosmic solidarity. It implies human fellowship. It is a divine process. This results in all our actions becoming liturgical, meaningful and expressive. They express both what now is as well as create what is about to be.
Looking from another angle, Veda is the journey of soul’s march on the path of Truth. On this march, as the soul progresses, it also ascends to new heights. This opens up the new vistas of power and light. Heroic efforts are needed on this journey. The central conception of the Veda is the conquest of the Truth out of the darkness of Ignorance. As a result of this conquest, we also achieve the conquest of Immortality. The true deeper understanding of Veda will make us realise that in the darkness of subconscient and in our ordinary daily life of ignorance is concealed the divine life. We have to realise this divine life by destroying the impenitent powers of ignorance. The lower life has to be made subjected to the higher life. By the penetrating action of the Light and the Truth the powers of the ordinary ignorant sense-activity becomes subject to the Aryan – the Light seeker.
Aryan means whoever aspires, labours, battles, travels ascends the hill of being. The work of the Aryan is Yagna which is at once a battle and an ascent and a journey. It is a battle against the powers of darkness. It is an ascent to the highest peaks of the mountain beyond earth and heaven into Swar. It is also a journey to the other shore of the rivers and the ocean into the farthest Infinity of things.
…….. to continue as time permits
Shrikant Vasudeo
Friday, November 16, 2007
Bharat Dharma
Bharat Dharma................................................Shrikant Vasudeo
Let us understand the word Dharma. It is NOT exactly same thing as Religion as per its popular understanding. Even the word ‘Religion’ is in use only since 13th century. Its root is ‘ligare’ = to bind, connect. ‘re-ligare’ means to ‘again bind or connect’. This interpretation has been proposed by St Augustine and accepted by modern scholars like Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell. Interestingly, the Sanskrit word Dharma also has the meaning of ‘that which upholds or supports’. This comes from the root word ‘Dhr’ – to hold. In this sense, we are in harmony with the English understanding of the word Religion. However, things have not remained that simple. Though the original meaning of the English word religion is to bind or connect, its popular understanding is something like a ‘set of beliefs and practices that connect our human world with the spiritual world’. There are necessarily the elements of sacred books, dogmas, preachers, church, rites, sacrament, moral laws worship etc.
Coming back to the Hindu religion. To call our religion a ‘Hindu’ religion is only a ‘matter of convenience’. We just want to make the matter simple and therefore call ourselves Hindu – because there has to some name to our religion, and the word Hindu comes handy due to its widespread usage – initially by the foreigners and then by the natives of the land. However, when we go to the root of it, we can observe that ‘labeling’ our religion as a ‘Hindu’ religion is grossly inadequate and misleading. We need to look into some other directions. When I am disowning the word ‘Hindu’, am I saying that we do not have any religion ? NO. We do have religion in the popular sense as explained above. Then is it only the problem of just ‘naming’ our religion ? If this were so, it would not have been much of a problem. It is not just the issue of calling our religion ‘Hindu’ or ‘ABC’ or ‘XYZ’. It is only a superfluous objection. The problem is not that we do not have a religion, but that we have too many religions in the popular sense of the word religion ! If we decide to give a ‘Group Name’ to our religion as ‘Hindu’, then while explaining the Hindu religion, I have to systematically explain the religion Hindu 1, Hindu 2, Hindu 3 and so on and so forth for each of the set of beliefs, dogmas, rituals, worship, priest etc. We may run into religions running into not just hundreds or thousands but into hundreds of thousands !
If I were to attempt to define or explain Hindu Religion, I have to make liberal use of the words ‘mostly’, ‘most likely’, ‘by and large’, ‘generally speaking’, ‘believed to be’, ‘can also be understood as’ etc. If I use too many instances of these phrases, the central theme looses its firm base. It becomes too vague. Can I say with equal liberty that ‘Christians generally believe that Jesus was son of god’ or that ‘By and large, Muslims believe that Prophet Muhammad received the revelations from Allah’. It will be taken as sacrilegious – I may even be killed by some fanatics !. But in the case of Hindu Religion, I have no other alternative than to use these generalist phrases, and that too most liberally.
Hindu Religion does not have rigid dogmas demanding belief on pain of eternal damnation, no theological postulates, even no fixed theology, no credo distinguishing it from antagonistic or rival religions, there is not papal head, no governing ecclesiastic body, no church, chapel or congregational system, no binding religious form of any kind obligatory on all its adherents, no one administration and discipline. Hindu Religion admits all beliefs, allowing even a kind of high-reaching atheism and agnosticism and permits all possible spiritual experiences, all kinds of religious adventures. Even the social law varies with different castes, communities and regions.
Here is the real problem. Not for the Indian mind but for the foreigner. We are used to have a ‘nice little compact’ package of every product or philosophy. We have such ‘packages’ in other religions. There is none in Hindu religion. We are living in a ‘digital’ thinking environment. Hindu system is anything but digital. It is more a question of ‘subjective’ experience than the ‘objective’ definition. If you ask me to ‘fit’ my philosophy into your ‘digital format’, I will give your ‘few digits’ of our religion. It is like asking for DNA of MAN in order to understand him. Man is much more than a bundle of DNAs.
Having given vent to my anxiety and anguish over this matter, I will now attempt to explain the ‘general thread’ running through what is so popularly called a ‘Hindu’ religion. Before that, let me give my own name to our religion. I will love to call it ‘Bharat Dharma’. This name more aptly fits into our ‘system of religions’.
Bharat Dharma has four essential belief patterns.
1 Belief in a highest consciousness or state of existence which is universal and transcendent of the universe.
2 Need for self preparation to grow consciously into this truth of greater existence.
3 Well founded way of knowledge and spiritual discipline.
4 For common man on the elementary stage of evolution, it provided an organization of individual and collective life.
The belief in highest consciousness is such that from it all comes, in which all lives and moves without knowing it and of which all must one day grow aware returning towards that which is perfect, eternal and infinite. The self preparation is by development and experience. The well founded way of knowledge is also well explored, many-branching and always enlarging way of knowledge. For common person, it provided an organization of individual and collective life, a framework of personal and social discipline and conduct. It facilitated mental, moral and vital development. This was to enable Man to move each in his own limits and according to his own nature in such a way as to become eventually ready for the greater existence. Hinduism has encompassed every facet of LIFE. It has left out no part of life as a thing secular and foreign to the religious and spiritual life. The whole of life was DIVINISED.
Does our Bharat Dharma include other religions like Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism etc ? Well, the answer is Yes and No. To the extent these religions ‘align’ themselves with the basic tenets of Bharat Dharma, they are part of it. And they indeed do. Therefore, every Christian, Muslim, Parsi can proudly call themselves as belonging to the Bharat Dharma. There is no issue of having a ‘duel citizenship’ of two religions, simply because these two ‘labels’, as already explained above’, altogether relate to two different things – one to the RELIGION in the popular sense of the word (e.g. Christianity, Islam etc) and other to the ‘Philosophy of Life’. They seamlessly ‘blend’ into each other rather than run parallel to each other or run ‘cross roads’ to each other.
Following aspects of any religion are NOT part of Bharat Dharma
1 Belief in the ‘exclusivity’ of the ‘access to the Divine’. Belief that the person of other religion is ‘outside’ the ‘grace’ of the Divine.
2 Intolerance to the people of faiths other than one’s own religion.
3 Super Zeal to ‘save’ the people of other faiths by converting them to one’s own religion – either by force or by conceit in the garb of charity, fame, employment or other tangible and intangible benefits.
4 Using violence towards people of other religions in the name of one’s own religion.
5 Expressing disrespect to the religious practices of other faiths.
6 Most importantly, NOT treating our motherland – Bharat – in highest esteem.
It is a fact of history that India has taken under her shelter people of all faiths from the world over for thousands of years. Bharat Dharma has been ENRICHED rather than THREATENED by these people of religions which has originated outside the her soil.
The intrinsic part of the Bharat Dharma is the understanding of the ARYAN people. The Aryan is NOT the nomadic people who invaded India from north. This is an absolutely wrong and misleading understanding of the Aryan. In the words of Sri Aurobindo : ‘Whoever seeks to climb from level to level up the hill of the divine, fearing nothing, deterred by no retardation or defeat, shrinking from no vastness because it is too vast for his intelligence, no height because it is too high for his spirit, no greatness because it is too great for his force and courage, he is the Aryan, the divine fighter and victor, the noble man.’ This also sums up the basic tenet of Bharat Dharma.
The above is the broad outline of Bharat Dharma. In working out the details, there are difference between different sects, schools, communities, races and regions. Nonetheless, there is also a general unity of spirit, unity of core type and form and of spiritual temperament. This enables it to create in this vast fluidity an immense force of cohesion and a strong principle of oneness. There is an underlying belief in Bharat Dharma that the concept of Highest Consciousness is a living spiritual Truth, an Entity, a Power, a Presence. And most importantly, this Truth is ‘accessible’ to all according to their degree of capacity. It can be realised in actuality in a thousand ways. Moreover, this realization of Truth is made possible in this very life as well as beyond life. This Truth was to be lived and even to be made the governing idea of thought and life and action of our day to day living system.
This is Bharat Dharma.
Shrikant V Soman
Originally prepared on 7 November 2007
Revised on 23rd April 2009
Let us understand the word Dharma. It is NOT exactly same thing as Religion as per its popular understanding. Even the word ‘Religion’ is in use only since 13th century. Its root is ‘ligare’ = to bind, connect. ‘re-ligare’ means to ‘again bind or connect’. This interpretation has been proposed by St Augustine and accepted by modern scholars like Tom Harpur and Joseph Campbell. Interestingly, the Sanskrit word Dharma also has the meaning of ‘that which upholds or supports’. This comes from the root word ‘Dhr’ – to hold. In this sense, we are in harmony with the English understanding of the word Religion. However, things have not remained that simple. Though the original meaning of the English word religion is to bind or connect, its popular understanding is something like a ‘set of beliefs and practices that connect our human world with the spiritual world’. There are necessarily the elements of sacred books, dogmas, preachers, church, rites, sacrament, moral laws worship etc.
Coming back to the Hindu religion. To call our religion a ‘Hindu’ religion is only a ‘matter of convenience’. We just want to make the matter simple and therefore call ourselves Hindu – because there has to some name to our religion, and the word Hindu comes handy due to its widespread usage – initially by the foreigners and then by the natives of the land. However, when we go to the root of it, we can observe that ‘labeling’ our religion as a ‘Hindu’ religion is grossly inadequate and misleading. We need to look into some other directions. When I am disowning the word ‘Hindu’, am I saying that we do not have any religion ? NO. We do have religion in the popular sense as explained above. Then is it only the problem of just ‘naming’ our religion ? If this were so, it would not have been much of a problem. It is not just the issue of calling our religion ‘Hindu’ or ‘ABC’ or ‘XYZ’. It is only a superfluous objection. The problem is not that we do not have a religion, but that we have too many religions in the popular sense of the word religion ! If we decide to give a ‘Group Name’ to our religion as ‘Hindu’, then while explaining the Hindu religion, I have to systematically explain the religion Hindu 1, Hindu 2, Hindu 3 and so on and so forth for each of the set of beliefs, dogmas, rituals, worship, priest etc. We may run into religions running into not just hundreds or thousands but into hundreds of thousands !
If I were to attempt to define or explain Hindu Religion, I have to make liberal use of the words ‘mostly’, ‘most likely’, ‘by and large’, ‘generally speaking’, ‘believed to be’, ‘can also be understood as’ etc. If I use too many instances of these phrases, the central theme looses its firm base. It becomes too vague. Can I say with equal liberty that ‘Christians generally believe that Jesus was son of god’ or that ‘By and large, Muslims believe that Prophet Muhammad received the revelations from Allah’. It will be taken as sacrilegious – I may even be killed by some fanatics !. But in the case of Hindu Religion, I have no other alternative than to use these generalist phrases, and that too most liberally.
Hindu Religion does not have rigid dogmas demanding belief on pain of eternal damnation, no theological postulates, even no fixed theology, no credo distinguishing it from antagonistic or rival religions, there is not papal head, no governing ecclesiastic body, no church, chapel or congregational system, no binding religious form of any kind obligatory on all its adherents, no one administration and discipline. Hindu Religion admits all beliefs, allowing even a kind of high-reaching atheism and agnosticism and permits all possible spiritual experiences, all kinds of religious adventures. Even the social law varies with different castes, communities and regions.
Here is the real problem. Not for the Indian mind but for the foreigner. We are used to have a ‘nice little compact’ package of every product or philosophy. We have such ‘packages’ in other religions. There is none in Hindu religion. We are living in a ‘digital’ thinking environment. Hindu system is anything but digital. It is more a question of ‘subjective’ experience than the ‘objective’ definition. If you ask me to ‘fit’ my philosophy into your ‘digital format’, I will give your ‘few digits’ of our religion. It is like asking for DNA of MAN in order to understand him. Man is much more than a bundle of DNAs.
Having given vent to my anxiety and anguish over this matter, I will now attempt to explain the ‘general thread’ running through what is so popularly called a ‘Hindu’ religion. Before that, let me give my own name to our religion. I will love to call it ‘Bharat Dharma’. This name more aptly fits into our ‘system of religions’.
Bharat Dharma has four essential belief patterns.
1 Belief in a highest consciousness or state of existence which is universal and transcendent of the universe.
2 Need for self preparation to grow consciously into this truth of greater existence.
3 Well founded way of knowledge and spiritual discipline.
4 For common man on the elementary stage of evolution, it provided an organization of individual and collective life.
The belief in highest consciousness is such that from it all comes, in which all lives and moves without knowing it and of which all must one day grow aware returning towards that which is perfect, eternal and infinite. The self preparation is by development and experience. The well founded way of knowledge is also well explored, many-branching and always enlarging way of knowledge. For common person, it provided an organization of individual and collective life, a framework of personal and social discipline and conduct. It facilitated mental, moral and vital development. This was to enable Man to move each in his own limits and according to his own nature in such a way as to become eventually ready for the greater existence. Hinduism has encompassed every facet of LIFE. It has left out no part of life as a thing secular and foreign to the religious and spiritual life. The whole of life was DIVINISED.
Does our Bharat Dharma include other religions like Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism etc ? Well, the answer is Yes and No. To the extent these religions ‘align’ themselves with the basic tenets of Bharat Dharma, they are part of it. And they indeed do. Therefore, every Christian, Muslim, Parsi can proudly call themselves as belonging to the Bharat Dharma. There is no issue of having a ‘duel citizenship’ of two religions, simply because these two ‘labels’, as already explained above’, altogether relate to two different things – one to the RELIGION in the popular sense of the word (e.g. Christianity, Islam etc) and other to the ‘Philosophy of Life’. They seamlessly ‘blend’ into each other rather than run parallel to each other or run ‘cross roads’ to each other.
Following aspects of any religion are NOT part of Bharat Dharma
1 Belief in the ‘exclusivity’ of the ‘access to the Divine’. Belief that the person of other religion is ‘outside’ the ‘grace’ of the Divine.
2 Intolerance to the people of faiths other than one’s own religion.
3 Super Zeal to ‘save’ the people of other faiths by converting them to one’s own religion – either by force or by conceit in the garb of charity, fame, employment or other tangible and intangible benefits.
4 Using violence towards people of other religions in the name of one’s own religion.
5 Expressing disrespect to the religious practices of other faiths.
6 Most importantly, NOT treating our motherland – Bharat – in highest esteem.
It is a fact of history that India has taken under her shelter people of all faiths from the world over for thousands of years. Bharat Dharma has been ENRICHED rather than THREATENED by these people of religions which has originated outside the her soil.
The intrinsic part of the Bharat Dharma is the understanding of the ARYAN people. The Aryan is NOT the nomadic people who invaded India from north. This is an absolutely wrong and misleading understanding of the Aryan. In the words of Sri Aurobindo : ‘Whoever seeks to climb from level to level up the hill of the divine, fearing nothing, deterred by no retardation or defeat, shrinking from no vastness because it is too vast for his intelligence, no height because it is too high for his spirit, no greatness because it is too great for his force and courage, he is the Aryan, the divine fighter and victor, the noble man.’ This also sums up the basic tenet of Bharat Dharma.
The above is the broad outline of Bharat Dharma. In working out the details, there are difference between different sects, schools, communities, races and regions. Nonetheless, there is also a general unity of spirit, unity of core type and form and of spiritual temperament. This enables it to create in this vast fluidity an immense force of cohesion and a strong principle of oneness. There is an underlying belief in Bharat Dharma that the concept of Highest Consciousness is a living spiritual Truth, an Entity, a Power, a Presence. And most importantly, this Truth is ‘accessible’ to all according to their degree of capacity. It can be realised in actuality in a thousand ways. Moreover, this realization of Truth is made possible in this very life as well as beyond life. This Truth was to be lived and even to be made the governing idea of thought and life and action of our day to day living system.
This is Bharat Dharma.
Shrikant V Soman
Originally prepared on 7 November 2007
Revised on 23rd April 2009
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Asura in Veda
Asura in Veda Shrikant Vasudeo
I am giving below the ‘brighter’ side of the Asura as described in the early Veda. We are very much accustomed to the idea that Asura means Demonic Power. However, very few of us realise that this was NOT so in the early Rgvedic period. I am particularly drawn to this topic because of the vertical split between Zoroastrian and Hindu cosmological allocation of divine powers to Asura and to Devas. I am uncomfortable with what knowledge has percolated down to us through the millennia of human evolution giving diametric opposition of two ancient religions on this planet. I got my impetus for my research when I discovered that Zorastrians are as divine or as human as we Hindus. Then why their god is the enemy of our god ? During my diving deep into the Vedic Treasure, I stumbled upon following gems which I want to share with you.
In Rgveda, the Indra is given ‘asura’ power by the Heaven and Earth and the Gods so that he (Indra) can crush all obstacles. (III.49.I) The asuric power meant ‘creative power’ in the early stages of the Veda. Indra was ‘asura’ in earlier times. In Rgveda, asura is NOT considered to be a demon. This demonic nature was attributed to asura in later times.
‘Asu’ means BREATH or LIFE ENERGY. The ‘ra’ means to possess and to grant. Asura therefore means the possessor of the life breath as well as its bestower. When ‘Deva’ acquires a great creative faculty, he gets the honorific title of ‘Asura’. In Rgveda, Asura was highly spiritual entity with great creative and ruling capacities. They were having excellent ‘magic’ power. All our highest devas are asuras. Varuna, Savitr and Indra are described as ‘wise asura’. So also Dyaus, Agni and Brahmanspati are given the ‘title’ of Asura.
There were two class of Asuras. One on the side of the Light or the Adityas and the other on the dark side of the cosmos. Aditya represent the principle of evolution, freedom, light and expansion. On the other hand. the opposing forces are called ‘Danavas’. However, Danavas were NOT equated with Asuras in the early Rgvedic period. It was done at much later stage. Danu means bondage, restraint. She is mother of Vrtra, the constrictor. Curiously, in Rgveda I.30.3 and 5, Indra fights also with ‘all the furious gods’, alongwith the Danavas representing the forces of darkness and chaos.
Asuras are possessor of the power of ‘maya’. Thus the conflict is between the devas ‘as asuras’ and the daityas or the sons of Diti or Danu. In Satapatha Brahmana (1.2.4.ff.), these opposing forces are of the same father – ‘ Prajapati’ but of different mothers – Aditi and Danu. In Satapatha Brahmana and Taittiriya Samhita, which are much later than the Rgveda, the term ‘asura’ is associated with the forces of darkness.
It appears that we have lost the KEY as to what made our cosmic PROTAGENISTS change their mind. Is there any missing link ? I am sure there must be some reason for this 180 degrees turn of our attributes assigned to asuras. Not much attempt seems to have been made to investigate this matter further. Our discerning faculty has been clouded by the Puranic stories giving dramatic and vivid ex-pression to the conflict between Deva and Asura.
The first act of manifestation has at its root the drive towards ‘Self Assertion’. It is the differentiating and divisive intelligence from the original ‘ONE’. It was necessary to make a world out of the undifferentiated state of darkness of VOID. This was done by the action of the Asuras. All the great asuras are the examples of this self-ex-pression of high intelligence for breaking through the circle of darkness and demarcating the various realms of the manifested world.
It is likely that at a later stage some Asuras went ‘overboard’ with their great assertive thrust and crossed the ‘threshold’ of sustaining faculty. It became egoistic and selfish detrimental to the good order of the world. In Satapatha Brahmana, it is mentioned that asuras ‘even through arrogance went on offering into their own mouth’ whilst the gods ‘went on making offerings into one another’.
Atharvaveda (III.9.4) coins the word ‘Asuramaya’. It meant divine creative power, the power of transformation. It was possessed by both gods and demons. Only at later state this power was usurped by demons for deceptive purposes.
However, in the later stages of the Veda, the word Asura is identified with the demonic power and is portrayed in much negative manner. What I have described above probably represents only 5 % of our ancient view point. The balance 95 % is what we commonly understand today by the word Asura in the negative sense of the word.
Shrikant V Soman
I am giving below the ‘brighter’ side of the Asura as described in the early Veda. We are very much accustomed to the idea that Asura means Demonic Power. However, very few of us realise that this was NOT so in the early Rgvedic period. I am particularly drawn to this topic because of the vertical split between Zoroastrian and Hindu cosmological allocation of divine powers to Asura and to Devas. I am uncomfortable with what knowledge has percolated down to us through the millennia of human evolution giving diametric opposition of two ancient religions on this planet. I got my impetus for my research when I discovered that Zorastrians are as divine or as human as we Hindus. Then why their god is the enemy of our god ? During my diving deep into the Vedic Treasure, I stumbled upon following gems which I want to share with you.
In Rgveda, the Indra is given ‘asura’ power by the Heaven and Earth and the Gods so that he (Indra) can crush all obstacles. (III.49.I) The asuric power meant ‘creative power’ in the early stages of the Veda. Indra was ‘asura’ in earlier times. In Rgveda, asura is NOT considered to be a demon. This demonic nature was attributed to asura in later times.
‘Asu’ means BREATH or LIFE ENERGY. The ‘ra’ means to possess and to grant. Asura therefore means the possessor of the life breath as well as its bestower. When ‘Deva’ acquires a great creative faculty, he gets the honorific title of ‘Asura’. In Rgveda, Asura was highly spiritual entity with great creative and ruling capacities. They were having excellent ‘magic’ power. All our highest devas are asuras. Varuna, Savitr and Indra are described as ‘wise asura’. So also Dyaus, Agni and Brahmanspati are given the ‘title’ of Asura.
There were two class of Asuras. One on the side of the Light or the Adityas and the other on the dark side of the cosmos. Aditya represent the principle of evolution, freedom, light and expansion. On the other hand. the opposing forces are called ‘Danavas’. However, Danavas were NOT equated with Asuras in the early Rgvedic period. It was done at much later stage. Danu means bondage, restraint. She is mother of Vrtra, the constrictor. Curiously, in Rgveda I.30.3 and 5, Indra fights also with ‘all the furious gods’, alongwith the Danavas representing the forces of darkness and chaos.
Asuras are possessor of the power of ‘maya’. Thus the conflict is between the devas ‘as asuras’ and the daityas or the sons of Diti or Danu. In Satapatha Brahmana (1.2.4.ff.), these opposing forces are of the same father – ‘ Prajapati’ but of different mothers – Aditi and Danu. In Satapatha Brahmana and Taittiriya Samhita, which are much later than the Rgveda, the term ‘asura’ is associated with the forces of darkness.
It appears that we have lost the KEY as to what made our cosmic PROTAGENISTS change their mind. Is there any missing link ? I am sure there must be some reason for this 180 degrees turn of our attributes assigned to asuras. Not much attempt seems to have been made to investigate this matter further. Our discerning faculty has been clouded by the Puranic stories giving dramatic and vivid ex-pression to the conflict between Deva and Asura.
The first act of manifestation has at its root the drive towards ‘Self Assertion’. It is the differentiating and divisive intelligence from the original ‘ONE’. It was necessary to make a world out of the undifferentiated state of darkness of VOID. This was done by the action of the Asuras. All the great asuras are the examples of this self-ex-pression of high intelligence for breaking through the circle of darkness and demarcating the various realms of the manifested world.
It is likely that at a later stage some Asuras went ‘overboard’ with their great assertive thrust and crossed the ‘threshold’ of sustaining faculty. It became egoistic and selfish detrimental to the good order of the world. In Satapatha Brahmana, it is mentioned that asuras ‘even through arrogance went on offering into their own mouth’ whilst the gods ‘went on making offerings into one another’.
Atharvaveda (III.9.4) coins the word ‘Asuramaya’. It meant divine creative power, the power of transformation. It was possessed by both gods and demons. Only at later state this power was usurped by demons for deceptive purposes.
However, in the later stages of the Veda, the word Asura is identified with the demonic power and is portrayed in much negative manner. What I have described above probably represents only 5 % of our ancient view point. The balance 95 % is what we commonly understand today by the word Asura in the negative sense of the word.
Shrikant V Soman
Saturday, October 22, 2005
Life and Yoga
Life and Yoga Shrikant Vasudeo
Notes Divine and Human Notes on Yoga Solely and Exclusively based on Sri Aurobindo’s Synthesis of Yoga
There are two necessities of Nature’s workings. It seems that they always intervene in the greater form of human activity. The activity may belong to our ordinary fields of movement or seek those exceptional spheres and fulfillments which appear to us high and divine.
First Necessity : Every such form tends towards a harmonised complexity and totality. This again breaks apart into various channels of special effort and tendency. And once more it unites, but this time in a larger and more puissant synthesis than the earlier one.
Second Necessity : Development into forms is an imperative rule of effective manifestation. On the other hand, all truth and practice too strictly formulated becomes old. It then loses much, if not all, of its virtue. It must therefore be constantly renovated by fresh streams of the spirit. This stream revivifies the dead or dying vehicle and changes it in order to acquire a new life.
To be perpetually reborn is a condition of material immortality. We are in an age full of the throes of travail. All forms of thought and activity that have in themselves any strong power of utility or any secret virtue of persistence are being subjected to a supreme test. They are given their opportunity of rebirth. The world to-day presents the aspect of a huge cauldron of Medea. Here all things are being cast, shredded into pieces, experimented on, combined and recombined. This is done in order to perish and provide the scattered material of new forms. Alternatively, it provides an opportunity to emerge rejuvenated and changed for a fresh term of existence.
Indian Yoga is in its essence a special action or formulation of certain great powers of Nature. The Yoga is itself specialized, divided and variously formulated. It is potentially one of these dynamic elements of the future life of humanity. This Yogic system of India is a child of immemorial ages. It is preserved by its vitality and truth into our modern times. It is now emerging from the secret schools and ascetic retreats in which it had earlier taken refuge. It is now seeking its place in the future sum of living human powers and utilities. However, it has first to rediscover itself. It has to bring to the surface the profoundest reason of its being in that general truth and that uncasing aim of Nature which it represents. It has then to find its own recovered and larger synthesis. This is to be achieved by virtue of this new self-knowledge and self-appreciation. This reorganisation will help it to enter more easily and powerfully into the reorganized life of the race. It is similar to the inner truth of the Indian Yoga which claim to lead within the most secret penetralia. It also leads upward to the highest altitudes of its known existence and personality.
If we take the right view both of life and of Yoga, we discover that all life is either consciously or subconsciously a Yoga. By Yoga we mean a methodised effort towards self-perfection by the expression of the potentialities which are latent in the being. It leads us towards the union of the human individual with the universal and transcendent Existence. This transcendent Existence we see partially expressed in man and in the Cosmos. But all life is a vast Yoga of Nature. This is evident when we look behind its appearances. It is attempting to realize her perfection in an ever increasing expression of her potentialities. It is leading to unite herself with her own divine reality. Her thinker is Man. In him she for the first time upon this Earth devises self-conscious means and willed arrangements of activity. This results in this great purpose more swiftly and puissantly being attained. Swami Vivekananda has said that Yoga may be regarded as a means of compressing one’s evolution into a single life or a few years or even a few months of bodily existence. Therefore, a given system of Yoga can be no more than a selection or a compression into narrower but more energetic forms of intensity. This compression is of the general methods which are already being used loosely and largely in a leisurely movement. It is done with a profounder apparent waste of material and energy. Yogic System achieves a more complete combination by the great Mother in her vast upward labour. It is this view of Yoga that can alone form the basis for a sound and rational synthesis of Yogic methods. In such a case Yoga ceases to appear something mystic and abnormal which has no relation to the ordinary processes of the World-Energy. It brings into relevance the purpose which great Mother keeps in view in her two great movements of subjective and objective self-fulfillment. Rather, it reveals itself as an intense and exceptional use of powers that she has already manifested or is progressively organizing in her less exalted but more general operations.
Yogic and Scientific methods have some similarity. There is a relation between scientific handling of the natural force of electricity or of steam to the normal operations of electricity and of steam. The similar relation exists in Yogic method when it handles the customary psychological workings of man. The Yogic methods too are formed upon a knowledge developed and confirmed by regular experiment, practical analysis and constant result. For instance, all Rajayoga depends on this perception and experience that our inner elements, combinations, functions and forces can be separated or dissolved. They can be new-combined and set to novel and formerly impossible workings. They can be transformed and resolved into a new general synthesis by fixed internal processes. On similar lines, Hathayoga depends on this perception and experience that the vital forces and functions can be mastered, its operations changed or suspended. To these vital forces our life is normally subjected. Their ordinary operations seem set and indispensable. This can be done with results that would otherwise be impossible. They may seem miraculous to those who have not seized the rationale of their process. It is likely that in some other of its forms this character of Yoga is less apparent. This is due to these systems being more intuitive and less mechanical. Even in such cases they start from the use of some principal faculty in us. This is done by ways and for ends not contemplated in its everyday spontaneous workings. This happens in the case of Yoga of Devotion which is nearer to the supernal ecstasy. In the case of Yoga of Knowledge it is nearer to the supernal infinity of consciousness and being. All methods grouped under the common name of Yoga are special psychological processes. They are founded on a fixed truth of Nature. They develop out of normal functions, powers and results. These are always latent in man. But the ordinary movements of Nature do not easily or frequently manifest these psychological processes in him.
In physical knowledge the multiplication of scientific processes has its disadvantages. For instance, it tends to develop a victorious artificiality which overwhelms our natural human life under a load of machinery. It tempts us to purchase certain forms of freedom and mastery at the price of an increased servitude. Similarly, the preoccupation of man with Yogic processes and their exceptional results may have its disadvantages and losses. The Yogin tends to draw away from the common existence and lose his hold upon it. He tend to purchase wealth of spirit by paying impoverishment of his human activities. Purchase inner freedom by causing an outer death. If he gains God, he loses life. On the other hand, if he turns his efforts outward to conquer life, he is in danger of losing God. Therefore we see in India that a sharp incompatibility has been created between life in the world and spiritual growth and perfection. And although the tradition and ideal of a victorious harmony between the inner attraction and the outer demand remains, it is little exemplified. In fact, when a man turns his vision and energy inward and enters on the path of Yoga, he is supposed to be lost inevitably to the great stream of our collective existence and the secular effort of humanity. This idea has strongly prevailed. Prevalent philosophies and religions have greatly emphasized this idea. This has its inevitable result in a general perception that escape form life is commonly considered as not only the necessary condition, but the general object of Yoga.
No synthesis of Yoga can be satisfying which does not, in its aim, reunite God and Nature in a liberated and perfected human life. Its method not only permit but should favour the harmony of our inner and outer activities and experiences in the divine consummation of both. Man is precisely the term and symbol of a higher Existence descended into the material world for some hidden purpose. In this symbol it should be possible to for the lower to transfigure itself and put on the nature of the higher. At the same time, Man is also the term in which the higher should be able to reveal itself in the forms of the lower. The life has given man the possibility of the realisation of that possibility.
To avoid this life can never be
The indispensable condition, or
The whole and ultimate object
of his supreme endeavour, or
of his most powerful means of self-fulfillment.
It can only be a temporary necessity under certain conditions. It can be specialized extreme effort imposed on the individual so as to prepare a greater general possibility for the race.
The true and full object and utility of Yoga can only be accomplished when the conscious Yoga in man becomes like the subconscious Yoga in Nature. It is outwardly conterminous with life itself. It is accomplished when looking out both on the path and the achievement we can say once more, say in a more perfect and luminous sense : “All life is Yoga”.
Nature and Her Triple Aspects
(Chapter II : The Three Steps of Nature)
We have seen that in the past developments of Yoga, a specializing and separative tendency. Like all the other things in Nature, this tendency had its justifying and even imperative utility. We seek a synthesis of the specialized aims and methods which have come into being as a consequence of this tendency.
In order that we may be wisely guided in our effort, we must know :
First, the general principle and purpose underlying this separative impulse, and
Second, the particular utilities upon which the method of each school of Yoga is founded.
For the general principle, we must interrogate the universal workings of Nature herself. We need to recognise in her not just the specious and illusive activity of a distorting Maya (illusion). We also need to understand in the workings of Nature, the cosmic energy and workings of God Himself in His universal being. He does the action of formulating. He is inspired by a vast, an infinite and yet a minutely selective Wisdom. It is prajna prasrta purani of the Gita. It is the Wisdom that went forth from the Eternal since the beginning. For the particular utilities we must cast a penetrative eye on the different methods of Yoga. We need to distinguish among the mass of their details the governing idea which they serve and the radical force. This force gives birth and energy to their processes of effectuation.
This will facilitate us to more easily find the one common principle and the one common power :
From which all derive their being and tendency
Towards which all subconsciously move, and
In which, therefore, it is possible for all consciously to unite.
The progressive self-manifestation of Nature in man must necessarily depend upon three successive elements. This self manifestation of Nature is called Man’s evolution in the language of modern thought.
These three elements are :
That which is already evolved
That which is persistently in the stage of conscious evolution, and
That which is to be evolved.
We have to note that in the case of the third element of future evolution, it may perhaps be already displayed in primary formations. It may or may not be happening continuously, but certainly on occasional basis or with some regularity of recurrence. It may be displayed in others more developed realisations of our present humanity. It may well be in cases that are near to the highest possible realisation of our present humanity. However, this is possible in some rare cases.
The reason for above phenomena is that the march of Nature is not drilled to a regular and mechanical forward stepping. She reaches constantly beyond herself even at the cost of subsequent deplorable retreats. She has rushes. She has splendid and mighty outbursts. She has immense realisations. She storms sometimes passionately forward hoping to take the kingdom of heaven by violence. These self-exceedings are the revelation of that in her which is most divine. It may be most diabolical. But in either case they are most puissant to bring her rapidly forward towards her goal.
That which Nature has evolved for us and has firmly founded is the bodily life. She has effected a certain combination and harmony of the two inferior but most fundamentally necessary elements of our action and progress upon earth.
They are :
First, the Matter.
Second, the Life-Energy
Matter is our foundation and the first condition of all our energies and realisations. This is irrespective of the fact that matter may be despised by the too ethereally spiritual persons.
Life Energy is our means of existence in a material body and the basis there even of our mental and spiritual activities.
Nature has successfully achieved a certain stability of her constant material movement.
This movement is at once
Sufficiently steady and durable; while at the same time
Sufficiently pliable and mutable
to provide a fit dwelling-place and instrument for the progressively manifesting god in humanity.
This is what is meant by the fable in the Aitareya Upanishad. It tells that the gods rejected the animal forms successively offered to them by the Divine Self and only when a man was produced, cried out, “This indeed is perfectly made”. They then consented to enter in that vehicle.
Similarly, the Nature has effected a working compromise between
The inertia of matter, and
The active Life that lives and feeds on it. It enables the sustenance of vital existence. It also renders possible the fullest developments of mentality.
This equilibrium constitutes the basic status of Nature in man. It is termed in the language of Yoga his gross body composed of the material or food sheath (anna kosha) and the nervous system (prana kosha) of vital vehicle.
We have now seen that
This inferior equilibrium is the basis and first means of the higher movements which the universal Power contemplates
The body constitutes the vehicle in which the Divine here seeks to reveal Itself
Indian saying is true that the body is the instrument provided for the fulfilment of the right law of our nature.
This leads us towards the inevitable conclusion that any final recoil from the physical life must be a turning away from the completeness of the divine Wisdom and a renunciation of its aim in earthly manifestation. For certain individuals, owing to some secret law of their development, such a refusal may be the right attitude. But it can never be the aim intended for the mankind. Integral Yoga can not afford to ignore the body. It can not make its annulment or its rejection indispensable to a perfect spirituality. On the other hand, the perfecting of the body also should be the last triumph of the Spirit. To make the bodily life also divine must be God’s final seal upon His work in the universe. The obstacle which the physical presents to the spiritual is no argument for the rejection of the physical. It is interesting to note that in the unseen providence of things, our greatest difficulties are our best opportunities. A supreme difficulty is Nature’s indication to us of a supreme conquest to be won and an ultimate problem to be solved. It is not a warning of an inextricable snare to be shunned or of an enemy too strong for us from whom we must flee.
On an equal ground, the vital and nervous energies in us are there for a great utility. They also demand the divine realisation of their possibilities in our ultimate fulfilment. The catholic wisdom of he Upanishads has powerfully emphasized the great part assigned to this element in the universal scheme. “As the spokes of a wheel in its nave, so in the Life-energy is all established, the triple knowledge and the Sacrifice and the power of the strong and the purity of the wise. Under the control of the Life-Energy is all this that is established in the triple heaven”. Integral Yoga therefore does not and can not kill these nervous energies, force them into a nerveless quiescence or root them out as the source of noxious activities. The transformation, control and utilization of these energies, their purification and not their destruction is the aim in view with which they have been created and developed in us.
As a first step, the Nature has firmly evolved the bodily life for us as her base and first instrument. It is our mental life that she is evolving as her immediate next aim and superior instrument. In her ordinary exaltations this is the Nature’s lofty preoccupying thought. The exception is her periods of exhaustion and recoil into a reposeful and recuperating obscurity. Otherwise, it is her constant pursuit wherever she can get free from the trammels of her first vital and physical realisations. For here in man we have a distinction which is of the utmost importance. He has in him not a single mentality. He has a double and a triple mentality.
Material and nervous mind
Pure intellectual mind which liberates itself from the illusions of the body and the senses
Divine mind above intellect which in its turn liberates itself from the imperfect modes of the logically discriminative and imaginative reason.
Mind in man is first enmeshed in the life of the body. Whereas in the plant it is entirely involved. In animals it is always imprisoned. It accepts this life as not only the first but the whole condition of its activities. It serves its needs as if they were the entire aim of existence. We have to remember that the bodily life in man is a base, NOT the aim. It is his first condition and not his last determinant. In the just idea of the ancients man is essentially the thinker, the Manu, the mental being. He leads the life and the body. He is not the animal who is led by them.
Therefore, the true human existence only begins when
The intellectual mentality emerges out of the material, and
We begin more and more to live in the mind independent of the nervous and physical obsession, and
In the measure of that liberty are able to accept rightly and to use rightly the life of the body.
For freedom and not a skilful subjection is the true means of mastery. The high human ideal is a free and not a compulsory acceptance of the conditions and also not the enlarged and sub-limited conditions of our physical being.
The mental life thus evolving in man is not, indeed, a common possession. In actual appearance it would seem as if it were only developed to the fullest in individuals as against the majority in whom it is not evolved. It may appear that there were great numbers and even the majority in whom it is either a small and ill-organised part of their normal nature or not evolved a tall. Or may be in majority it is latent and not easily made active. Certainly, the mental life is not a finished evolution of Nature. It is not yet firmly founded in the human animal.
We get the sign in this world from actual observation that
the fine and full equilibrium of vitality and matter, the sane, robust, long-lived human body
is ordinarily found
only in races or classes of men who reject the effort of thought, its disturbances, its tensions,
or think only with the material mind.
As a further progression of Nature, the civilised man has yet to establish a equilibrium between the fully active mind and the body. He does not yet normally possess it. Indeed, the increasing effort towards a more intense mental life seems to frequently create an increasing dis-equilibrium of the human elements. This has resulted in a situation wherein eminent scientists have described genius as a form of insanity, a result of degeneration, a pathological morbidity of Nature. However we have to take all the phenomena which are used to justify this exaggeration in connection with all other relevant data. We should not take it separately. We then come to a different conclusion. Genius is one attempt of the universal Energy to quicken and intensify our intellectual powers. This is done with the sole purpose that these powers shall be prepared for more puissant, direct and rapid faculties. This will lead towards the constitution of the play of the supra-intellectual or divine mind. Genius is not then a freak, ad inexplicable phenomenon. It is a perfectly natural next step in the right life of her evolution.
The Nature has already harmonised the bodily mind with the material mind. Currently she is in the process of harmonizing it with the play of the intellectual mentality. No doubt it tends to depress the full animal and vital vigour. But it does not and need not produce active disturbances. And she is shooting yet beyond in the attempt to reach a still higher level.
Even the occasional disturbances created by her process are NOT as great as is often represented. Some of them are the crude beginnings of new manifestations. Others are an easily corrected movement of disintegration. It is often fruitful of fresh activities and always a small price to pay for the far-reaching results that she has in view.
Life Wanderer
Notes Divine and Human Notes on Yoga Solely and Exclusively based on Sri Aurobindo’s Synthesis of Yoga
There are two necessities of Nature’s workings. It seems that they always intervene in the greater form of human activity. The activity may belong to our ordinary fields of movement or seek those exceptional spheres and fulfillments which appear to us high and divine.
First Necessity : Every such form tends towards a harmonised complexity and totality. This again breaks apart into various channels of special effort and tendency. And once more it unites, but this time in a larger and more puissant synthesis than the earlier one.
Second Necessity : Development into forms is an imperative rule of effective manifestation. On the other hand, all truth and practice too strictly formulated becomes old. It then loses much, if not all, of its virtue. It must therefore be constantly renovated by fresh streams of the spirit. This stream revivifies the dead or dying vehicle and changes it in order to acquire a new life.
To be perpetually reborn is a condition of material immortality. We are in an age full of the throes of travail. All forms of thought and activity that have in themselves any strong power of utility or any secret virtue of persistence are being subjected to a supreme test. They are given their opportunity of rebirth. The world to-day presents the aspect of a huge cauldron of Medea. Here all things are being cast, shredded into pieces, experimented on, combined and recombined. This is done in order to perish and provide the scattered material of new forms. Alternatively, it provides an opportunity to emerge rejuvenated and changed for a fresh term of existence.
Indian Yoga is in its essence a special action or formulation of certain great powers of Nature. The Yoga is itself specialized, divided and variously formulated. It is potentially one of these dynamic elements of the future life of humanity. This Yogic system of India is a child of immemorial ages. It is preserved by its vitality and truth into our modern times. It is now emerging from the secret schools and ascetic retreats in which it had earlier taken refuge. It is now seeking its place in the future sum of living human powers and utilities. However, it has first to rediscover itself. It has to bring to the surface the profoundest reason of its being in that general truth and that uncasing aim of Nature which it represents. It has then to find its own recovered and larger synthesis. This is to be achieved by virtue of this new self-knowledge and self-appreciation. This reorganisation will help it to enter more easily and powerfully into the reorganized life of the race. It is similar to the inner truth of the Indian Yoga which claim to lead within the most secret penetralia. It also leads upward to the highest altitudes of its known existence and personality.
If we take the right view both of life and of Yoga, we discover that all life is either consciously or subconsciously a Yoga. By Yoga we mean a methodised effort towards self-perfection by the expression of the potentialities which are latent in the being. It leads us towards the union of the human individual with the universal and transcendent Existence. This transcendent Existence we see partially expressed in man and in the Cosmos. But all life is a vast Yoga of Nature. This is evident when we look behind its appearances. It is attempting to realize her perfection in an ever increasing expression of her potentialities. It is leading to unite herself with her own divine reality. Her thinker is Man. In him she for the first time upon this Earth devises self-conscious means and willed arrangements of activity. This results in this great purpose more swiftly and puissantly being attained. Swami Vivekananda has said that Yoga may be regarded as a means of compressing one’s evolution into a single life or a few years or even a few months of bodily existence. Therefore, a given system of Yoga can be no more than a selection or a compression into narrower but more energetic forms of intensity. This compression is of the general methods which are already being used loosely and largely in a leisurely movement. It is done with a profounder apparent waste of material and energy. Yogic System achieves a more complete combination by the great Mother in her vast upward labour. It is this view of Yoga that can alone form the basis for a sound and rational synthesis of Yogic methods. In such a case Yoga ceases to appear something mystic and abnormal which has no relation to the ordinary processes of the World-Energy. It brings into relevance the purpose which great Mother keeps in view in her two great movements of subjective and objective self-fulfillment. Rather, it reveals itself as an intense and exceptional use of powers that she has already manifested or is progressively organizing in her less exalted but more general operations.
Yogic and Scientific methods have some similarity. There is a relation between scientific handling of the natural force of electricity or of steam to the normal operations of electricity and of steam. The similar relation exists in Yogic method when it handles the customary psychological workings of man. The Yogic methods too are formed upon a knowledge developed and confirmed by regular experiment, practical analysis and constant result. For instance, all Rajayoga depends on this perception and experience that our inner elements, combinations, functions and forces can be separated or dissolved. They can be new-combined and set to novel and formerly impossible workings. They can be transformed and resolved into a new general synthesis by fixed internal processes. On similar lines, Hathayoga depends on this perception and experience that the vital forces and functions can be mastered, its operations changed or suspended. To these vital forces our life is normally subjected. Their ordinary operations seem set and indispensable. This can be done with results that would otherwise be impossible. They may seem miraculous to those who have not seized the rationale of their process. It is likely that in some other of its forms this character of Yoga is less apparent. This is due to these systems being more intuitive and less mechanical. Even in such cases they start from the use of some principal faculty in us. This is done by ways and for ends not contemplated in its everyday spontaneous workings. This happens in the case of Yoga of Devotion which is nearer to the supernal ecstasy. In the case of Yoga of Knowledge it is nearer to the supernal infinity of consciousness and being. All methods grouped under the common name of Yoga are special psychological processes. They are founded on a fixed truth of Nature. They develop out of normal functions, powers and results. These are always latent in man. But the ordinary movements of Nature do not easily or frequently manifest these psychological processes in him.
In physical knowledge the multiplication of scientific processes has its disadvantages. For instance, it tends to develop a victorious artificiality which overwhelms our natural human life under a load of machinery. It tempts us to purchase certain forms of freedom and mastery at the price of an increased servitude. Similarly, the preoccupation of man with Yogic processes and their exceptional results may have its disadvantages and losses. The Yogin tends to draw away from the common existence and lose his hold upon it. He tend to purchase wealth of spirit by paying impoverishment of his human activities. Purchase inner freedom by causing an outer death. If he gains God, he loses life. On the other hand, if he turns his efforts outward to conquer life, he is in danger of losing God. Therefore we see in India that a sharp incompatibility has been created between life in the world and spiritual growth and perfection. And although the tradition and ideal of a victorious harmony between the inner attraction and the outer demand remains, it is little exemplified. In fact, when a man turns his vision and energy inward and enters on the path of Yoga, he is supposed to be lost inevitably to the great stream of our collective existence and the secular effort of humanity. This idea has strongly prevailed. Prevalent philosophies and religions have greatly emphasized this idea. This has its inevitable result in a general perception that escape form life is commonly considered as not only the necessary condition, but the general object of Yoga.
No synthesis of Yoga can be satisfying which does not, in its aim, reunite God and Nature in a liberated and perfected human life. Its method not only permit but should favour the harmony of our inner and outer activities and experiences in the divine consummation of both. Man is precisely the term and symbol of a higher Existence descended into the material world for some hidden purpose. In this symbol it should be possible to for the lower to transfigure itself and put on the nature of the higher. At the same time, Man is also the term in which the higher should be able to reveal itself in the forms of the lower. The life has given man the possibility of the realisation of that possibility.
To avoid this life can never be
The indispensable condition, or
The whole and ultimate object
of his supreme endeavour, or
of his most powerful means of self-fulfillment.
It can only be a temporary necessity under certain conditions. It can be specialized extreme effort imposed on the individual so as to prepare a greater general possibility for the race.
The true and full object and utility of Yoga can only be accomplished when the conscious Yoga in man becomes like the subconscious Yoga in Nature. It is outwardly conterminous with life itself. It is accomplished when looking out both on the path and the achievement we can say once more, say in a more perfect and luminous sense : “All life is Yoga”.
Nature and Her Triple Aspects
(Chapter II : The Three Steps of Nature)
We have seen that in the past developments of Yoga, a specializing and separative tendency. Like all the other things in Nature, this tendency had its justifying and even imperative utility. We seek a synthesis of the specialized aims and methods which have come into being as a consequence of this tendency.
In order that we may be wisely guided in our effort, we must know :
First, the general principle and purpose underlying this separative impulse, and
Second, the particular utilities upon which the method of each school of Yoga is founded.
For the general principle, we must interrogate the universal workings of Nature herself. We need to recognise in her not just the specious and illusive activity of a distorting Maya (illusion). We also need to understand in the workings of Nature, the cosmic energy and workings of God Himself in His universal being. He does the action of formulating. He is inspired by a vast, an infinite and yet a minutely selective Wisdom. It is prajna prasrta purani of the Gita. It is the Wisdom that went forth from the Eternal since the beginning. For the particular utilities we must cast a penetrative eye on the different methods of Yoga. We need to distinguish among the mass of their details the governing idea which they serve and the radical force. This force gives birth and energy to their processes of effectuation.
This will facilitate us to more easily find the one common principle and the one common power :
From which all derive their being and tendency
Towards which all subconsciously move, and
In which, therefore, it is possible for all consciously to unite.
The progressive self-manifestation of Nature in man must necessarily depend upon three successive elements. This self manifestation of Nature is called Man’s evolution in the language of modern thought.
These three elements are :
That which is already evolved
That which is persistently in the stage of conscious evolution, and
That which is to be evolved.
We have to note that in the case of the third element of future evolution, it may perhaps be already displayed in primary formations. It may or may not be happening continuously, but certainly on occasional basis or with some regularity of recurrence. It may be displayed in others more developed realisations of our present humanity. It may well be in cases that are near to the highest possible realisation of our present humanity. However, this is possible in some rare cases.
The reason for above phenomena is that the march of Nature is not drilled to a regular and mechanical forward stepping. She reaches constantly beyond herself even at the cost of subsequent deplorable retreats. She has rushes. She has splendid and mighty outbursts. She has immense realisations. She storms sometimes passionately forward hoping to take the kingdom of heaven by violence. These self-exceedings are the revelation of that in her which is most divine. It may be most diabolical. But in either case they are most puissant to bring her rapidly forward towards her goal.
That which Nature has evolved for us and has firmly founded is the bodily life. She has effected a certain combination and harmony of the two inferior but most fundamentally necessary elements of our action and progress upon earth.
They are :
First, the Matter.
Second, the Life-Energy
Matter is our foundation and the first condition of all our energies and realisations. This is irrespective of the fact that matter may be despised by the too ethereally spiritual persons.
Life Energy is our means of existence in a material body and the basis there even of our mental and spiritual activities.
Nature has successfully achieved a certain stability of her constant material movement.
This movement is at once
Sufficiently steady and durable; while at the same time
Sufficiently pliable and mutable
to provide a fit dwelling-place and instrument for the progressively manifesting god in humanity.
This is what is meant by the fable in the Aitareya Upanishad. It tells that the gods rejected the animal forms successively offered to them by the Divine Self and only when a man was produced, cried out, “This indeed is perfectly made”. They then consented to enter in that vehicle.
Similarly, the Nature has effected a working compromise between
The inertia of matter, and
The active Life that lives and feeds on it. It enables the sustenance of vital existence. It also renders possible the fullest developments of mentality.
This equilibrium constitutes the basic status of Nature in man. It is termed in the language of Yoga his gross body composed of the material or food sheath (anna kosha) and the nervous system (prana kosha) of vital vehicle.
We have now seen that
This inferior equilibrium is the basis and first means of the higher movements which the universal Power contemplates
The body constitutes the vehicle in which the Divine here seeks to reveal Itself
Indian saying is true that the body is the instrument provided for the fulfilment of the right law of our nature.
This leads us towards the inevitable conclusion that any final recoil from the physical life must be a turning away from the completeness of the divine Wisdom and a renunciation of its aim in earthly manifestation. For certain individuals, owing to some secret law of their development, such a refusal may be the right attitude. But it can never be the aim intended for the mankind. Integral Yoga can not afford to ignore the body. It can not make its annulment or its rejection indispensable to a perfect spirituality. On the other hand, the perfecting of the body also should be the last triumph of the Spirit. To make the bodily life also divine must be God’s final seal upon His work in the universe. The obstacle which the physical presents to the spiritual is no argument for the rejection of the physical. It is interesting to note that in the unseen providence of things, our greatest difficulties are our best opportunities. A supreme difficulty is Nature’s indication to us of a supreme conquest to be won and an ultimate problem to be solved. It is not a warning of an inextricable snare to be shunned or of an enemy too strong for us from whom we must flee.
On an equal ground, the vital and nervous energies in us are there for a great utility. They also demand the divine realisation of their possibilities in our ultimate fulfilment. The catholic wisdom of he Upanishads has powerfully emphasized the great part assigned to this element in the universal scheme. “As the spokes of a wheel in its nave, so in the Life-energy is all established, the triple knowledge and the Sacrifice and the power of the strong and the purity of the wise. Under the control of the Life-Energy is all this that is established in the triple heaven”. Integral Yoga therefore does not and can not kill these nervous energies, force them into a nerveless quiescence or root them out as the source of noxious activities. The transformation, control and utilization of these energies, their purification and not their destruction is the aim in view with which they have been created and developed in us.
As a first step, the Nature has firmly evolved the bodily life for us as her base and first instrument. It is our mental life that she is evolving as her immediate next aim and superior instrument. In her ordinary exaltations this is the Nature’s lofty preoccupying thought. The exception is her periods of exhaustion and recoil into a reposeful and recuperating obscurity. Otherwise, it is her constant pursuit wherever she can get free from the trammels of her first vital and physical realisations. For here in man we have a distinction which is of the utmost importance. He has in him not a single mentality. He has a double and a triple mentality.
Material and nervous mind
Pure intellectual mind which liberates itself from the illusions of the body and the senses
Divine mind above intellect which in its turn liberates itself from the imperfect modes of the logically discriminative and imaginative reason.
Mind in man is first enmeshed in the life of the body. Whereas in the plant it is entirely involved. In animals it is always imprisoned. It accepts this life as not only the first but the whole condition of its activities. It serves its needs as if they were the entire aim of existence. We have to remember that the bodily life in man is a base, NOT the aim. It is his first condition and not his last determinant. In the just idea of the ancients man is essentially the thinker, the Manu, the mental being. He leads the life and the body. He is not the animal who is led by them.
Therefore, the true human existence only begins when
The intellectual mentality emerges out of the material, and
We begin more and more to live in the mind independent of the nervous and physical obsession, and
In the measure of that liberty are able to accept rightly and to use rightly the life of the body.
For freedom and not a skilful subjection is the true means of mastery. The high human ideal is a free and not a compulsory acceptance of the conditions and also not the enlarged and sub-limited conditions of our physical being.
The mental life thus evolving in man is not, indeed, a common possession. In actual appearance it would seem as if it were only developed to the fullest in individuals as against the majority in whom it is not evolved. It may appear that there were great numbers and even the majority in whom it is either a small and ill-organised part of their normal nature or not evolved a tall. Or may be in majority it is latent and not easily made active. Certainly, the mental life is not a finished evolution of Nature. It is not yet firmly founded in the human animal.
We get the sign in this world from actual observation that
the fine and full equilibrium of vitality and matter, the sane, robust, long-lived human body
is ordinarily found
only in races or classes of men who reject the effort of thought, its disturbances, its tensions,
or think only with the material mind.
As a further progression of Nature, the civilised man has yet to establish a equilibrium between the fully active mind and the body. He does not yet normally possess it. Indeed, the increasing effort towards a more intense mental life seems to frequently create an increasing dis-equilibrium of the human elements. This has resulted in a situation wherein eminent scientists have described genius as a form of insanity, a result of degeneration, a pathological morbidity of Nature. However we have to take all the phenomena which are used to justify this exaggeration in connection with all other relevant data. We should not take it separately. We then come to a different conclusion. Genius is one attempt of the universal Energy to quicken and intensify our intellectual powers. This is done with the sole purpose that these powers shall be prepared for more puissant, direct and rapid faculties. This will lead towards the constitution of the play of the supra-intellectual or divine mind. Genius is not then a freak, ad inexplicable phenomenon. It is a perfectly natural next step in the right life of her evolution.
The Nature has already harmonised the bodily mind with the material mind. Currently she is in the process of harmonizing it with the play of the intellectual mentality. No doubt it tends to depress the full animal and vital vigour. But it does not and need not produce active disturbances. And she is shooting yet beyond in the attempt to reach a still higher level.
Even the occasional disturbances created by her process are NOT as great as is often represented. Some of them are the crude beginnings of new manifestations. Others are an easily corrected movement of disintegration. It is often fruitful of fresh activities and always a small price to pay for the far-reaching results that she has in view.
Life Wanderer
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Mystery of River of Life
Mystery of River of Life
..............................................
Completely and Exclusively Based on
Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita
Chapter One
The origin of the River
‘Our Demand and Need from the Gita’
We have plenty of scriptures which are sacred or profane. They contain full or partial revelations. They promote religions or discuss philosophy. They may relate to sects, schools of thought or systems of thought and knowledge. The immature or partially mature minds of humanity attach a certain kind of exclusivity to one of these scriptures. With full passion and zeal they call a Scripture as the one and the only ‘Word of God’. They treat other scriptures as false. In some cases, even if they may attach some value to other scriptures, they call it imperfectly inspired. They treat their preferred scripture as the last word of the reasoning intellect. All the other scriptures are treated as either errors or as containing only a fragment of truth. This tendency of thought often leads towards a philosophical cult. Even the material science has fallen pray to this type of thinking. The material science then becomes a creed and refuses any place to religion or spirituality in the life of humanity. It treats spirituality as ignorance and superstition. This habit of excluding all the others to the selection of one is universal in the community of spirituality, religion, philosophy and material science. Sometimes even the wise men seem to fall pray to this type of thinking. They are misled by the spirit of darkness that has overshadowed their intellect. They are overtaken by the intellectual egoism or spiritual pride.
Happily, we have now progressed by a little bit to higher level of understanding and maturity. We have become more modest and wiser. We no longer hold the extreme views. We do no kill other human beings in the name of God’s Truth. We do not persecute others who have their minds differently trained or differently constituted from ours. We do not jump to the action of cursing or abusing or severely criticizing our neighbour because he has done the crime of having different opinion than ours. We do not call others wicked or presumptuous if they are following different path. We are even ready to admit the all pervasiveness of the Truth and relinquish our sole monopoly on the Truth. The purpose of our study of other religions has now become to be the search of Truth in these religions. Earlier, we used to study other religions and philosophies solely for finding faults in them so that we can damn these religions and philosophies, criticise them for their errors in our view point.
So far so good. But we still fall prey to the temptation to declare that our religion or philosophy offers The Supreme Knowledge. All others have either missed or partially or imperfectly grasped the Truth. We claim that the other religions and philosophies deal with subsidiary and inferior aspects of the truth of things. Sometimes we believe that these religions are for less evolved souls. Our religion is for more developed souls. We are also stubborn in our insistence that every dot and comma and underline contained in the original Scripture should remain unchanged as they all are part of the Eternally Valid Truth. The original inspiration of the prophets contains full details of the dots and commas and the underlines. It is all sacred.
In the above background our standpoint in studying the ancient Scripture like Veda, Upanishads or Gita need to be properly understood. Firstly, we need to indicate the spirit of our enquiry. We need to clearly understand as to what wisdom we may derive from these ancient Scriptures. We also need to know the benefit and utility of this wisdom to the humanity for its present and future needs. We also need to understand that first and foremost, we are seeking a Truth which is one and eternal. All other truths have their origin to this eternal Truth. In the light of this eternal Truth, all other truths are properly understood in their right place and relation to the scheme of knowledge. We have also to be cautious in not falling into the old trap of shutting up the Truth in one trenchant formula. We have to understand that the eternal Truth in all its entirety and bearings is not likely to be found in any single philosophy or Scripture. It can also not be preached by one single Teacher, prophet or Avatar. We can not also claim our full understanding of the Truth if we fall to the temptation of intolerantly excluding the truth underlying other systems. Any passionate rejection of other system means that we have not at all understood the Truth.
This brings us to the second part of our enquiry. We have to understand that the Truth has two aspects. One temporal and the other eternal. The eternal Truth expresses itself in Time and through the mind of man. The very act of expressing the truth makes the expression temporal. The Scripture expressing the Truth is influenced by the culture and ideas of the period and country and people in which it is expressed. This part is temporary and therefore perishable. The other part and the one in which we are interested here, is the truly eternal and imperishable Truth. This Truth is applicable in all ages and countries.
The following aspects of the statement of Truth as it gets expressed in the Scripture are therefore subject to losing their original force due to the passage of time.
These are :
1 The actual form (this includes the style of presentation)
2 The System and arrangement (of words, ideas etc)
3 The metaphysical and intellectual mould (as per the stage of development of humanity at the time)
4 The precise expression used (as per the language prevailing at the time, symbols and its prevailing meaning)
The reason for this losing of its original force is that the human intellect always modifies itself. It is in the habit of continually dividing and putting together its arguments. It shifts its divisions continually and rearranges its syntheses. It replaces old expressions and symbols with the new expressions and symbols. Even when it uses the old expression or symbol, it mildly or radically changes its connotations or at least its exact content and association. This makes it extremely difficult task in precise understanding of the ancient book of this kind. We can never accurately know the precise sense and spirit it bore to the people of its time.
The Truth has to be Universal. It also has to have been experienced, lived and seen with a vision which is higher than the mere intellectual understanding. This is of permanent value for us. We are more concerned here with this eternal aspect of the Truth.
We are here less concerned to know the exact metaphysical connotations as it was then understood by the men of the time. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that it is accurately possible to do so (i.e. to understand the exact metaphysical connotations as understood long back in time), we do not give importance to it. In actuality, it is not even possible to do so. This is very clear from the divergence (of meaning, interpretations and conclusions) of the original commentaries on Gita which have been written in the past and present. They all agree to disagree ! Each commentary finds in Gita its own system of metaphysics and trend of religious thought. This error is even inescapable from the most painstaking, impartial and disinterested scholarship. The most luminous theories of historical development of Indian philosophy are also susceptible to these errors.
We are therefore more concerned here about what is useful to the present day humanity. We want to understand the actual living truth it contains. This truth is timeless and therefore valid even today. We want to leave aside its metaphysical form in order to extract form Gita helpful wisdom for the present day humanity. We want to put the eternal wisdom of Gita in the most natural and vital form and expression. This need to be suitable to the mentality and spiritual needs of the present day humanity. We are aware that our attempt to do this may mix a great deal of error arising from our own individuality. It will also be influenced by the ideas of the present time. This type of susceptibility was also there in the case of greater men before us. It is bound to happen.
We need to comply with two conditions. Firstly, we should immerse ourselves in the spirit of this great Scripture. Secondly and most importantly, we should try to live in that spirit.
This will help us to
Find in the Scripture as much real truth as we are capable of receiving
Benefit from the spiritual influence and actual help that personally we were destined to receive.
Above is the main aim of writing the Scriptures. The rest is academic disputations or theological dogma.
In order for a Scripture, religion, philosophy to be of living importance to mankind, following criterions need to be fulfilled :
· They need to be constantly renewed and relived
· Continuous reshaping and development of their stuff of permanent truth
· This has to be done in the inner thought and spiritual experience of a developing humanity.
If above conditions are not followed, the Scripture remains as monument of the past. It has no actual force or vital impulse for the future.
In the Gita there is very little that is merely local or temporal. Its spirit is so large, profound and universal that even this little thing (which is local or temporal) can easily be universalized. This is achieved without reducing the value or violating the principle of the teaching. On the other hand, this process of widening the scope from its original country and epoch to the present day situation results in adding depth, truth and power to the teaching. Very often we find this principal stated in the Gita itself. There are clear hints in the Gita that an idea which is local or limited can be universalized.
Take for example the ancient Indian system and idea of sacrifice as an interchange between gods and men. In India itself, this system and idea has been practically obsolete for a long period of time. It is no longer a living system to the general human mind. However, if we closely study the meaning of word ‘sacrifice’ we find in it a very subtle, figurative and symbolic sense. Similarly the conception of gods is very little local or mythological, It is entirely cosmic and philosophical. This makes it easy for us to accept both the words of ‘sacrifice’ and ‘gods’ as
Practical facts of psychology
General law of Nature.
We can now apply these concepts to the modern conception of
interchange between Life and life
Ethical sacrifice and self giving
This will result in widening and deepening of these concepts. We can cast over them a more spiritual aspect. We can put a light of a profounder and more far reaching Truth.
Similarly the following concepts may at first sight seem to be local and temporal.:
Idea of action according to the Shastra
The Fourfold order of Society
The allusion to the relative position of the four orders
Comparative spiritual disabilities of the Shudras and Women
If we interpret these concepts in their exact literal and a very narrow sense we deprive them the benefit of universal application and spiritual depth. We then limit their validity for the mankind at large. We need to look behind these concepts to understand the true spirit and sense of them. We should not restrict our interpretation to the local name and temporal institution. When we do this, we realize that here too the sense is deep and true. The spirit is philosophical, spiritual and universal.
Let us have a look at the true meaning of Shastra and fourfold order of the Society according to the Geeta :
Shastra : The true and underlying meaning of Shastra according to Geeta is then perceived the ‘law imposed on itself ’ by the humanity as a substitute for the purely egoistic action of the natural unregenerate man. Its purpose is to control man’s tendency to seek the standard and aim of his life in the satisfaction of his desire.
Fourfold Order of the Society is merely the concrete form of a spiritual truth. This truth is itself independent of the form. This truth rests on the conception of :
Right works as a rightly ordered expression of the nature of the individual being. This individual being is the doer of the works.
Nature assigning him his line and scope in life. This is based on his inborn quality and his self-expressive function.
We have seen above that in this universal and eternal spirit the Geeta advances its most local and particular instances. We are therefor justified in extending this principle to all the other instances of local and temporal concepts and arrive at a deeper general truth. We shall always find that deeper truth and principle is implied in the grain of the thought even when it is not expressly stated in its language.
On the similar lines, we will interpret the element of philosophical dogma or religious creed which enters in to the Geeta. It may also hang about it. This is because of the use of philosophical terms and religious symbols current at the time.
For example, when Gita speaks of Sankhya and Yoga, we shall restrict ourselves only to the bare minimum discussion essential for our interpretation.
In the case of Sankhya, we will NOT dwell on
Its theory of One Purusha
Strong Vedantic colouring to the non-theistic or “atheistic” Sankhya that has come down to us with its schemes of many Purushas and one Prakriti
In the case of Yoga we will NOT concern ourselves with :
The Theistic Doctrine of many-sided, subtle, rich and flexible system
Yoga of Patanjali – fixed, scientific, rigorously defined and graded system
In the Geeta, the Sankhya and Yoga are evidently two convergent parts of the same Vedantic truth. We can also say that these two are the concurrent ways of approaching the realisation of Truth. These two ways can be classified into
Philosophical, intellectual and analytic
Intuitional, devotional, practical, ethical, synthetic - reaching knowledge through experience
We have to understand that in essence Geeta recognizes no real difference in the teachings of these two systems.
Similarly, we will not discuss the theories which regard Gita as the fruit of some particular religious system or tradition. We need to stress that the teaching of Geeta is universal irrespective of its origin.
We have to understand that what is most vital, profound and eternally durable in Gita is NOT the philosophical system on which it is based or its arrangement of truth. What is important is the core material on which the philosophical system is composed. Also what is important is the principal ideas contained in Gita. This is the eternally valuable and valid part of the Gita. The arrangement of truth is woven in to the complex harmony through a suggestive and penetrating manner based on these principal ideas.
The principal ideas presented in Gita are not merely the luminous ideas. Nor are they the striking speculations of a philosophic intellect. They are rather enduring truths of spiritual experience and verifiable facts of our highest psychological possibilities. We can not afford to neglect these aspects if we are making a serious attempt to read deeply the mystery of existence.
It should be noted that irrespective of the system of presentation in Gita, it is NOT framed or intended to support any exclusive school of philosophical thought. It does not predominantly put forward the claims of any one form of Yoga. Many commentators have strived to do so but it is wrong.
The Gita with its
Language
Structure of thought
And Combination and balancing of Ideas –
does not belong to –
the temper of a sectarian teacher
spirit of a rigorous analytical dialectics which cuts off one angle of the truth to the exclusion of all the other angles of truth.
We find in Gita a wide, undulating and encircling movement of ideas. These ideas are manifestation of a vast synthetic mind and a rich synthetic experience.
Gita contains synthesis of varied ideas of Indian philosophy. Gita is as rich as these various branches of philosophies in their creation of the more intensive and exclusive movements of knowledge and religious realisation. The various Indian branches of philosophies follow out with an absolute concentration one clue, one path to its extreme issues. On the other hand, Gita does not chop off truth in pieces, rather it reconciles and unifies the various exclusive branches of the truth.
Let us see how Gita reconciles the various branches of philosophy.
Monism
The thought of Gita is not pure Monism. However, Gita sees in one unchanging, pure and eternal Self the foundation of all cosmic existence.
Mayavada
Gita does not endorse the theory of Mayavada (i.e. this world is an illusion). However, it speaks of the Maya of the three modes of Prakriti (Satvic, Rajasic and Tamasic) omnipresent in the created world.
Qualified Monism
Gita also does not support Qualified Monism. However, it places in the One his eternal supreme Prakriti manifested in the form of the Jiva. As supreme state of spiritual consciousness the Gita lays most stress on dwelling in God rather than dissolution of the worldly existence.
Sankhya
Gita does not endorse Sankhya philosophy. However, it explains the created world by the double principle of Purusha and Prakriti.
Vaishnava Theism
Gita is not Vaishnava Theism. However, it presents to us Krishna, who is the Avatar of Vishnu according to the Puranas. Krishna is stated to be the supreme Deity. On the one hand, the Gita allows no essential difference between Krishna and the relationless Brahman. On the other hand Gita proclaims Krishna as not inferior to Brahman. Krishna is stated to be the Lord of beings who is also the Master of the universe and the Friend of all creatures.
The spiritual synthesis of the Gita is like that of earlier Upanishads. It is both spiritual and intellectual. It avoids every type of rigid determination. This helps in not compromising the main feature of Gita – Universal Comprehensiveness. The polemist commentators on Gita found this Scripture established as one of the three highest Vedantic authorities. They attempted to turn it into a weapon of offence and defence against other schools and systems. The aim of Gita is precisely the opposite of this. The Gita is not a weapon for dialectical warfare. It is a gate opening on the whole world of spiritual truth and experience. The view of the Gita embraces all the provinces of that supreme region. Gita maps out. But it does not cut up or build walls or hedges to confine our vision.
There have been other synthesis in the long history of Indian thought.
1 In the beginning is the Vedic synthesis of the psychological being of man. It dwells in its highest flights and widest rangings of divine knowledge, power, joy, life and glory. It covers the cosmic existence of the gods. It pursued behind the symbols of the material universe into superior planes. These planes are hidden from the physical sense and the material mentality. The crown of this synthesis was meeting of man and god. It was in the experience of the Vedic Rishis. They saw in it something divine, transcendent and blissful. In their unity the increasing soul of man and the eternal divine fullness of the cosmic godheads meet perfectly and fulfill themselves.
2 The Upanishads take up from this crowning experience of the earlier seers. They make it their starting point for a high and profound synthesis of spiritual knowledge. They draw together into a great harmony all that had been seen and experienced by the inspired and liberated knowers of the Eternal. These experiences were from a wide range of great and fruitful period of spiritual seeking.
3 The Gita starts from this Vedantic synthesis. On the basis of its essential ideas the Gita builds another harmony of the three great means and powers. These are Love (Bhakti Yoga), Knowledge (Dnyan Yoga) and Works (Karma Yoga). Through these means the soul of man can directly approach and cast itself into the Eternal.
4 There is also a fourth system. It is a Tantric system. Though this system is less subtle and spiritually profound, it is even more bold and forceful than the synthesis of Gita. The Tantric system seizes even upon the obstacles to the spiritual life and compels them to become the means for a richer spiritual conquest. It enables us to experience the whole of Life in our divine scope as the Lila of the Divine. In some directions the Tantric system is more immediately rich and fruitful. It brings forward into the foreground the secrets also of the Hatha and Raja Yogas. This it does along with divine knowledge, divine works and an enriched devotion of the divine Love. It makes use of the body and of mental askesis for the opening up of the divine life on all its planes. To these aspects, the Gita gives only a passing and perfunctory attention.
Most importantly, Geeta grasps at the idea of divine perfectibility of man. This idea was possessed by the Vedic Rishis but thrown into the background by the intermediate ages. This idea is destined to fill a very large space in any future synthesis of human thought, experience and aspiration.
We at the coming day stand at the head of a new age of development. This new age must lead to such a new and larger synthesis. In this march towards the new age, we are not called upon to be orthodox Vedantins of any of the three schools or Tantrics. We need not adhere to one of the theistic religions of the past. We need not even entrench ourselves within the four corners of the teaching of the Gita. That will amount to limit ourselves and to attempt to create our spiritual life out of the being, knowledge and nature of others – of the men of the past. We need to build our spiritual life out of our own being and potentialities. We do not belong to the past dawns but to the noons of the future. A mass of new material is flowing into us. Certainly we have to assimilate the influences of the great theistic religions of India and of the world. We have also to incorporate a recovered sense of the meaning of Buddhism. But more than that, we need to take full account of the potent though limited revelations of modern knowledge and seeking. And beyond that, the remote and dateless past which seemed to be dead is returning upon us with an effulgence of many luminous secrets long lost to the consciousness of mankind. This past is now breaking out again from behind the veil.
All this points out to a new, a very rich, a very vast synthesis. A fresh and widely embracing harmonization of our gains is both an intellectual and a spiritual necessity of the future. The past syntheses have taken those which preceded them for their starting point. Similarly the future synthesis must proceed from what the great bodies of realized spiritual thought and experience in the past have given. This will put the new synthesis on firm ground. Among these the Gita takes a most important place.
Therefore, our object in studying the Gita will NOT be any of the following :
Scholastic or academical scrutiny of its thought
To place its philosophy in the history of metaphysical speculation
To deal with it in the manner of the analytical dialectician
We approach it for help and light. Our aim must be to distinguish its essential and living message. We need to find in it the essence which humanity has to seize for its perfection and its highest spiritual welfare.
Chapter 2
Divine Teacher
The peculiarity of the Gita among the great religious books of the worlds is that it does not stand apart as a work by itself. It is not the fruit of the spiritual life of a creative personality like Christ, Mahomed or Buddha. It is also not of an epoch of pure spiritual searching like the Veda and Upanishads. Gita is given as an episode in an epic history of nations. This history is related to wars, men and their deeds. It arises out of a critical moment in the soul of one of its leading personages. The moment is when he stands face to face with the crowning action of his life. The time is when he is called upon to do the work terrible, violent and sanguinary. The critical point is wen he must either recoil from it altogether or carry it through to its inexorable completion.
The modern criticism supposes that the Gita is a later composition inserted into the mass of the Mahabharata by its author. This was supposedly done in order to invest its teaching with the authority and popularity of the great national epic. We are here hardly concerned with this supposition. There seems to me to be strong grounds against this supposition. Moreover, the evidence, both extrinsic and internal, in support of this supposition is in the last degree scanty and insufficient.
For the arguments sake let us assume that the evidence is a sound evidence. Even in such a scenario, we have to note that the author has taken pains to interweave his work inextricably into the vast web of the larger poem. More ever, he is careful again and again to remind us of the situation from which the teaching has arisen. He returns to it prominently, not only at the end, but also in the middle of his profoundest philosophical disquisitions. In this background, we must accept the insistence of the author and give its full importance to this recurrent preoccupation of the Teacher and the disciple. The teaching of the Gita must therefore be regarded not merely in the light of a general spiritual philosophy or ethical doctrine. It is having a bearing upon a practical crisis in the application of ethics and spirituality to human life.
Firstly we must determine if we would grasp the central drift of the ideas of the Gita. Then only we can understand
What that crisis stands
What is the significance of the battle of Kurukhsetra
Its effect on Arjuna’s inner being
Very obviously a great body of the profoundest teaching can not be built round an ordinary occurrence. There has to be
Gulfs of deep suggestion and hazardous difficulty behind its superficial and outward aspects
The crisis should be such as can not be governed well enough by the ordinary everyday standards of thought and action
There are indeed three things in the Gita which are spiritually significant. They are almost symbolic. They are typical of the profoundest relations and problems of the spiritual life and of human existence at its roots. These three things are :
The divine personality of the Teacher
His characteristic relations with his disciple
Occasion of his teaching
We have to understand the symbolic meaning of these three things. These meanings are :
The teacher is God himself descended into humanity
The disciple is the first, as we might say in modern language, the representative man of his age. He is closest friend and chosen instrument of the Avatar. He is Avatar’s protagonist in an immense work and struggle. The secret purpose of this struggle is unknown to the actors in it. They are known only to the incarnate Godhead who guides it all from behind the veil of his unfathomable mind of knowledge.
The occasion is the violent crisis of that work and struggle. It is at the moment when the anguish and moral difficulty and blind violence of its apparent movements forces itself with the sock of a visible revelation on the mind of its representative man. It raises the whole question of :
The meaning of God in the world
The goal and drift and sense of human life and conduct.
India has from ancient times held strongly a belief in
The reality of the Avatars.
The descent into Form
The revelation of the Godhead in humanity
In the West this belief has never really stamped itself upon the mind. This is because it has been presented through exoteric Christianity as a theological dogma. It did not have any roots in the reason and general consciousness and attitude towards life. On the other hand, in India it has grown up and persisted as a logical outcome of the Vedantic view of life. It has taken firm root in the consciousness of the race. All existence is a manifestation of God because He is the only existence and nothing can be other than a real figuring or else a figment of that one reality. Therefore every conscious being is in part or in some way a descent of the Infinite into the apparent finiteness of name and form. But it is a veiled manifestation. There is a gradation between the supreme being of the Divine and the consciousness shrouded partly or wholly by ignorance of self in the finite. The conscious embodied soul is the spark of the divine Fire. This soul in man opens out to self-knowledge as it develops out of ignorance of self into self-being. In the same way the Divine pours itself into the forms of the cosmic existence. It is revealed ordinarily in an efflorescence of
Its powers
In energies and magnitudes of its knowledge, love and joy
Developed force of being
in degrees and faces of its divinity.
On the other hand the height of the conditioned manifestation of the Divine is reached when the divine Consciousness and Power takes upon itself the human form and the human mode of action. It possesses it not only by powers and magnitudes, by degrees and outward faces of itself but out of its eternal self-knowledge. It is when the Unborn knows itself and acts in the frame of the mental being and the appearance of birth. It is the full and conscious descent of the Godhead. We can then call it the Avatar.
The Vaishnava form of Vedantism has laid most stress upon this conception of Avatar. It expresses the relation of ‘God in man’ with the ‘man in God’ by the double figure of Nara-Narayana. It is associated historically with the origin of a religious school. It is very similar in its doctrines to the teaching of the Gita. Nara is the human soul which is the eternal companion of the Divine. It finds itself only when it awakens to that companionship. As the Gita says, it then begins to live in God. Narayana is the divine Soul. It is always present in our humanity. It is the secret guide, friend and helper of the human being. It is the “Lord who abides within the heart of creatures” as per the Gita. The supreme uplifting of the embodied human conscious-being into the unborn and eternal happens when the veil of that secret sanctuary is withdrawn from within us. Man then speaks face to face with God, hears the divine voice, receives the divine light and acts in the divine power. He then becomes capable of that dwelling in God. He gives up his whole consciousness into the Divine. This the Gita upholds as the best or highest secret of things – uttamam rahasyam.
This eternal divine Consciousness is always present in every human being. This God is always in man. When he partly or wholly takes possession of the human consciousness then we have the manifest Avatar. For this to happen, the God has to become in visible human shape the guide, teacher and leader of the world. We are not here referring to the case of the men who while living in their humanity yet feel something of the power or light or love of the divine Gnosis informing and conducting them. This is not Avatar. What we need is the direct action from that divine Gnosis itself, direct from its central force and plentitude. Then only we can call him the manifest Avatar. The inner Divinity is the eternal Avatar in every man. The human manifestation is its sign and development in the external world. This happens only in the case of manifest Avatar.
When we thus understand the conception of Avatarhood we see that the external aspect has only a secondary importance. This may be from the point of view of the fundamental teaching of Gita which is our present subject or for spiritual life generally. Such controversies would seem to a spiritually-minded Indian largely a waste of time. On the other hand there is a raging controversy in Europe over the historicity of Christ. An Indian would concede to it a considerable historical, but hardly any religious importance. In the final analysis, it does not matter whether a Jesus son of the carpenter Joseph was actually born in Nazareth or Bethlehem. It also does not matter whether he lived and taught and was done to death on a real or trumped-up charge of sedition. What is of relevance is to know by spiritual experience the inner Christ, to live uplifted in the light of his teaching and escape from the yoke of the natural Law by that atonement of man with God. The crucifixion is just the symbol of this atonement. We are mainly concerned if the Christ, God made man, lives within our spiritual being. If this be so, then it does not matter whether or not a son of Mary physically lived and suffered and died in Judea. Same is the case with Krishna. He matters to us as the eternal incarnation of the Divine. We are here not seriously interested in the historical teacher and leader of men.
Therefore in seeking the kernel of the thought of the Gita we need only concern ourselves with the spiritual significance of the human-divine Krishna of the Mahabharata. He is presented to us as the teacher of Arjuna on the battle-field of Kurukshetra. It is certainty that the historical Krishna existed. His name is cited first in the Chhandogya Upanishad. Here all we can gather about him is that he was well-known in spiritual tradition as a knower of the Brahman. In fact so well known in his personality and the circumstances of his life that it was sufficient to refer to him by the name of his mother as Krishna son of Devaki. This identified correctly the Krishna as we know him. In the same Upanishad we find mention of King Dhritarashtra son of Vichitravirya. Both of these persons are leading personages in the action of the Mahabharata. The tradition has therefore associated both of them closely. Therefore we may fairly conclude that they were actually contemporaries and that the epic is to a great extent dealing with historical occurrence imprinted firmly on the memory of the race. We know too that Krishna and Arjuna were the object of religious worship in the pre-Christian centuries. There is some reason to suppose that they were so in connection with a religious and philosophical tradition.
From this tradition the Gita may have gathered
Many of its elements.
Even the foundation of its synthesis of knowledge, devotion and works.
Perhaps also that the human Krishna was the founder, restorer or atleast one of the early teachers of this school
In spite of its later form the Gita may well represent the teaching of Krishna in Indian thought. The connection of that teaching with
The historical Krishna
Arjuna
The war of Kurukshetra
may be something more than a dramatic fiction.
In the Mahabharata Krishna is represented both as the historical character and the Avatar. His worship and Avatarhood must therefore have been well established by the time when the old story and poem or epic tradition of the Bharatas took its present form. This is apparently from the fifth to the first centuries B.C. Story or legend of the Avatar’s early life in Vrindavan has also been hinted in the poem. This has been developed by the Puranas into an intense and powerful spiritual symbol. It has exercised very profound influence on the religious mind of India. We also have an account of the life of Krishna in the Harivansha. It is very evidently full of legends which perhaps formed the basis of the Puranic accounts.
All this information is of considerable historical importance. However, it has no importance at all to our present purpose. We are concerned only with the figure of the divine Teacher as it is presented to us in the Gita. We are also concerned with the Power for which it there stands in the spiritual illumination of the human being. The Gita accepts the human Avatarhood. This is seen when the Lord speaks of the repeated and the constant manifestation of the Divine in humanity. He the eternal Unborn assumes to clothe itself apparently in finite form, the condition of becoming which we call birth. This he does by his Maya and by the power of the infinite Consciousness. But is not this upon which stress is laid. The stress is laid on
The transcendent, the cosmic and the internal Divine.
Source of all things
Master of all
Godhead secret in man
When the Gita speaks of the
Doer of violent Asuric austerities troubling the God within
Sin of those who despise the Divine lodged in the human body
Same Godhead destroying our ignorance by the blazing lamp of knowledge.
it is referring to this internal divinity.
The divine who speaks to the human soul in the Gita is this eternal Avatar and the God in man. It is the divine Consciousness always present in the human being who manifested in a visible form. He illumines the meaning of life and the secret of the divine action. He gives it the light of the divine knowledge and guidance. He offers assuring and fortifying word of the Master of existence in the hour when it comes face with the painful mystery of the world. This is what the Indian religious consciousness seeks to make near to itself. This it does in whatever form This includes :
Symbolic human image it enshrines in its temples
In the worship of its Avatars.
In the devotion to the human Guru through whom the voice of the one world-Teacher makes itself heard.
Through these it strives to awaken to that inner voice, to unveil that form of the Formless and stand face to face with that manifest divine Power, Love and Knowledge.
Secondly, there is the typical, almost the symbolic significance of the human Krishna. He stands behind the great action of the Mahabharata. This is not as its hero but as its secret centre and hidden guide. That action is the action of a whole world of men and nations.
1 Leader - Some of these men have come as helpers of an effort. They do not personally profit by the result of these efforts. To these people Krishna is a leader.
2 Opponent - Some of these men are the opponents. To these men he is also an opponent. He is the baffler of their designs and their slayer.
3 Instigator - To some men he seems to be an instigator of all evil. He is the destroyer of their old order and familiar world and secure conventions of virtue and good.
4 Counsellor – Some are representatives of that which has to be fulfilled and to them he is the counsellor, helper and friend.
5 Unseen Aid - Where the action pursues its natural course or the doers of the work have to suffer at the hands of its enemies and undergo the ordeals which prepare them for mastery. In such situations the Avatar is unseen or appears only for occasional comfort and aid. But at every crisis his hand is felt. However it is done in such a way that all imagine themselves to be the protagonists.
Even Arjuna, his nearest friend and chief instrument does not perceive that he is an instrument. He has to confess at last that all the while he did not really know his divine Friend. Arjuna has received counsel from the wisdom of Krishna, help from his power, has loved and been loved, has even adored without understanding his divine nature. Like all the other men Arjuna has been guided through his own egoism. The counsel, help and direction have been given in the language and received by the thoughts of the Ignorance. Krishna does not reveal his Avatarhood even to those whom he has chosen for his work till the time of final crisis. This is the moment when all has been pushed to the terrible issue of the struggle on the field of Kurukshetra. This is when the Avatar stands at last as the charioteer in the battle-car which carries the destiny of the fight. Even at this moment he does not pose himself as the fighter but as the charioteer.
Thus the figure of Krishna becomes, as it were, the symbol of the divine dealings with humanity. Like the life of Arjuna and other personages of the Mahabharata and the fierce battle of Kurukshetra, we are moved through our egoism and ignorance. We think that we are the doers of the work. We vaunt ourselves as the real causes of the result. We only occasionally see that which moves us. We see it as some vague or even some human and earthly fountain of knowledge. We see it as aspiration, force, some Principle or Light or Power which we acknowledge. We adore without knowing what it is. This goes on until the occasion arises that forces us to stand arrested before the Veil.
The whole wide action of man in life is covered by the action in which this divine figure moves. It covers not merely the inner life but all this obscure course of the world. We can judge it only by the twilight of the human reason. This happens when it dimly opens up the little span in front of our uncertain advance. Gita is the culmination of such an Divine action. It is its distinguishing feature from other Scriptures. This action gives rise to its teaching. It assigns prominence and bold relief to the gospel of works. This gospel is enunciated by Gita. It is done with an emphasis and force which we do not find in other Scriptures. Krishna emphatically declares the necessity of action not only in Gita but also in other passages of the Mahabharata. However in Gita only he reveals its secret and the divinity behind our works.
The symbolic companionship of Arjuna and Krishna and of the human and the divine soul is also expressed elsewhere in Indian thought. We can find it in the heavenward journey of Indra and Kutsa seated in one chariot. We also meet it in the figure of two birds upon one tree in the Upanishad. It is also there in the twin figures of Nara and Narayana – the seers who tapasya together for the knowledge. In all these three examples of companionship, the main focus is on the idea of Divine Knowledge in which all action culminates. On the other hand we find in Gita that the emphasis is on the action which leads to that knowledge and in which the divine Knower figures Himself. Arjuna as human and Krishna as divine stand together not as seers in the peaceful hermitage of meditation. Instead, they appear as fighter and holder of the reins in the clamorous field. It is in the midst of the hurtling shafts of the chariot of the battle.
The Teacher of the Gita is therefore not just the God in man who unveils Himself in the world of knowledge. He is more importantly the God in man who moves our whole world of action. Our humanity exists and struggles and labours by and for this God. Towards this God all human life travels and progresses. He is the secret Master of works and sacrifice and the Friend of the human peoples.
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Completely and Exclusively Based on
Sri Aurobindo’s Essays on the Gita
Chapter One
The origin of the River
‘Our Demand and Need from the Gita’
We have plenty of scriptures which are sacred or profane. They contain full or partial revelations. They promote religions or discuss philosophy. They may relate to sects, schools of thought or systems of thought and knowledge. The immature or partially mature minds of humanity attach a certain kind of exclusivity to one of these scriptures. With full passion and zeal they call a Scripture as the one and the only ‘Word of God’. They treat other scriptures as false. In some cases, even if they may attach some value to other scriptures, they call it imperfectly inspired. They treat their preferred scripture as the last word of the reasoning intellect. All the other scriptures are treated as either errors or as containing only a fragment of truth. This tendency of thought often leads towards a philosophical cult. Even the material science has fallen pray to this type of thinking. The material science then becomes a creed and refuses any place to religion or spirituality in the life of humanity. It treats spirituality as ignorance and superstition. This habit of excluding all the others to the selection of one is universal in the community of spirituality, religion, philosophy and material science. Sometimes even the wise men seem to fall pray to this type of thinking. They are misled by the spirit of darkness that has overshadowed their intellect. They are overtaken by the intellectual egoism or spiritual pride.
Happily, we have now progressed by a little bit to higher level of understanding and maturity. We have become more modest and wiser. We no longer hold the extreme views. We do no kill other human beings in the name of God’s Truth. We do not persecute others who have their minds differently trained or differently constituted from ours. We do not jump to the action of cursing or abusing or severely criticizing our neighbour because he has done the crime of having different opinion than ours. We do not call others wicked or presumptuous if they are following different path. We are even ready to admit the all pervasiveness of the Truth and relinquish our sole monopoly on the Truth. The purpose of our study of other religions has now become to be the search of Truth in these religions. Earlier, we used to study other religions and philosophies solely for finding faults in them so that we can damn these religions and philosophies, criticise them for their errors in our view point.
So far so good. But we still fall prey to the temptation to declare that our religion or philosophy offers The Supreme Knowledge. All others have either missed or partially or imperfectly grasped the Truth. We claim that the other religions and philosophies deal with subsidiary and inferior aspects of the truth of things. Sometimes we believe that these religions are for less evolved souls. Our religion is for more developed souls. We are also stubborn in our insistence that every dot and comma and underline contained in the original Scripture should remain unchanged as they all are part of the Eternally Valid Truth. The original inspiration of the prophets contains full details of the dots and commas and the underlines. It is all sacred.
In the above background our standpoint in studying the ancient Scripture like Veda, Upanishads or Gita need to be properly understood. Firstly, we need to indicate the spirit of our enquiry. We need to clearly understand as to what wisdom we may derive from these ancient Scriptures. We also need to know the benefit and utility of this wisdom to the humanity for its present and future needs. We also need to understand that first and foremost, we are seeking a Truth which is one and eternal. All other truths have their origin to this eternal Truth. In the light of this eternal Truth, all other truths are properly understood in their right place and relation to the scheme of knowledge. We have also to be cautious in not falling into the old trap of shutting up the Truth in one trenchant formula. We have to understand that the eternal Truth in all its entirety and bearings is not likely to be found in any single philosophy or Scripture. It can also not be preached by one single Teacher, prophet or Avatar. We can not also claim our full understanding of the Truth if we fall to the temptation of intolerantly excluding the truth underlying other systems. Any passionate rejection of other system means that we have not at all understood the Truth.
This brings us to the second part of our enquiry. We have to understand that the Truth has two aspects. One temporal and the other eternal. The eternal Truth expresses itself in Time and through the mind of man. The very act of expressing the truth makes the expression temporal. The Scripture expressing the Truth is influenced by the culture and ideas of the period and country and people in which it is expressed. This part is temporary and therefore perishable. The other part and the one in which we are interested here, is the truly eternal and imperishable Truth. This Truth is applicable in all ages and countries.
The following aspects of the statement of Truth as it gets expressed in the Scripture are therefore subject to losing their original force due to the passage of time.
These are :
1 The actual form (this includes the style of presentation)
2 The System and arrangement (of words, ideas etc)
3 The metaphysical and intellectual mould (as per the stage of development of humanity at the time)
4 The precise expression used (as per the language prevailing at the time, symbols and its prevailing meaning)
The reason for this losing of its original force is that the human intellect always modifies itself. It is in the habit of continually dividing and putting together its arguments. It shifts its divisions continually and rearranges its syntheses. It replaces old expressions and symbols with the new expressions and symbols. Even when it uses the old expression or symbol, it mildly or radically changes its connotations or at least its exact content and association. This makes it extremely difficult task in precise understanding of the ancient book of this kind. We can never accurately know the precise sense and spirit it bore to the people of its time.
The Truth has to be Universal. It also has to have been experienced, lived and seen with a vision which is higher than the mere intellectual understanding. This is of permanent value for us. We are more concerned here with this eternal aspect of the Truth.
We are here less concerned to know the exact metaphysical connotations as it was then understood by the men of the time. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that it is accurately possible to do so (i.e. to understand the exact metaphysical connotations as understood long back in time), we do not give importance to it. In actuality, it is not even possible to do so. This is very clear from the divergence (of meaning, interpretations and conclusions) of the original commentaries on Gita which have been written in the past and present. They all agree to disagree ! Each commentary finds in Gita its own system of metaphysics and trend of religious thought. This error is even inescapable from the most painstaking, impartial and disinterested scholarship. The most luminous theories of historical development of Indian philosophy are also susceptible to these errors.
We are therefore more concerned here about what is useful to the present day humanity. We want to understand the actual living truth it contains. This truth is timeless and therefore valid even today. We want to leave aside its metaphysical form in order to extract form Gita helpful wisdom for the present day humanity. We want to put the eternal wisdom of Gita in the most natural and vital form and expression. This need to be suitable to the mentality and spiritual needs of the present day humanity. We are aware that our attempt to do this may mix a great deal of error arising from our own individuality. It will also be influenced by the ideas of the present time. This type of susceptibility was also there in the case of greater men before us. It is bound to happen.
We need to comply with two conditions. Firstly, we should immerse ourselves in the spirit of this great Scripture. Secondly and most importantly, we should try to live in that spirit.
This will help us to
Find in the Scripture as much real truth as we are capable of receiving
Benefit from the spiritual influence and actual help that personally we were destined to receive.
Above is the main aim of writing the Scriptures. The rest is academic disputations or theological dogma.
In order for a Scripture, religion, philosophy to be of living importance to mankind, following criterions need to be fulfilled :
· They need to be constantly renewed and relived
· Continuous reshaping and development of their stuff of permanent truth
· This has to be done in the inner thought and spiritual experience of a developing humanity.
If above conditions are not followed, the Scripture remains as monument of the past. It has no actual force or vital impulse for the future.
In the Gita there is very little that is merely local or temporal. Its spirit is so large, profound and universal that even this little thing (which is local or temporal) can easily be universalized. This is achieved without reducing the value or violating the principle of the teaching. On the other hand, this process of widening the scope from its original country and epoch to the present day situation results in adding depth, truth and power to the teaching. Very often we find this principal stated in the Gita itself. There are clear hints in the Gita that an idea which is local or limited can be universalized.
Take for example the ancient Indian system and idea of sacrifice as an interchange between gods and men. In India itself, this system and idea has been practically obsolete for a long period of time. It is no longer a living system to the general human mind. However, if we closely study the meaning of word ‘sacrifice’ we find in it a very subtle, figurative and symbolic sense. Similarly the conception of gods is very little local or mythological, It is entirely cosmic and philosophical. This makes it easy for us to accept both the words of ‘sacrifice’ and ‘gods’ as
Practical facts of psychology
General law of Nature.
We can now apply these concepts to the modern conception of
interchange between Life and life
Ethical sacrifice and self giving
This will result in widening and deepening of these concepts. We can cast over them a more spiritual aspect. We can put a light of a profounder and more far reaching Truth.
Similarly the following concepts may at first sight seem to be local and temporal.:
Idea of action according to the Shastra
The Fourfold order of Society
The allusion to the relative position of the four orders
Comparative spiritual disabilities of the Shudras and Women
If we interpret these concepts in their exact literal and a very narrow sense we deprive them the benefit of universal application and spiritual depth. We then limit their validity for the mankind at large. We need to look behind these concepts to understand the true spirit and sense of them. We should not restrict our interpretation to the local name and temporal institution. When we do this, we realize that here too the sense is deep and true. The spirit is philosophical, spiritual and universal.
Let us have a look at the true meaning of Shastra and fourfold order of the Society according to the Geeta :
Shastra : The true and underlying meaning of Shastra according to Geeta is then perceived the ‘law imposed on itself ’ by the humanity as a substitute for the purely egoistic action of the natural unregenerate man. Its purpose is to control man’s tendency to seek the standard and aim of his life in the satisfaction of his desire.
Fourfold Order of the Society is merely the concrete form of a spiritual truth. This truth is itself independent of the form. This truth rests on the conception of :
Right works as a rightly ordered expression of the nature of the individual being. This individual being is the doer of the works.
Nature assigning him his line and scope in life. This is based on his inborn quality and his self-expressive function.
We have seen above that in this universal and eternal spirit the Geeta advances its most local and particular instances. We are therefor justified in extending this principle to all the other instances of local and temporal concepts and arrive at a deeper general truth. We shall always find that deeper truth and principle is implied in the grain of the thought even when it is not expressly stated in its language.
On the similar lines, we will interpret the element of philosophical dogma or religious creed which enters in to the Geeta. It may also hang about it. This is because of the use of philosophical terms and religious symbols current at the time.
For example, when Gita speaks of Sankhya and Yoga, we shall restrict ourselves only to the bare minimum discussion essential for our interpretation.
In the case of Sankhya, we will NOT dwell on
Its theory of One Purusha
Strong Vedantic colouring to the non-theistic or “atheistic” Sankhya that has come down to us with its schemes of many Purushas and one Prakriti
In the case of Yoga we will NOT concern ourselves with :
The Theistic Doctrine of many-sided, subtle, rich and flexible system
Yoga of Patanjali – fixed, scientific, rigorously defined and graded system
In the Geeta, the Sankhya and Yoga are evidently two convergent parts of the same Vedantic truth. We can also say that these two are the concurrent ways of approaching the realisation of Truth. These two ways can be classified into
Philosophical, intellectual and analytic
Intuitional, devotional, practical, ethical, synthetic - reaching knowledge through experience
We have to understand that in essence Geeta recognizes no real difference in the teachings of these two systems.
Similarly, we will not discuss the theories which regard Gita as the fruit of some particular religious system or tradition. We need to stress that the teaching of Geeta is universal irrespective of its origin.
We have to understand that what is most vital, profound and eternally durable in Gita is NOT the philosophical system on which it is based or its arrangement of truth. What is important is the core material on which the philosophical system is composed. Also what is important is the principal ideas contained in Gita. This is the eternally valuable and valid part of the Gita. The arrangement of truth is woven in to the complex harmony through a suggestive and penetrating manner based on these principal ideas.
The principal ideas presented in Gita are not merely the luminous ideas. Nor are they the striking speculations of a philosophic intellect. They are rather enduring truths of spiritual experience and verifiable facts of our highest psychological possibilities. We can not afford to neglect these aspects if we are making a serious attempt to read deeply the mystery of existence.
It should be noted that irrespective of the system of presentation in Gita, it is NOT framed or intended to support any exclusive school of philosophical thought. It does not predominantly put forward the claims of any one form of Yoga. Many commentators have strived to do so but it is wrong.
The Gita with its
Language
Structure of thought
And Combination and balancing of Ideas –
does not belong to –
the temper of a sectarian teacher
spirit of a rigorous analytical dialectics which cuts off one angle of the truth to the exclusion of all the other angles of truth.
We find in Gita a wide, undulating and encircling movement of ideas. These ideas are manifestation of a vast synthetic mind and a rich synthetic experience.
Gita contains synthesis of varied ideas of Indian philosophy. Gita is as rich as these various branches of philosophies in their creation of the more intensive and exclusive movements of knowledge and religious realisation. The various Indian branches of philosophies follow out with an absolute concentration one clue, one path to its extreme issues. On the other hand, Gita does not chop off truth in pieces, rather it reconciles and unifies the various exclusive branches of the truth.
Let us see how Gita reconciles the various branches of philosophy.
Monism
The thought of Gita is not pure Monism. However, Gita sees in one unchanging, pure and eternal Self the foundation of all cosmic existence.
Mayavada
Gita does not endorse the theory of Mayavada (i.e. this world is an illusion). However, it speaks of the Maya of the three modes of Prakriti (Satvic, Rajasic and Tamasic) omnipresent in the created world.
Qualified Monism
Gita also does not support Qualified Monism. However, it places in the One his eternal supreme Prakriti manifested in the form of the Jiva. As supreme state of spiritual consciousness the Gita lays most stress on dwelling in God rather than dissolution of the worldly existence.
Sankhya
Gita does not endorse Sankhya philosophy. However, it explains the created world by the double principle of Purusha and Prakriti.
Vaishnava Theism
Gita is not Vaishnava Theism. However, it presents to us Krishna, who is the Avatar of Vishnu according to the Puranas. Krishna is stated to be the supreme Deity. On the one hand, the Gita allows no essential difference between Krishna and the relationless Brahman. On the other hand Gita proclaims Krishna as not inferior to Brahman. Krishna is stated to be the Lord of beings who is also the Master of the universe and the Friend of all creatures.
The spiritual synthesis of the Gita is like that of earlier Upanishads. It is both spiritual and intellectual. It avoids every type of rigid determination. This helps in not compromising the main feature of Gita – Universal Comprehensiveness. The polemist commentators on Gita found this Scripture established as one of the three highest Vedantic authorities. They attempted to turn it into a weapon of offence and defence against other schools and systems. The aim of Gita is precisely the opposite of this. The Gita is not a weapon for dialectical warfare. It is a gate opening on the whole world of spiritual truth and experience. The view of the Gita embraces all the provinces of that supreme region. Gita maps out. But it does not cut up or build walls or hedges to confine our vision.
There have been other synthesis in the long history of Indian thought.
1 In the beginning is the Vedic synthesis of the psychological being of man. It dwells in its highest flights and widest rangings of divine knowledge, power, joy, life and glory. It covers the cosmic existence of the gods. It pursued behind the symbols of the material universe into superior planes. These planes are hidden from the physical sense and the material mentality. The crown of this synthesis was meeting of man and god. It was in the experience of the Vedic Rishis. They saw in it something divine, transcendent and blissful. In their unity the increasing soul of man and the eternal divine fullness of the cosmic godheads meet perfectly and fulfill themselves.
2 The Upanishads take up from this crowning experience of the earlier seers. They make it their starting point for a high and profound synthesis of spiritual knowledge. They draw together into a great harmony all that had been seen and experienced by the inspired and liberated knowers of the Eternal. These experiences were from a wide range of great and fruitful period of spiritual seeking.
3 The Gita starts from this Vedantic synthesis. On the basis of its essential ideas the Gita builds another harmony of the three great means and powers. These are Love (Bhakti Yoga), Knowledge (Dnyan Yoga) and Works (Karma Yoga). Through these means the soul of man can directly approach and cast itself into the Eternal.
4 There is also a fourth system. It is a Tantric system. Though this system is less subtle and spiritually profound, it is even more bold and forceful than the synthesis of Gita. The Tantric system seizes even upon the obstacles to the spiritual life and compels them to become the means for a richer spiritual conquest. It enables us to experience the whole of Life in our divine scope as the Lila of the Divine. In some directions the Tantric system is more immediately rich and fruitful. It brings forward into the foreground the secrets also of the Hatha and Raja Yogas. This it does along with divine knowledge, divine works and an enriched devotion of the divine Love. It makes use of the body and of mental askesis for the opening up of the divine life on all its planes. To these aspects, the Gita gives only a passing and perfunctory attention.
Most importantly, Geeta grasps at the idea of divine perfectibility of man. This idea was possessed by the Vedic Rishis but thrown into the background by the intermediate ages. This idea is destined to fill a very large space in any future synthesis of human thought, experience and aspiration.
We at the coming day stand at the head of a new age of development. This new age must lead to such a new and larger synthesis. In this march towards the new age, we are not called upon to be orthodox Vedantins of any of the three schools or Tantrics. We need not adhere to one of the theistic religions of the past. We need not even entrench ourselves within the four corners of the teaching of the Gita. That will amount to limit ourselves and to attempt to create our spiritual life out of the being, knowledge and nature of others – of the men of the past. We need to build our spiritual life out of our own being and potentialities. We do not belong to the past dawns but to the noons of the future. A mass of new material is flowing into us. Certainly we have to assimilate the influences of the great theistic religions of India and of the world. We have also to incorporate a recovered sense of the meaning of Buddhism. But more than that, we need to take full account of the potent though limited revelations of modern knowledge and seeking. And beyond that, the remote and dateless past which seemed to be dead is returning upon us with an effulgence of many luminous secrets long lost to the consciousness of mankind. This past is now breaking out again from behind the veil.
All this points out to a new, a very rich, a very vast synthesis. A fresh and widely embracing harmonization of our gains is both an intellectual and a spiritual necessity of the future. The past syntheses have taken those which preceded them for their starting point. Similarly the future synthesis must proceed from what the great bodies of realized spiritual thought and experience in the past have given. This will put the new synthesis on firm ground. Among these the Gita takes a most important place.
Therefore, our object in studying the Gita will NOT be any of the following :
Scholastic or academical scrutiny of its thought
To place its philosophy in the history of metaphysical speculation
To deal with it in the manner of the analytical dialectician
We approach it for help and light. Our aim must be to distinguish its essential and living message. We need to find in it the essence which humanity has to seize for its perfection and its highest spiritual welfare.
Chapter 2
Divine Teacher
The peculiarity of the Gita among the great religious books of the worlds is that it does not stand apart as a work by itself. It is not the fruit of the spiritual life of a creative personality like Christ, Mahomed or Buddha. It is also not of an epoch of pure spiritual searching like the Veda and Upanishads. Gita is given as an episode in an epic history of nations. This history is related to wars, men and their deeds. It arises out of a critical moment in the soul of one of its leading personages. The moment is when he stands face to face with the crowning action of his life. The time is when he is called upon to do the work terrible, violent and sanguinary. The critical point is wen he must either recoil from it altogether or carry it through to its inexorable completion.
The modern criticism supposes that the Gita is a later composition inserted into the mass of the Mahabharata by its author. This was supposedly done in order to invest its teaching with the authority and popularity of the great national epic. We are here hardly concerned with this supposition. There seems to me to be strong grounds against this supposition. Moreover, the evidence, both extrinsic and internal, in support of this supposition is in the last degree scanty and insufficient.
For the arguments sake let us assume that the evidence is a sound evidence. Even in such a scenario, we have to note that the author has taken pains to interweave his work inextricably into the vast web of the larger poem. More ever, he is careful again and again to remind us of the situation from which the teaching has arisen. He returns to it prominently, not only at the end, but also in the middle of his profoundest philosophical disquisitions. In this background, we must accept the insistence of the author and give its full importance to this recurrent preoccupation of the Teacher and the disciple. The teaching of the Gita must therefore be regarded not merely in the light of a general spiritual philosophy or ethical doctrine. It is having a bearing upon a practical crisis in the application of ethics and spirituality to human life.
Firstly we must determine if we would grasp the central drift of the ideas of the Gita. Then only we can understand
What that crisis stands
What is the significance of the battle of Kurukhsetra
Its effect on Arjuna’s inner being
Very obviously a great body of the profoundest teaching can not be built round an ordinary occurrence. There has to be
Gulfs of deep suggestion and hazardous difficulty behind its superficial and outward aspects
The crisis should be such as can not be governed well enough by the ordinary everyday standards of thought and action
There are indeed three things in the Gita which are spiritually significant. They are almost symbolic. They are typical of the profoundest relations and problems of the spiritual life and of human existence at its roots. These three things are :
The divine personality of the Teacher
His characteristic relations with his disciple
Occasion of his teaching
We have to understand the symbolic meaning of these three things. These meanings are :
The teacher is God himself descended into humanity
The disciple is the first, as we might say in modern language, the representative man of his age. He is closest friend and chosen instrument of the Avatar. He is Avatar’s protagonist in an immense work and struggle. The secret purpose of this struggle is unknown to the actors in it. They are known only to the incarnate Godhead who guides it all from behind the veil of his unfathomable mind of knowledge.
The occasion is the violent crisis of that work and struggle. It is at the moment when the anguish and moral difficulty and blind violence of its apparent movements forces itself with the sock of a visible revelation on the mind of its representative man. It raises the whole question of :
The meaning of God in the world
The goal and drift and sense of human life and conduct.
India has from ancient times held strongly a belief in
The reality of the Avatars.
The descent into Form
The revelation of the Godhead in humanity
In the West this belief has never really stamped itself upon the mind. This is because it has been presented through exoteric Christianity as a theological dogma. It did not have any roots in the reason and general consciousness and attitude towards life. On the other hand, in India it has grown up and persisted as a logical outcome of the Vedantic view of life. It has taken firm root in the consciousness of the race. All existence is a manifestation of God because He is the only existence and nothing can be other than a real figuring or else a figment of that one reality. Therefore every conscious being is in part or in some way a descent of the Infinite into the apparent finiteness of name and form. But it is a veiled manifestation. There is a gradation between the supreme being of the Divine and the consciousness shrouded partly or wholly by ignorance of self in the finite. The conscious embodied soul is the spark of the divine Fire. This soul in man opens out to self-knowledge as it develops out of ignorance of self into self-being. In the same way the Divine pours itself into the forms of the cosmic existence. It is revealed ordinarily in an efflorescence of
Its powers
In energies and magnitudes of its knowledge, love and joy
Developed force of being
in degrees and faces of its divinity.
On the other hand the height of the conditioned manifestation of the Divine is reached when the divine Consciousness and Power takes upon itself the human form and the human mode of action. It possesses it not only by powers and magnitudes, by degrees and outward faces of itself but out of its eternal self-knowledge. It is when the Unborn knows itself and acts in the frame of the mental being and the appearance of birth. It is the full and conscious descent of the Godhead. We can then call it the Avatar.
The Vaishnava form of Vedantism has laid most stress upon this conception of Avatar. It expresses the relation of ‘God in man’ with the ‘man in God’ by the double figure of Nara-Narayana. It is associated historically with the origin of a religious school. It is very similar in its doctrines to the teaching of the Gita. Nara is the human soul which is the eternal companion of the Divine. It finds itself only when it awakens to that companionship. As the Gita says, it then begins to live in God. Narayana is the divine Soul. It is always present in our humanity. It is the secret guide, friend and helper of the human being. It is the “Lord who abides within the heart of creatures” as per the Gita. The supreme uplifting of the embodied human conscious-being into the unborn and eternal happens when the veil of that secret sanctuary is withdrawn from within us. Man then speaks face to face with God, hears the divine voice, receives the divine light and acts in the divine power. He then becomes capable of that dwelling in God. He gives up his whole consciousness into the Divine. This the Gita upholds as the best or highest secret of things – uttamam rahasyam.
This eternal divine Consciousness is always present in every human being. This God is always in man. When he partly or wholly takes possession of the human consciousness then we have the manifest Avatar. For this to happen, the God has to become in visible human shape the guide, teacher and leader of the world. We are not here referring to the case of the men who while living in their humanity yet feel something of the power or light or love of the divine Gnosis informing and conducting them. This is not Avatar. What we need is the direct action from that divine Gnosis itself, direct from its central force and plentitude. Then only we can call him the manifest Avatar. The inner Divinity is the eternal Avatar in every man. The human manifestation is its sign and development in the external world. This happens only in the case of manifest Avatar.
When we thus understand the conception of Avatarhood we see that the external aspect has only a secondary importance. This may be from the point of view of the fundamental teaching of Gita which is our present subject or for spiritual life generally. Such controversies would seem to a spiritually-minded Indian largely a waste of time. On the other hand there is a raging controversy in Europe over the historicity of Christ. An Indian would concede to it a considerable historical, but hardly any religious importance. In the final analysis, it does not matter whether a Jesus son of the carpenter Joseph was actually born in Nazareth or Bethlehem. It also does not matter whether he lived and taught and was done to death on a real or trumped-up charge of sedition. What is of relevance is to know by spiritual experience the inner Christ, to live uplifted in the light of his teaching and escape from the yoke of the natural Law by that atonement of man with God. The crucifixion is just the symbol of this atonement. We are mainly concerned if the Christ, God made man, lives within our spiritual being. If this be so, then it does not matter whether or not a son of Mary physically lived and suffered and died in Judea. Same is the case with Krishna. He matters to us as the eternal incarnation of the Divine. We are here not seriously interested in the historical teacher and leader of men.
Therefore in seeking the kernel of the thought of the Gita we need only concern ourselves with the spiritual significance of the human-divine Krishna of the Mahabharata. He is presented to us as the teacher of Arjuna on the battle-field of Kurukshetra. It is certainty that the historical Krishna existed. His name is cited first in the Chhandogya Upanishad. Here all we can gather about him is that he was well-known in spiritual tradition as a knower of the Brahman. In fact so well known in his personality and the circumstances of his life that it was sufficient to refer to him by the name of his mother as Krishna son of Devaki. This identified correctly the Krishna as we know him. In the same Upanishad we find mention of King Dhritarashtra son of Vichitravirya. Both of these persons are leading personages in the action of the Mahabharata. The tradition has therefore associated both of them closely. Therefore we may fairly conclude that they were actually contemporaries and that the epic is to a great extent dealing with historical occurrence imprinted firmly on the memory of the race. We know too that Krishna and Arjuna were the object of religious worship in the pre-Christian centuries. There is some reason to suppose that they were so in connection with a religious and philosophical tradition.
From this tradition the Gita may have gathered
Many of its elements.
Even the foundation of its synthesis of knowledge, devotion and works.
Perhaps also that the human Krishna was the founder, restorer or atleast one of the early teachers of this school
In spite of its later form the Gita may well represent the teaching of Krishna in Indian thought. The connection of that teaching with
The historical Krishna
Arjuna
The war of Kurukshetra
may be something more than a dramatic fiction.
In the Mahabharata Krishna is represented both as the historical character and the Avatar. His worship and Avatarhood must therefore have been well established by the time when the old story and poem or epic tradition of the Bharatas took its present form. This is apparently from the fifth to the first centuries B.C. Story or legend of the Avatar’s early life in Vrindavan has also been hinted in the poem. This has been developed by the Puranas into an intense and powerful spiritual symbol. It has exercised very profound influence on the religious mind of India. We also have an account of the life of Krishna in the Harivansha. It is very evidently full of legends which perhaps formed the basis of the Puranic accounts.
All this information is of considerable historical importance. However, it has no importance at all to our present purpose. We are concerned only with the figure of the divine Teacher as it is presented to us in the Gita. We are also concerned with the Power for which it there stands in the spiritual illumination of the human being. The Gita accepts the human Avatarhood. This is seen when the Lord speaks of the repeated and the constant manifestation of the Divine in humanity. He the eternal Unborn assumes to clothe itself apparently in finite form, the condition of becoming which we call birth. This he does by his Maya and by the power of the infinite Consciousness. But is not this upon which stress is laid. The stress is laid on
The transcendent, the cosmic and the internal Divine.
Source of all things
Master of all
Godhead secret in man
When the Gita speaks of the
Doer of violent Asuric austerities troubling the God within
Sin of those who despise the Divine lodged in the human body
Same Godhead destroying our ignorance by the blazing lamp of knowledge.
it is referring to this internal divinity.
The divine who speaks to the human soul in the Gita is this eternal Avatar and the God in man. It is the divine Consciousness always present in the human being who manifested in a visible form. He illumines the meaning of life and the secret of the divine action. He gives it the light of the divine knowledge and guidance. He offers assuring and fortifying word of the Master of existence in the hour when it comes face with the painful mystery of the world. This is what the Indian religious consciousness seeks to make near to itself. This it does in whatever form This includes :
Symbolic human image it enshrines in its temples
In the worship of its Avatars.
In the devotion to the human Guru through whom the voice of the one world-Teacher makes itself heard.
Through these it strives to awaken to that inner voice, to unveil that form of the Formless and stand face to face with that manifest divine Power, Love and Knowledge.
Secondly, there is the typical, almost the symbolic significance of the human Krishna. He stands behind the great action of the Mahabharata. This is not as its hero but as its secret centre and hidden guide. That action is the action of a whole world of men and nations.
1 Leader - Some of these men have come as helpers of an effort. They do not personally profit by the result of these efforts. To these people Krishna is a leader.
2 Opponent - Some of these men are the opponents. To these men he is also an opponent. He is the baffler of their designs and their slayer.
3 Instigator - To some men he seems to be an instigator of all evil. He is the destroyer of their old order and familiar world and secure conventions of virtue and good.
4 Counsellor – Some are representatives of that which has to be fulfilled and to them he is the counsellor, helper and friend.
5 Unseen Aid - Where the action pursues its natural course or the doers of the work have to suffer at the hands of its enemies and undergo the ordeals which prepare them for mastery. In such situations the Avatar is unseen or appears only for occasional comfort and aid. But at every crisis his hand is felt. However it is done in such a way that all imagine themselves to be the protagonists.
Even Arjuna, his nearest friend and chief instrument does not perceive that he is an instrument. He has to confess at last that all the while he did not really know his divine Friend. Arjuna has received counsel from the wisdom of Krishna, help from his power, has loved and been loved, has even adored without understanding his divine nature. Like all the other men Arjuna has been guided through his own egoism. The counsel, help and direction have been given in the language and received by the thoughts of the Ignorance. Krishna does not reveal his Avatarhood even to those whom he has chosen for his work till the time of final crisis. This is the moment when all has been pushed to the terrible issue of the struggle on the field of Kurukshetra. This is when the Avatar stands at last as the charioteer in the battle-car which carries the destiny of the fight. Even at this moment he does not pose himself as the fighter but as the charioteer.
Thus the figure of Krishna becomes, as it were, the symbol of the divine dealings with humanity. Like the life of Arjuna and other personages of the Mahabharata and the fierce battle of Kurukshetra, we are moved through our egoism and ignorance. We think that we are the doers of the work. We vaunt ourselves as the real causes of the result. We only occasionally see that which moves us. We see it as some vague or even some human and earthly fountain of knowledge. We see it as aspiration, force, some Principle or Light or Power which we acknowledge. We adore without knowing what it is. This goes on until the occasion arises that forces us to stand arrested before the Veil.
The whole wide action of man in life is covered by the action in which this divine figure moves. It covers not merely the inner life but all this obscure course of the world. We can judge it only by the twilight of the human reason. This happens when it dimly opens up the little span in front of our uncertain advance. Gita is the culmination of such an Divine action. It is its distinguishing feature from other Scriptures. This action gives rise to its teaching. It assigns prominence and bold relief to the gospel of works. This gospel is enunciated by Gita. It is done with an emphasis and force which we do not find in other Scriptures. Krishna emphatically declares the necessity of action not only in Gita but also in other passages of the Mahabharata. However in Gita only he reveals its secret and the divinity behind our works.
The symbolic companionship of Arjuna and Krishna and of the human and the divine soul is also expressed elsewhere in Indian thought. We can find it in the heavenward journey of Indra and Kutsa seated in one chariot. We also meet it in the figure of two birds upon one tree in the Upanishad. It is also there in the twin figures of Nara and Narayana – the seers who tapasya together for the knowledge. In all these three examples of companionship, the main focus is on the idea of Divine Knowledge in which all action culminates. On the other hand we find in Gita that the emphasis is on the action which leads to that knowledge and in which the divine Knower figures Himself. Arjuna as human and Krishna as divine stand together not as seers in the peaceful hermitage of meditation. Instead, they appear as fighter and holder of the reins in the clamorous field. It is in the midst of the hurtling shafts of the chariot of the battle.
The Teacher of the Gita is therefore not just the God in man who unveils Himself in the world of knowledge. He is more importantly the God in man who moves our whole world of action. Our humanity exists and struggles and labours by and for this God. Towards this God all human life travels and progresses. He is the secret Master of works and sacrifice and the Friend of the human peoples.
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