The Yoga of Gunas

The Blessed Lord said: 1. I will again declare (to you) that Supreme Knowledge, the best of all knowledges, having known which, all the sages have attained Supreme Perfection after this life. Even a very intelligent man will need repeated consolation when he is extremely agitated by any dire emotion. He who identifies himself with his outward personality and behaves as a finite mortal, cannot, in his life of agitations and sorrows, easily comprehend and appreciate that in his essential nature, he is the Infinite, the Divine. Spiritual truths are to be constantly repeated, again and again, by the teacher, until the student's rebellious intellect apprehends them sufficiently. A mother feeding a little baby in an Indian home is a typical example; the mother will have to coax the child repeatedly until sufficient food goes into its stomach. Similarly, spiritual ideas will have to be repeated many times by the teachers until they develop into strong inward personal convictions in the student. Therefore, the chapter opens with a declaration by the Lord, "AGAIN WILL I TELL THEE." Not that the Supreme theme has not yet been declared, but, for the purposes of elucidation and correct appreciation, repetition is unavoidable. The theme of this chapter declared here is, "THAT SUPREME KNOWLEDGE WHICH IS BETTER THAN ALL OTHER KNOWLEDGES." This should not be taken too literally. The subject-matter of the chapter deals with the behaviour of man and the different influences that play on his subtle body in life. This cannot be the Supreme theme in philosophy. But it is declared here as the "highest Knowledge," inasmuch as, without a correct understanding of this theme, and without self-detection and timely self-correction of the mental mechanism, it will be impossible for a seeker to walk safely the path divine. HAVING KNOWN WHICH, ALL THE MUNIS HAVE ATTAINED TO THE HIGHEST PERFECTION --- A precise knowledge of the gunas, it is claimed here, will make the pilgrimage easier for all seekers. A true and exhaustive knowledge of the 'path,' the possible dangers en-route, the difficulties that might arise --- these should pre-warn a pilgrim and he can undertake his journey well equipped to meet all these possible dangers. An understanding of the possible mischiefs of the mind is a healthy warning to a diligent student of spirituality, so that he can easily avoid the usual dangers, and meet his subjective problems efficiently whenever they arise in him.

Muni does not mean an old man with a beard, living in a jungle, eating roots and berries, but it means, "A man of reflection and contemplation" (Manana Sheelavan). Thus, an understanding of the gunas, their nature and their tyranny, when and how they rise up in revolt against our peaceful progress, are all preliminary information useful for all Men-of-Reflection, who constantly digest and assimilate their experiences in life and thereby gain

"wisdom." AFTER THIS LIFE --- The attainment of Perfection is promised here, as in many Upanishads, "AFTER THIS LIFE." Some thinkers take this declaration too literally and say that Perfection cannot be gained in this life while living here. Very efficiently and logically, Shri Shankaracharya and others break up this argument and assert, again and again, that Perfection can be gained, here and now, by any diligent seeker. According to these Acharyas "AFTER THIS LIFE" means "at the end of our ego-centric misconceptions of life." Even in our life, we find that the bachelor must die to become the married man; the virgin must die before she becomes a mother. In the above cases, the person is not dead but bachelor-hood and virginity have ended, so that they may acquire husband-hood and mother-hood. Thus, the individuals remaining the same, their status changes. Through right reflection and true understanding, our false values-of-life can end, and in the newly found "wisdom," a life of better illumination and greater equanimity can be lived. This hatching of the 'perfect,' out of its shell-like imperfections around, is achieved in the inward warmth of constant contemplation. The mind of an individual who lives diligently with intellectual dynamism, may come under the destructive influences of any of these gunas, and thereby lose its serene equilibrium in contemplation. Avoid it and cent-percent success is assured. Thus a knowledge of the three gunas and their behaviour helps indirectly every enthusiastic seeker. THE LORD NOW PROCEEDS TO DECLARE THAT THIS

"KNOWLEDGE" DEFINITELY LEADS TO SUPREME PERFECTION:

2. They who, having refuge in this "Knowledge, " have attained to My Being, are neither born at the time of Creation, nor are they disturbed at the time of dissolution.

The greatness of the "knowledge" contained in the chapter is not so much in its philosophical implications as in the benefit which is available to a seeker who diligently makes use of it. He who has realised correctly the deep significances in this chapter, can reach the State-of- Perfection; he shall "ATTAIN TO MY BEING" says the Lord. Whenever Krishna uses the first person singular 'I' in the Geeta he indicated the State of Spiritual Perfection. The theme of the chapter, as we have already indicated, is a thorough study of the play of the gunas that bind us down to the lower plane of matter identifications, and therefore, to the ego-sense. When once we get away from the gunas and totally stop their play in our mental life, we get redeemed from our limited sense of individuality, and instantaneously, we shall experience our Absolute Universal Nature. The sorrows of the dream --- though very true to the dreamer while he dreams --- cannot affect him the moment he wakes up. The joys and sorrows belonging to one plane-of-Consciousness cannot stretch their arms to throttle us in another plane-of-Consciousness. A seeker who has, through meditation, mastered his mind and has transcended it, and therefore, has reached beyond the ordinary realms of Consciousness, cannot thereafter have any sense of finitude and the consequent material sorrows, as in his earlier days of Matter identifications. He rediscovers himself to be the Omnipresent Reality, which knows neither Creation nor dissolution, in Its Absolute State. This is indicated here: NEITHER ARE THEY BORN AT THE TIME OF CREATION --- Creation is a trick of the mind and when we are no more expressing through the mind, and therefore, no longer conditioned by it, we cannot have the experience of any "Creation." When anger conquers my mind, I experience and behave as an angry man; but when anger has receded and my mind is calmed, I can no longer continue to behave as a bad-tempered man. The tricks of the mind consist in projecting a world- of-Creation, thought by thought, and in feeling oneself irredeemably conditioned by one's own imaginations. As long as one is drowned in the mind, the storms of the bosom must necessarily toss one about. On transcending the mind, we realise the Self and its Infinite Nature, and therefore, there is no Creation; nor shall we feel ourselves as having been born. NOR ARE THEY DISTURBED AT THE TIME OF DISSOLUTION --- The sorrows of destruction are the pangs of death. While dreaming one can go through the sorrows of a dream-death, and yet, if at that time one wakes up, one will at that very moment, laugh at one's sorrows at the delusory death-pangs suffered in the dream. Having realised the Absolute Nature, thereafter in that State of Infinite Existence, one can no longer experience either the sorrows of death or the troubles of finitude. But in order to conquer the mind, a seeker must know very clearly the tricks by which the mind generally hoodwinks him. A knowledge of the strategy of our enemies is an essential prerequisite to plan out our attacks successfully. The stanza is, therefore, right when it declares that a thorough knowledge of the gunas will be helpful to everyone trying to master his own mind and reach the freedom from all its moral agitations and ethical imperfections. THE FOLLOWING TWO STANZAS EXPLAIN HOW THE UNIVERSE IS EVOLVED BY THE UNION BETWEEN SPIRIT AND MATTER --- Spirit enveloped in Matter is the pluralistic expression of Existence in the world. From the inert stone to the greatest Prophet-of- Wisdom, every existence is but the Spirit expressing through Matter-vestures. In an earlier chapter, we have already seen very clearly how the "Knower-of-the-Field" working in the "Field" and identifying himself with it, becomes the individualised "Ego," extremely sensitive to the sorrows and tragedies, joys, and successes of its environments. THE LORD NOW PROCEEDS TO EXPLAIN, IN WHAT WAY THE MARRIAGE BETWEEN THE "KNOWER-OF- THE-FIELD" AND THE "FIELD" TAKES PLACE, AND HOW THE UNION COMES TO BREED OUR ENDLESS SORROWS: 3. My womb is the great BRAHMAN (MULA PRAKRITI) ;

in that I place the germ; from which, O Bharata, is the birth of all beings.

MY WOMB IS THE GREAT BRAHMAN (MULA PRAKRITI) --- Krishna, the Pure Consciousness, is trying to explain the "One-Womb" from which the entire Universe has arisen. On many occasions, in our discourses, we had stopped to explain how the One- Consciousness, identifying with various layers of Matter, manifests Itself as different entities, with different potentialities. A Prime Minister is also a voter --- just a single voter under the constitution of the country. But a Prime Minister's powers are a million times more than any average voter can ever hope to have. This omnipotency is gained by his OFFICE, because the voter in him has been successful in identifying himself with the "heart" of the majority of voters. The Supreme, identifying Itself with the subtle Vasanas in an individual, becomes an individualised "Ego." If any one of us (as a single voter) can renounce his limited tendencies and identify himself with the total thought-life of the Universe (the total aspirations of the Janata), the Consciousness that identified Itself with 'total mind' (the individual who identifies himself with the majority of voters) becomes the Ishwara (Prime Minister). In the stanza, in the language of Vedanta, it is said that the total-Vasanas of the world, meaning the "total-causal- body," is the "Womb," which gets impregnated by the Lord. When life functions as the "total-causal-body," it becomes dynamic and expresses itself as the "total-mind- intellect" (Hiranya-garbha).

It has already been explained that the Light of Consciousness conditioned by the mind and intellect- reflected in the mental pool of thought --- is the sense-of- ego, the individuality, manifest in each of us. The total potential factor, from which the world-of-matter emerges, is termed as Nature --- Prakriti. The Prakriti then is called the 'Great Cause,' because it embraces the entire Universe which is but its effect. Again, from Nature, the entire Universe has arisen and the Universe of names and forms is nourished and fattened by the very source which has given birth to it. Therefore, the total nature is termed here, as elsewhere in Vedanta, as the Great (Mahat)-Brahma, the total-mind-intellect-equipments. IN THAT, I PLACE THE GERM --- This total potential Nature is the virgin "Womb," in which, when the shaft of Consciousness penetrates, the Light of Awareness that consequently plays in it, is Its act of impregnation. Thus vitalised by Life, the inert Prakriti becomes dynamised, grows and manifests itself as the spectacular Universe. Hence it is said, "FROM WHICH IS THE BIRTH OF ALL BEINGS." Every creative action owes its origin and progress to a tendency for it in the artist. When this tendency in him becomes vibrant with a part of the life in him, it becomes potential, struggles to express itself in terms of ideas and feelings, and later on gets expressed in the particular medium of art chosen by the artist. He may express it through colours, as in painting; through songs, as in music; through stones, as in sculpture; or through words, as in literature. But a dead artist can no more express anything --- even in terms of artistic ideas or thoughts. The total Universe of ideas and tendencies (Vasanas), when graced by Life, becomes vigorous and expresses as the Universe created. The world of Vasanas, of ideas, of thoughts, and of actions, together constituting the total Nature, is ever controlled and directed by the gunas, and therefore, the three gunas are together called in Vedanta as Maya, the "cause of the Universe." Maya, expressed in the individual bosom, is called 'ignorance'(avidya). The 'ignorance'is, therefore, the microcosmic expression of Maya, and the total

"ignorance," in its macrocosmic expression, is Maya. An individualised EGO is under the control of avidya, while Maya is under the control of Ishwara. We are only to remember that we have been told already in the previous chapter, viz., that the "Field" and the

"Knower-of-the-Field" are the two aspects of Nature (Prakriti), and both of them function on the same Substratum, the Absolute Eternal Truth, the Lord Krishna Himself. The Supreme, functioning in the "Field," becomes the Enjoyer- of-the-Field, and therefore, the "Knower-of-the-Field," detaching from the "Field," rediscovers himself to be the Pure Absolute Consciousness.

CONTINUING TO ELABORATE THIS SUBTLE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MATTER AND SPIRIT, AND EXPLAINING HOW THE ABSOLUTE IS THE UNCONTAMINATED AND EVER-VITALISING PRINCPLE IN BOTH THE "FIELD" AND IN THE

"KNOWER-OF-THE-FIELD":

4. Whatever forms are produced, O Kaunteya, in all the wombs whatsoever, the great BRAHMA is their womb, and I the seed- giving Father.

IN ALL WOMBS --- In the living world, infinite varieties of beings are born and continue to live, and they are replaced at every moment by millions of new births. If the whole Universe is looked at in one gaze, we find therein, seething activities of new births. Everywhere, the birth of an organism is nothing but an expression of Spirit through a given matter-envelopment. Thus viewed, every Matter particle is the "womb," which, when dynamised by the

"Light of Consciousness," becomes a potential living being. Every expression of life is Matter containing within its bosom a tiny spark of the Spirit. Lord Krishna, as the Supreme Consciousness, Absolute and Infinite, declares here figuratively: "I AM THE FATHER OF THE UNIVERSE," who places the sperm-of- life in the womb-of-Nature (Prakriti). A "Field," in itself, has no existence without the "Knower-of-the-Field" vitalising it. A steam engine, minus steam, is only so much iron in that particular shape! But when steam passes through it, the engine expresses its motive force and strength, and its particular ability, locomotion. Similarly, the body-mind-intellect are only so much minerals unless Consciousness expresses Itself, through it. No doubt, a bachelor, in himself, can have no child to claim as his own, however potent he may be. He has to get married and his seed is to be placed in the womb. The Spirit cannot express Itself without the Matter. These ideas are summarised in this stanza when Lord Krishna says that He is the Eternal Father, who impregnates the entire world-of-Matter and arranges the play of life on the stage of the world. The Geeta happened to be declared and written long before Christ, and therefore, the Bible cannot claim, as some of us have been coaxed to believe, that the great Fatherhood of God is a fact recognised ONLY by the Christian faith. At best, we can say that it is an idea borrowed from earlier religions. The Hindus did not over- emphasise this Father-hood of God, because, even though the idea is quite poetic, philosophically, if cannot hold much water. But as later religions found such ideas more easily digestible for the not-so-intelligent masses, they seem to have borrowed them liberally. TAKING UP THE MAIN THEME OF THE CHAPTER, LORD KRISHNA EXPLAINS WHAT THE "GUNAS" ARE, AND HOW THEY BIND THE SPIRIT WITHIN MATTER TO CREATE THE INDIVIDUALISED EGO-SENSE IN US:

5. Purity, passion, and inertia --- these qualities (GUNAS) , O! mighty-armed, born of "PRAKRITI" bind, the Indestructible, Embodied one, fast in the body.

GUNAS BORN OF PRAKRITI --- It is indeed difficult to find an adequate rendering for the word "guna" in English. The tradition of thought in the West has nothing equivalent to these terms, as the science of psychology in the West is even today passing through its very early childhood. The influences (gunas) under which the thoughts function in each bosom, will be considered by it only when analytical and experimental psychology has exhausted its observations and study. The concept of Sattwa is rather that of perfect purity and luminosity, the opposite of "foul-darkness" called Tamas, and distinctly different from the "dusky-colour" of Rajas. We find in our literature that these gunas are associated with-light (Sattwa), red-colour (Rajas) and darkness (Tamas). The term guna also means 'rope,' by which, the spiritual beauty of life in us is tied down to the inert and insentient Matter-vestures. In short, gunas are the three different influences under which every human mind has to play in such an endless variety at different moments of its changing environments.

These gunas are born of Matter. Produced by Nature, the

"Field," they generate a feeling of attachment, and successfully delude the indwelling Self and chain It AS IT WERE, to the cycle of birth-and-death, in a stream of constant change and pain. The gunas have no separate existence as attributes inherent in a substance. All that we can say is that they are as many different mental climates in which the minds behave so differently from each other, according to their given moods, governed by the predominating gunas at any particular moment of observation. These gunas, like chords, AS IT WERE, bind the Spirit to Matter and create, in the Infinite Spirit, the painful sense of limitations and sorrows. The Infinite and All-pervading Spirit can never be contaminated by the dreamy projections of a delusory world-of-Matter. The ghost that emerges from a post cannot leave its marks on the post. Even after murdering a dozen people in my dream, my hands, that were dripping with blood, cannot, when I wake up, carry any blood stains. While dreaming, no doubt, the "dream world" of my own imaginations was real to the dreamer in me. But, on waking, the waker in me cannot have any marks left over on him from the dream. Similarly, the Eternal Life, functioning in Matter, gets, AS IT WERE, bound to the limitations and finitude of Matter, and this delusory experience is continued as long as the gunas bind It to and entangle It in Matter.

Now it becomes evident how a clear understanding of what constitutes the gunas and how they bind us to Matter will provide us surely with a charter of freedom, a scheme for getting ourselves freed from the tentacles of our own imaginations. The embodied-self, though Indestructible and Infinite, in Its identifications and attachments with the body, feels the changes in the body as Its own changes. This delusion is maintained, in each one of us, by the play of the three gunas in us. In the following stanzas, we have a clear enumeration of the behaviour of the mind when it comes under the influence of each of these gunas separately. OF THESE THREE GUNAS, "SATTWA" IS THUS DEFINED:

6. Of these, "SATTWA" which because of its stainlessness, is luminous and healthy, (unobstructive) . It binds by (creating) attachment to 'happiness' and attachment to 'knowledge, ' O sinless one.

Nothing can be defined as such --- this is an accepted fact in all sciences. No disease can be defined by itself; nor can any emotion be described as such --- without explaining its symptoms and expressions. So too, no gunas can be defined directly. In the following stanzas we find descriptions of a mind under the influence of each of these gunas, by enumerating the type of emotions that are aroused in it, and its peculiar and distinct behaviours. This symptomatic description is, no doubt, more helpful to us, the seekers, because each of us can observe and analyse the types of emotions and thoughts arising in our mind-intellect equipments and determine what type of guna is governing us at any given time. BECAUSE OF ITS STAINLESSNESS, SATTWA IS LUMINOUS --- When Sattwa comes to dominate as the most important influence in our thought-life, because of its purity, it is ever luminous --- it has neither the dull- colour of Rajas, nor the dark impurities of Tamas. Under the Sattwa-influence, the mind is steady, reflecting ever faithfully, the Consciousness, the Self. FREE FROM EVIL i. e. HEALTHY --- Evil tendencies must rise in the mind long before the action expressing the same is committed in the world outside; as the thought, so the actions. Thus the evil starts germinating in the mental life. We call that an evil whereby we try to satisfy the appetites of the flesh, the selfish agitations of the mind and the ego-centric desires of our head. Ego-centric self- gratification is the womb from which all evils are born. Such low impulses and confusions can arise only when the mind is under the influence of Rajas and Tamas. Therefore, what is meant here is, Sattwa is free from all evils, as it is relatively free from Rajasic agitations or Tamasic darkness. Though Sattwa is thus the most divine mental attitude, still it binds us and acts as a limitation on our divine nature.

SATTWA BINDS BY ATTACHMENT TO 'HAPPINESS' AND 'KNOWLEDGE' --- When the mind is purified from all its agitations (Rajas) and the intellect is cleansed of its agitations (Rajas) and the intellect is cleansed of its low passions and criminal lusts (Tamas), no doubt, the personality becomes purified, experiencing a greater share of inward peace and happiness and enjoys a greater share of subtle understanding and intellectual comprehension. But even these can create a bondage on the freedom of the Absolute Self. A gold-chain, if sufficiently strong can also bind as any iron-chain. "Goodness," though it gives us freedom from all vulgarities, can also shackle us within its own limitation! A perfect one, absolutely free, is bound neither by goodness, nor by evil. Consciousness, the All-pervading Principle of Awareness, expressed as the Self, in each one of us, does not directly comprehend any object or idea in the world outside. What we generally understand as intelligence is the Eternal Light of Consciousness, reflected in our mind-intellect- equipment. Naturally therefore, the capacity to perceive the world intelligently, differs from person to person because in no two of us the inner equipments can be the same. The reflection in a reflecting medium, will depend entirely upon the cleanliness and steadiness of the medium. If the mind is clean and the intellect steady, a more efficient intelligence is manifest. Thus, whenever a given mind is in an inspiring and creative mood, it is actually intelligent and it is capable of taking longest flights into the realms of wisdom. On all such occasions of vast knowing and deep understanding, the inner equipment is under the influence of Sattwa, wherein the agitations, created by Rajas, and the murkiness, created by Tamas, do not express themselves. Sattwa also binds the Infinite to Matter through the attachment to 'knowledge' and 'happiness'. When once one has experienced the thrilling joys of creative thinking and the inspiring life of goodness and wisdom one gets so attached to them that one will thereafter sacrifice anything around in order to live constantly that subtle joy. A true scientist, working self-dedicatedly in his laboratory; a painter working at his canvas in his shabby studio, pale with hunger and weak with disease; a poet hunted out from society, living in public parks, seeking his own joys in his own visions and words; martyrs facing cruel persecutions; politicians suffering long years of exile; mountaineers embracing death --- are all examples of how, having known the subtler thrills of a higher joy, when the bosom is inspired with Sattwa, the individual becomes as much bound with attachment to them as others are to their own material joys and possessions. NOW THE DIAGNOSIS OF 'RAJAS,' WHEN IT COMES TO PLAY ITS HAVOC IN THE HUMAN BOSOM:

7. Know thou "RAJAS" (to be) of the nature of passion, the source of thirst and attachment; it binds fast, O Kaunteya, the embodied one, by attachment to action.

A seeker, who is striving to conquer his own mind must know all its subtle inclinations by which, again and again, his thoughts run amuck only to return and increasingly sabotage his inner personality. KNOW "RAJAS" TO BE THE NATURE OF PASSION --- Where there is an onslaught of Rajoguna--Influences in the bosom, man's mind is wrecked with a hundred painful passions. Passions are the main symptoms of the working of Rajoguna in the psychological field. Passion expresses itself in a million different urges, desires, emotions, and feelings. Yet, all of them can fall only under two distinct categories: desires and attachments. Thus, in the Geeta, Lord Krishna mentions these two as the very sources from which all passions arise. GIVES RISE TO THIRST AND ATTACHMENT --- The term used in Sanskrit for 'desire' is 'thirst'. When an individual is thirsty, nothing, for the time being, is of as much importance as water, which alone can satisfy his thirst. Just as a thirsty man would struggle and suffer, wanting nothing but water to relieve his pangs, so too, a human personality thirsts for the satisfaction of every desire that burns him down. Once the desire is fulfilled, a sense of attachment comes like a vicious passion to smother down all the peace and joy of the mind. DESIRE is our mental relationship towards 'objects' which have not yet been acquired by us and ATTACHMENT is the mental slavishness binding us to the objects so acquired. These two --- DESIRE for the acquisition of things and the creation of situations which are expected to yield a certain quota of personal happiness, and the sense of clinging ATTACHMENT to things already so acquired --- are the volcanoes that constantly throw up their molten lava to scorch and raze the smiling fields of life. The burning lava, that is emitted by these fiery mountains, comprising the various passions that man expresses in his sensual life, make up the strifes and struggles to acquire, to possess and to guard what is already gained. IT BINDS FAST THE EMBODIED ONE BY ATTACHMENT TO ACTION --- When once an individual has come under the influence of Rajas, he expresses innumerable desires, and bound in his own attachments, he lives on in the world manifesting a variety of passions. Such a passionate being-goaded by his desires for things not yet acquired, and crushed under the weight and responsibility of his attachments to things that he possesses --- can never keep quiet but must necessarily act on endlessly earning and spending, and yet thirsting for more and more. Anxious to have more, fearing to lose, he becomes entangled in the joys of his successes, involved in the pangs of his failures, and lives as an "embodied-one," chained by his own actions.

Actions are born of passions. Passions arise from desires and attachments. And all these are the symptoms of the presence of the Rajoguna-influences upon our mind. Thus, if Sattwa-guna binds us with its own anxieties for happiness and peace, wisdom and knowledge, as has been said in the previous stanza, Rajo-guna also seemingly binds the Infinite Self to Matter-vestures and makes It play the part of a limited being through an endless array of inexhaustible actions. Though the Self is not an agent (ACTOR), Rajas makes It act with the idea "I AM THE DOER." TAMAS ALSO HELPS TO BIND THE DIVINE TO THE MORTAL FLESH. HOW?

8. But, know thou TAMAS is born of ignorance, deluding all embodied beings, it binds fast, O Bharata, by heedless-ness, indolence and sleep.

TAMAS IS BORN OF 'IGNORANCE' --- Under the influence of Tamas man's intellectual capacity to discriminate between the right and wrong gets veiled and he starts acting as if under some hallucination or stupefaction. Lord Krishna says that Tamas, in the human personality, binds it to its lower nature by providing it with endless misconceptions and miscomprehensions of the true divine purpose of life, which, naturally, forces one in that condition to live in indolence, heedless of the higher purposes. One thereafter lives ever asleep to the nobler and the diviner aspirations of life. There is no consistency of purpose, brilliance of thought, tenderness of emotion, or nobility of action in an individual who comes under the contamination of the Tamoguna- influences. So far, the Lord has been systematically mentioning the symptoms which are observed in our mental life when these gunas pollute our inner tranquillity. These three gunas not only bring about different amounts of divine brilliance in a given individual but also limit the Eternal Self, in all Its perfection, to feel and act as THOUGH It is limited and conditioned by the matter-envelopments. AGAIN, THE ACTIONS OF THE 'GUNAS' IN OUR INNER WORLD ARE BRIEFLY INDICATED:

9. SATTWA attaches to happiness, RAJAS to action, O Bharata, while TAMAS, verily, shrouding knowledge, attaches to heedlessness.

These are the ideas that have already been described in the three stanzas; but, the Geeta is given out as a conversation between two individuals; a Divine Man-of- Wisdom, anxious to help the other, who is an ordinary man of average intelligence. SATTWA ATTACHES ITSELF TO HAPPINESS --- An individual, who has experienced the thrills of the creative moments in life --- a scientist, an artist, a poet, or for that matter any independent thinker --- will not ever like to come down to the passionate world of Rajas, or into the dark sorrows of Tamas. Sattwa makes us attached to the inward happiness, arising from life fully lived. RAJAS TO ACTION --- If, on the other hand, one is under the influence of Rajas, it makes one naturally passionate with hundreds of thirsty 'desires' and deep 'attachments,' and in the course of their fulfilment, one is made to sweat and toil in the fields of endless activities. TAMAS, SHROUDING KNOWLEDGE ATTACHES ONE TO HEEDLESS-NESS --- When Tamas comes to play, by its very nature, it veils right judgement, and in the resultant indiscriminations, we get attached to wrong comprehensions. We become heedless to the calls of the Higher in us. WHEN DO THE 'GUNAS' PRODUCE THE EFFECTS DESCRIBED ABOVE?

10. Now SATTWA rises (prevails) , O Bharata, having over- powered RAJAS and inertia (TAMAS) ; now RAJAS, having over-powered SATTWA and inertia; and inertia (TAMAS) , having over-powered SATTWA and RAJAS. At this level of our discussion, any intelligent student should wonder whether these gunas produce their effects, or act, at different times, each by turn. If they act, all at one time, do they act in perfect concord, or in mutual discord? Naturally, the Lord, in His Divine Song, anticipates this doubt, and answers it in this stanza. He explains how these gunas act at different times --- each one of them becoming prominent and powerful for the time being. SATTWA RISES --- The stanza clearly shows that at any given moment, a human personality, if analysed, can be found to work under the influence of one predominating guna, wherein the other two gunas are not totally absent, but are only of secondary importance. When we say that one is under the influence of Sattwa, it means that Rajas and Tamas in him are, at that given moment, not quite prominent to contribute enough of their particular nature. Thus, when Sattwa predominates over Rajas and Tamas, it produces, in that bosom, at that time, its own nature of happiness and knowledge. When Rajas predominates over Sattwa and Tamas, it expresses its own nature of passions and desires, attachments and actions. When Tamas predominates over Sattwa and Rajas, it produces its own effects of shrouding knowledge and making the personality heedless of its nobler duties.

BUT HOW ARE WE TO KNOW WHEN A PARTICULAR 'GUNA'IS PREDOMINATING OVER THE OTHER 'GUNAS'?

11. When, through every gate (sense) in this body, the light-of- intelligence shines, then it may be known that 'SATTWA' is predominant.

Here follows a discussion of three stanzas, each giving us a more subjective insight into the symptoms produced by the guna concerned, from which we can understand, under the influence of which guna the personality is working at any given moment. WHEN THROUGH EVERY GATE (SENSE) IN THIS BODY, THE LIGHT-OF-INTELLIGENCE SHINES --- The apertures of the physical structure, through which the perceived world-of-objects enters us, are the windows-of- knowledge, the "sense organs." Through these holes, the Light-of-Awareness, goes out, AS IT WERE, to illumine the various objects of the world. The Knowledge in me pouring out through the eyes, becomes the power of vision and illumines for me all the forms and colours of the world. The same Eternal Awareness, through the ears, which cannot illumine form, brings within my comprehension the world-of-sound around me. So too, the Divine Light of Cognition beaming out through the tongue illumines the taste.

Thus, "seven tongues of flame" shoot out from the same Fire-of-Knowledge, the Self, in us. Each beam of light, as it emerges from each window in the body, illumines one aspect of the world outside. It must be the experience of all that, while we are perceiving something, and efficiently illumining it, we are really in a state of Sattwa, at this moment. If there be at the time Rajas and Tamas in us, our perception is hampered. If the mind is agitated by Rajas and the intellect is veiled by Tamas, even ordinary, efficient perceptions become almost impossible. Thus, the more often and more completely we go beyond Rajas and Tamas, and thereby make our bosom full of Sattwa, the more grows our capacity to observe, to analyse, to understand and to become aware of the world outside and judge it correctly. It has already been explained that the mechanism of knowing the world outside is the intellect; and, the Consciousness, reflected in the intellect, is the light-of- intelligence by which we illumine the world of ideas, feelings and objects available in our life. The sunlight outside never comes directly to a room to illumine the things in the room. It is always the light of the Sun reflected on the walls that illumines a cosy room. Similarly the Light of Consciousness, reflected in the intellect, is the beam of light that illumines the world-of-objects. The gunas are the influences under which the mind and intellect live.

It is very well known that a clean and steady reflecting medium will reflect more efficiently than an unsteady, unclean surface. Rajas creates agitations and makes the intellect unsteady; Tamas created veilings and makes the intellect unclean. Naturally, the greater the proportion of Rajas and Tamas in a bosom, the lesser will be its quota of intelligence. Therefore, it is highly scientific to say that, "at the moment of knowing and comprehending the world," one's bosom is surely in its pure Sattwik-MOOD. THE CHARACTERISTIC MARKS THAT INDICATE THE PRE-DOMINANCE OF "RAJAS" ARE DESCRIBED IN THE FOLLOWING:

12. Greed, activity, undertaking of actions, restless-ness longing --- these arise when RAJAS is predominant, O best in the Bharata family.

GREED, ACTIVITY, ENTERPRISE, (UNDERTAKING-OF- ACTIONS) UNREST (RESTLESS-NESS), LONGING --- Enumerating the type of thoughts and motives that rise up in a mind in which Rajas predominates, Lord Krishna lists the following as the most important. GREED is the inexhaustible desire to appropriate the property of another, an appetite which has the tendency of growing more in volume as we satisfy it. By "ACTIVITY" is meant here, officially engaging oneself in matters which are not one's own. The term ENTERPRISE is here used to indicate all activities motivated by extreme egoism, undertaken with the intention to fulfil and satisfy the ego-centric, and therefore, the selfish desires. RESTLESSNESS is another type of experience that is lived through by a Rajasic personality. Because of restlessness, the individual fails to enjoy quietude. The term UNREST is oscillation of the mind which is defined as by Shri Shankaracharya "Giving vent to joy, attachment, etc." To a large extent these three are inter-connected, and each successive one can be seen to have risen from the previous tendency. Greed must make the greedy very active indeed, and, when an activity motivated by greed is undertaken, it expresses in selfish enterprises, and once a man enters such a field of selfish activities --- in his anxiety for the results, in his mental agitations --- he creates a set of unhealthy circumstances around him and gets dragged towards their centre, where he is led to perpetrate more and more bitter cruelties, base immoralities and bloody crimes; and his inward quietude gets completely shattered. He experiences extreme unrest. Naturally, one who is in this condition of mind, sweating and labouring in the outer fields, with a heart poisoned by Rajas, must come under the sway of endless longings --- for things not-yet-accomplished, for objects not-yet- acquired, for profits not-yet-gained. In short, under the contagion of Rajas, the psychological being in us gets extremely persecuted by its own restlessness which gets expressed in its endless plans, exhausting actions, agonising desires, painful longings, maddening greed and oppressive restlessness. When such an individual works in society, his sorrows do not rest with himself --- they spread, like contagion, to many thousands around him. SIMILARLY, WHEN 'TAMAS' PRE-DOMINATES, WHAT EXACTLY ARE THE SYMPTOMS? LISTEN:

13. Darkness, inertness, heedlessness and delusion --- these arise when 'TAMAS' is predominant, O descendant-of-Kuru.

DULLNESS, INERTNESS, HEEDLESSNESS AND DELUSION --- When these symptoms are recognised by an individual in himself, according to the Geeta, the seeker can take it that he is suffering from Tamas. Dullness (Aprakashah) is that condition of the intellect where it is incapable of arriving at any decision, a state when a sort of drowsiness veils the potentialities of one's intelligence and makes it impossible for one to discriminate between the right and the wrong. This condition is experienced everyday by every one of us, as sleep conquers our nature at night. INACTION (Apravritti), IDLENESS --- The tendency to escape all responsibilities, the sense of incapacity to undertake any endeavour and the lack of enthusiasm to strive for and achieve anything in the world --- is the state of inaction explained herein. When Tamas predominates, all ambitions are sapped. Energy is dormant; capacity is gone, and thereafter, eating and sleeping alone become the individual's main occupations in life. The natural effect on the personality of a man who is living such a life is that, as an individual, he becomes heedless of the higher calls within himself. Nor can one be, in fact, a Ravana-like destructive criminal. Even to be bad, it needs a good amount of enthusiasm and an endless spirit of activity. He not only becomes incapable of responding to the good or the bad in him, but also slowly sinks into delusions. He miscalculates the world around him, misinterprets his own possibilities, and always makes mistakes in determining his relationship with the world around. When thus an individual fails to understand rightly himself, the world outside, and his own right relationship with the world around him, the life becomes an error --- his very existence, a sad mistake. After thus indicating how the mind and intellect would react under the three distinct influences of Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas, the Gita Acharya wants us to understand that, not only are these gunas effective while we live the present embodiment, but the tendencies of the mind, cultivated and developed, pursued and strengthened while living, will determine the life and condition of the individual even after death.

Life after death is a topic that does not seem to have been fully thought out in any other school of philosophy except in the exhaustive Science of Life, Hinduism. All other creeds have their own different explanations but none of them actually believes that there is no life after death. The other creeds have only dogmatic declarations regarding life after death, but they have no logical thought development regarding this topic which can be crystallised into a complete philosophy. Earlier in the Geeta, we had exhaustively dealt with this topic of re-incarnation. We had indicated that death is the total divorce of the subtle-body from its physical- structure. Therefore, death is the destiny of the body in me and not a tragedy of my ever-existing personality. I, as my subtle-body, move out of the present physical-structure, when I have exhausted my purpose with the present body. The subtle-body is constituted of my mind-and- intellect which is nothing but a bundle of thoughts. Even while I am living in this body, my thoughts determine my movements, both physical and subtle. Therefore, the Hindu philosophers are logical when they indicate that after death, one would still be pursuing the resultant of one's thoughts, which one had in life while acting through the body. When I am transferred from my present station of office to another area, I can call at my bank and expect to get from them not the total amount of money I had DEPOSITED in the past, but only the "BALANCE" that stands to my credit. So too, the resultant of the positive and negative thoughts entertained, actions done, motives and intentions encouraged, should determine the type and texture of the thoughts in us at the moment of our leaving the physical- structure. That the quality of our thoughts is influenced by the type of guna that influences our inner make up is a truth that is already known. Therefore, it is logical that the predominant guna, cultivated by each one of us through the life of activities and thoughts, should determine the direction and the range of the disembodied, in its flight to the beyond after its release from the body. These possibilities are explained in this section of the Geeta. WHATEVER LIFE IS OBTAINED AFTER DEATH IS CAUSED BY THE QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF DESIRES AND ATTACHMENTS, AND THE NATURE AND NUMBER OF DESIRES AND ATTACHMENTS ARE DETERMINED BY THE 'GUNAS'. THIS IS TAUGHT HERE:

14. If the embodied one meets with death when SATTWA is predominant, then he attains to the spotless worlds of the "Knowers of the Highest. "

IF THE EMBODIED ONE MEETS WITH DEATH WHEN 'SATTWA' IS PREDOMINANT --- In the scheme of the thought-development in Geeta, Krishna now gives us an idea as to the direction in which the mental-equipment of a dead one will move after death. This can be, to a large extent, scientifically determined by a close and intelligent observation of his mental behaviour even during life. A doctor cannot, all of a sudden one fine morning, start thinking of and solving a subtle architectural problem nor can an engineer overnight feel inspired to write out a prescription for cancer. The doctor has trained his mind for thinking on medicines and disease and the engineer has trained himself to solve the problems of constructive destruction! At any given moment, the mind of a doctor will be thinking of medicines alone, in conformity with his education and the type of thoughts his mind is trained to entertain. Thus, there is a continuity of thought-life in this embodiment; this year's thoughts have a continuity with our last year's thoughts; this month's thoughts are determined by the last month's thoughts; this week's thoughts are an extension of last week's thoughts; today's thoughts are continued tomorrow. And every moment is an extension of the previous moment's thoughts. If, thus, there is a continuous development and growth observable in the thought-life, in its unbroken continuity connecting the past, the present, and the future into one unbroken flow, then, there is no reason why, at the time of death, this continuity should suddenly end. Death is only another experience; it will certainly colour the thoughts that follow it --- but then all experiences have been colouring all our past thoughts, and our future thoughts are being coloured by our present experiences. Therefore, the type of thoughts entertained during our life-time should determine the type of thoughts we will entertain soon after our departure from this physical structure. If the embodied one leaves the present physical structure - -- and therefore, his present environments and relationship --- he should continue his thought-life. The direction in which it will make its flight is determined by the type of training it had acquired during its sojourn in its embodied state here. If Sattwa predominates, then, HE ATTAINS TO THE SPOTLESS REGIONS OF THE "KNOWERS OF THE HIGHEST" --- It is a concept in our Scriptures (Agamas) that the highest realm of abundant joy, unaffected by any excessive Rajas or Tamas, is the realm of the Creator, Brahmaloka --- supremely happy and extremely creative. WHILE IN 'RAJAS,' IF ONE DEPARTS:

15. Meeting death in RAJAS, he is born among those attached to action; and dying in TAMAS, he is born in the womb of the senseless. MEETING DEATH IN RAJAS, HE IS BORN AMONG THOSE ATTACHED TO ACTION --- If, at the time it leaves the body, the mind is under the influence of Rajas, it takes, according to its tendencies and desires, to fulfil them, an embodiment among those who are extremely attached to action. It means that the mind will seek and successfully discover a field where it can completely exhaust its existing tendencies. On the other hand, if one dies, when one's mind is drowned in extreme 'Tamas,' one reaches the lower realms of irrational beings such as the animal and the vegetable kingdoms. It is a consoling philosophy, no doubt, to believe that once having come up the ladder of evolution to become man, never shall we go into the lower strata of evolution. But it is against the truth of what we observe around us. We find, in fact, that even after having been given the best set of circumstances and environments, the members of the human community are not all equally ready to make use of them and evolve in their cultural status. A rich man's son, having average intelligence and a good start in life, is not always ready to make use of those conducive circumstances, but invariably, he lives a careless unhealthy life and destroys himself later on. Having been born as rational beings, how many of us behave with discrimination? A few in society even look up to the cattle and declare that they have a nobler life and a happier existence! That is to say, to a minority of bipeds the life of the quadrupeds is of higher evolution!! And, when such an idea is entertained in the mind of an individual, the life of the cattle is no devolution to him, but is only an acquisition of something which he is thirsting for. To a teetotaller, a drinking booth is nothing but a den of sorrow and death; but, to the drunkard the same is his haven of joy and harbour of happiness. To the Tamasic, to be born in the animal kingdom is a wonderful chance to exhaust their appetites and to express fully their nature. Thus, philosophically viewed, we have to accept without any reservation that the 'Tamasic' must mentally find a complete fulfilment in animal embodiment. So they are born there to fulfil their own elected purpose. HERE FOLLOWS A SUMMARY OF WHAT HAS BEEN TAUGHT IN THE PRECEDING FEW VERSES:

16. The fruit of good action, they say, is SATTWIC and pure; verily, the fruit of RAJAS is pain, and the fruit of TAMAS is ignorance. In this stanza, Krishna, the great conversationalist, is summarizing again what he has already mentioned in the previous stanzas. Herein, he is indicating in brief the results gained when a psychological being lives the three gunas severally. THE FRUIT OF GOOD ACTIONS, THEY SAY, IS 'SATTWIC' AND PURE --- If we carefully analyse, we shall find that thought is the father of all action. Thoughts are the seeds sown, and actions the harvest gathered. Seeds of weeds cannot but produce weeds; bad thoughts can manifest only as bad actions. And the negative actions in the outside world, fatten the wrong tendencies of the mind and thus multiply the inward agitations. It is, therefore, true in the logic of our philosophy --- and extremely true in the logic of our worldly experiences too - -- that if one is to live a quiet, contented and cheerful life of service and devotion, of love and kindness, of mercy and compassion, and live thus a "good life," certainly such a life indicated the Sattwic nature of one's mind. And such an individual, living such a noble life, must necessarily grow in his inward purity. It may be asked how one can start becoming good when one is already so bad at present. If actions are the expressions of thoughts, and if the existing mental nature is negative, how can we expect such an individual to bring about a change in the climatic conditions within his bosom? All religions, the world over, answer this question in their injunction and insistence that seekers of truth, devotees of the Lord, votaries of culture --- all must strive to live ethically a pure, moral, and noble life. No doubt, disciplining the mind and changing the quality of thoughts are not easy jobs; but to change to type of actions and to discipline our external movements is relatively easy. Therefore, to practise goodness, to discipline our behaviour, to act the good Samaritan, are all the beginning of this great scheme of self-revival. When noble action is undertaken soon it becomes a habit and this external habit of discipline tends to discipline the mind. Hence, the insistence, in all cultures, that from childhood, elders must be respected, authority should be obeyed, lies must not be uttered, scriptures are to be read, education must be undertaken, cleanliness must be practised etc. When these are enforced upon the child, it, perhaps, takes them all as varieties of tyranny under which it is compelled to live. In the long run, however, these rules bring about unconsciously a discipline in the minds of the children. A thrilling joy of mental serenity, a state of minimum agitation, a capacity to direct this mental strength of such a dynamic mind towards any single-pointed self- application --- these are all indicated as the fruits of good actions, when the mind grows in Sattwa-guna and purity. Passions and agitations are the impurities in the mind; bad actions increase them; good actions, by their very nature, quieten the mind and sap its passions. THE FRUIT OF 'RAJAS' IS PAIN --- This phrase only supports our commentary on the previous one. It has already been said that Rajas is of the nature of passion, giving rise to insatiable desires and extreme attachment, and in our attempts to fulfil them, we get drowned in a multiplicity of actions. (Stanzas 7, 12). Thus, one with a mind under the influence of Rajas, entertains desires, and in order to pacify the stormy conditions, one is forced to act in the world outside striving to acquire, to possess, to keep, to spend, to enjoy, to save, and to preserve what has been saved. Slowly, the individual is dragged into an entombing morass of suffocating death, in a stinking pit of pain and agony. "VERILY THE FRUIT OF RAJAS IS PAIN." IGNORANCE IS THE FRUIT OF 'TAMAS' --- That dullness in action, heedlessness and illusion are the symptoms of Tamas in our subtle-body, has already been indicated. Here it is said that Tamas veils our discriminating capacity and foils our attempts at understanding and rightly judging the world of things and beings and the world of happenings around us. Rajas breeds agitations in the mind. And Sattwa is that condition within us when the mind has least thought agitations and the intellect is clear and bright in its rational and discriminative powers. In short, Sattwa is the

"condition of dynamic quietude" which is the creative moment in man's inward nature. AND WHAT ARISES FROM THE 'GUNAS'?

17. Knowledge arises from SATTWA, greed from RAJAS, heedlessness, delusion and also ignorance arise from TAMAS.

The functions of the gunas, while they appear on the stage of the mind-intellect, are explained here. FROM SATTWA ARISES WISDOM --- It has already been explained how Pure Consciousness, of Its own accord, has nothing to illumine or understand. In the Pure, Homogeneous Self, there is nothing other than Itself for It to understand, It being the Undivided and Indivisible One Eternal Truth. Consciousness reflected in the subtle-body is the 'intelligence' by which we gain knowledge of the world outside. The knower is the Spirit conditioned by the mind-intellect. Naturally, when the mind is pure and serene, when there is the least agitation in it, the light emerging through it is steady and properly focussed. Therefore, the result of the predominant Sattwa in our mind is ultimately the rediscovery of the Self, the experience of PURE WISDOM. GREED, FROM 'RAJAS' --- When the mind is seething with a constant eruption of desires it will be continuously in a state of agitation, and, in its natural anxiety to pacify itself, it has to rush out into the world to procure and fulfil its endless demands; and in doing so it expresses its greed. HEEDLESSNESS, DELUSION AND IGNORANCE ARISE FROM 'TAMAS' --- Inertia or indolence, 'Tamas,' veils the intellect. The capacity to discriminate between the right and the wrong, and the ability to reject the wrong and accept the right, are the privileges of man and not the impulses of an animal. True manhood comes to manifest only when one's intellect is clean and free from all shackles of false prejudices and wrong tendencies. Tamas veils the capacity to perceive rightly the world outside, and it also destroys our powers of right judgement. When anything is not properly understood it is but natural that we will misunderstand it. This misunderstanding of the world outside compels us to expect joys, which are impossible to arise from the miserable state of our imperfections. Can there be even a single cup of sweet-water in the entire expanse of the saline-waters of the ocean? In a world of change and pain, how can there be constant joy, or even one instance of perfect happiness? And yet, he who is under the deluding effects of Tamas in himself, miscalculates the world and expects from it these experiences, which are impossible, and in the delusion, curses the world for its imperfections! MOREOVER:

18. Those who are abiding in SATTWA go upwards; the RAJASIC dwell in the middle; and the TAMASIC, abiding in the function of the lowest GUNA, go downwards.

In the ladder of evolution, we can conceive of these stages of development. The lowest state of development is seen in the vegetable and the animal kingdoms. The middle stage of evolution is seen in man who has intelligence, health and brightness. And a higher state of existence is seen in the disembodied heavenly beings. Here evolution means: "a greater awareness of experience, a lesser amount of agitations and a sharper power of intelligence." The yard-stick used here to measure evolution is the quantity of joy or happiness, peace or bliss, experienced by the being. No doubt, in this measurement, the stone-life is of zero evolution, inasmuch as it has no awareness at all of the world. The plant-life comes next, wherein Consciousness has dimly started expressing Itself. In the animal kingdom, this Awareness has become clearer and more vivid. Of the animals, man is, no doubt, the greatest being with the fullest Consciousness and the sharpest intellect. But, man also has his own limitations, and functions only within a limited field of time and space. The ample possibilities reached when once these limitations of man are broken down are indicated as the greatest state of existence enjoyed by beings of a still higher evolution, and they are called the "Denizens of Heaven." Every double-storeyed house must also have its staircase. Invariably, after climbing a few steps, there is a landing from which we turn and climb up the rest of the stairs to reach the rooms on the first floor. Those who are standing on the lower flight of steps are considered of a lower evolution. Those who are standing on the landing are of the middle type and those who are standing on the top- flights are of the highest evolution. The vegetable and the animal kingdoms stand on the lower rungs. Man stands on the landing and the Higher Beings on the upper flights of steps. Remember, none of them has reached upstairs to enjoy the comforts of its halls and rooms. Those who are standing on the landing. have the freedom either to go up or to go down. If this picture has come into our mind, we have, to a large extent, understood the concept of evolution as conceived by Hindu - Philosophy, wherein "the evolution of a specimen is always measured by the degree of Consciousness unveiled through Matter in the given subject under observation." THE SATTWA-ABIDING GO UPWARDS --- Those who are living a pure life of discrimination, clear thinking, right judgement and self-discipline, cultivate more and more Sattwa in themselves. When the mind is thus kept in quietude, at once creative and dynamic, it evolves upwards. THE RAJASIC DWELL IN THE MIDDLE --- Those who are of Rajasic nature, with all their desires and agitations, ambitions and achievements, again and again manifest as men until they acquire the required purity. THE TAMASIC GO DOWNWARDS --- Those who are revelling in misconceptions, heedless of the higher calls in themselves, deluded by their own lust and passion, existing in a state of drowsiness and inertness, devolve themselves into the lower natures. The stanza is only summarising the ideas expressed earlier, when Krishna discussed the effects of the gunas even in the continuity of existence after death. But where then is the release? That even Sattwa binds us with our attachment to knowledge and happiness has been already explained. Then when can I be free? All these three, Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas, are gunas meaning "ropes," that bind us down to the flesh and its sorrows, the world and its imperfections, the mind and its agitations, the intellect and its throbbings. When is man free to enjoy the Godhood, as a being totally released from all his contacts with the pluralistic world and from all his subtle attachments to it? So far we were told at length of the nature of the gunas, of the symptoms from which the most predominating guna in us can be diagnosed, of their reactions in our life, and of how they affect our future, etc. We were told that the predominant gunas in us is the heritage which we gather from our past and the present is coloured by it and the future again is determined by the play of these gunas. All these are but explanations of the causes of bondage --- a sense of bondage rooted in illusion, arising from the fact that the Self in us gets identified with the Matter-vestures around it.

The experience of the finite world, the misery of the jerks, the sorrows of its imperfections, the tragedies of its disappointments --- all together constitute the samsara of the "ego," which is nothing other than the Infinite Self (Purusha), expressing through Matter (Prakriti), and identifying with it. Release can be had only when we transcend all the gunas. A patient is suffering from high temperature, excruciating headache and back pain. All three are symptoms of his illness. When the fever is down the patient is still suffering. We can say the patient has fully recovered, not when these three symptoms have ended, but only when the patient has also regained his old health and energy. Similarly, the three gunas may be present in each of us, in different proportions, but the true release comes not only when all chains have been snapped --- meaning all the gunas are transcended --- but when we are also established in the Spiritual Experience. This process of escaping from the subjective shackles on our psychological and intellectual nature is called

"liberation" or Moksha. Bound by their own limitations, the greater possibilities in us are now idling away in our own bosoms. To redeem them from their prison-houses of confusions and pains, agitations and sorrows, passions and lust, is all that spirituality seeks.

TO DESCRIBE THE PATH OF LIBERATION AND EXPLAIN "MOKSHA" GAINED, FROM A RIGHT JUDGEMENT OF THE WORLD OUTSIDE, THE LORD SAYS:

19. When the Seer beholds no agent other than the GUNAS and knows him who is higher than the GUNAS, he attains to My

Being. The thought that was developed so far has indeed painted a miserable picture of the Spirit inescapably entangled in the three gunas. A student of the Geeta would, at this stage, perhaps, feel despaired at a false idea that there may be no escape at all for him. One who is standing in a running train is himself constantly on the move even though he is standing motionless! As long as he is travelling on the train, the movement of the train is also his movement. But the moment he alights and stands on the platform the train alone moves, and not he. So too, the Spirit identifying Itself with, and therefore, riding on the mind-intellect-equipment, dances to the moods of the mind determined by the three gunas. To stand apart from the mind by ending all our identifications with it, is to get complete freedom from the thraldom of our thought entanglements. WHEN THE SEER BEHOLDS --- This art of disentangling ourselves from our own thought-processes within, is the very art of meditation. A meditator, who is capable of doing so, will BEHOLD, EXPERIENCE SUBJECTIVELY, the State of Pure Knowledge, uncontaminated by the dance of the thoughts. It is called "seeing," not in the sense one is seeing a table or a chair; God cannot be seen; He is not an "object" of our perception, or feeling, or thought. He is the "SUBJECT," that PERCEIVES through us, that FEELS in us, that THINKS with us. But here the word

"behold" is used only to indicate that the subjective experience shall be so total, so complete and so convincing, as when we have actually "SEEN" an object --- that afterwards there can be no more any speculations about such an experience! Having seen a thing, no man can ever have any doubt regarding the appearance of the thing he has seen. NO AGENT OTHER THAN THE GUNAS --- The experiencer of the Self not only realises himself to be the Infinite but also understands that his ego, which was previously claiming to be the agent in all his activities, was none other than these gunas themselves. Gunas govern and direct the entire thought-life at all times in everyone of us and, therefore, gunas, here means the very SUBTLE-BODY. When we say "a crowded assembly of intelligence" we mean intelligent men. Similarly, please note carefully, gunas here means the MINDS of individuals of distinct and differing temperaments. AND KNOWS HIM WHO WHICH IS HIGHER THAN THE GUNAS --- The mind cannot function of its own accord, nor can it perceive by itself its feelings, it being a by-product of inert matter. Consciousness which functions in and through the mind, making it brilliant and dynamic must be a principle that is other than the mind. If a bucket of water looks like molten silver, it must have borrowed the brilliance from the Sun or the moon, for it to shine forth. Water in itself has no brilliance. Now, if the reflection dances or breaks up, it must be because of the nature of the water in the bucket and not because the Sun itself is dancing in the sky! The Consciousness reflecting in the mind is the "agent," the individualised ego (jiva) in us, who suffers the sense of self-shatterings. He who has understood that he is not "the reflection in his own mind" but that which is reflected therein --- something other than the mind and therefore something higher than the gunas --- he is the one who has escaped forever the shackles of all limitations, the tears of all sorrows and the sighs of all disappointments. HE ATTAINS TO MY BEING --- An individual who has thus transcended his own mind and intellect and has positively rediscovered himself to be that which was lending to his own mind the capacity to delude himself, that Man-of-Wisdom becomes the Self. Lord Krishna is not to be confused with Shri Krishna, the son of Devaki, or the Divine Flute-player of Vrindavana. He is talking here as the Life in every one of us and each student of the Geeta must understand that his own life is talking to the confused ego within himself.

A WAKER creates sorrowful situations in himself and comes to fear and weep, lose and gain, mourn and smile in his dream. All his joys and sorrows belong to the

"dreamer" in himself. When awake, the dream and the dream-sorrows end, and the "dreamer" himself becomes the "waker." If, to the "dreamer" in his sorrows, the waking-consciousness were to manifest and advise, it would have repeated this stanza to the "dreamer": "When you, the dreamer, behold no agent other than the dreaming mind and know in yourself that which is higher than the dreaming mind, you shall attain to My being --- the waking consciousness." Similarly here, Krishna, the manifested God- Consciousness is explaining to man that his ego-centric life and activities, its sorrows and joys, achievements and despairs --- all belong to the waker-dreamer-sleeper- personality and on transcending them all, he shall really AWAKE to the Truth, and there BECOME one with It. A dreamer, on waking, cannot still remain a dreamer but must himself become the waker. Similarly, Spirit entangled in Matter is man and, man disentangled from its Matter identifications not only rediscovers but also becomes the Spirit; "ATTAINS TO MY BEING." NOW THE LORD PROCEEDS TO TEACH HOW ONE CAN ATTAIN THIS GREAT GOAL:

20. The embodied-one having crossed beyond these three GUNAS out of which the body is evolved, is freed from birth, death, decay and pain, and attains to Immortality.

So long as you stand near the open oven in the kitchen, you must necessarily feel the heat of the fire and the smoke in the atmosphere. To walk out of the kitchen is to escape both these inconveniences because heat and smoke are the properties of fire in the oven and not the qualities of the atmosphere. In burning summer, out in your courtyard, there is both heat and glare, to escape which, you have only to walk into the shelter of your room. So too, identifying ourselves with the gunas and thus playing in the mental and intellectual zones, we suffer the imperfections and sorrows of an ordinary life. But when these are transcended we shall no more be under the tyranny of these sorrows. Finitude and agitations, mortality and pangs, change and sorrow are not in the Perfect, Immortal, Changeless Self. HAVING CROSSED THE THREE 'GUNAS' OUT OF WHICH THE BODY IS EVOLVED --- The three gunas are the expressions of 'ignorance'or NESCIENCE, which constitutes the very causal-body. We are experiencing the pure causal-body in our deep-sleep, and this is nothing other than the gunas. They emerge from the causal-body to express themselves first as the subtle-body, expressing as qualities of our thoughts and feeling, and again as the gross-body to express themselves into good, bad, or indifferent actions.

If the art in me is to be expressed in colours, I need the canvas and the brushes. If I am a musician, I need musical instruments and accompaniments to express my art. Each artist employs appropriate instruments to express himself. A violin in the hands of a painter, and a brush with colour and canvas in the hands of a musician are both useless because they are not the media of expression for them. If my thoughts are dull and animalistic, it would be sorrow for me to bear the physical body of man. Thus, each body- plant, animal or man --- is the exact instrument given for the full expression of its subtle-body. And the nature and quality of the subtle-body are determined by the texture of the causal-body, consisting of the gunas. It is, therefore, evident that, those who have gone beyond the gunas, are no more under the tragedies of the subtle and the causal-bodies. THE EMBODIED ONE IS FREED FROM BIRTH, DEATH, DECAY AND PAIN --- As we said earlier, the heat and smoke are the qualities of the fire in the oven and as long as we are near the oven, we suffer from these hardships. Matter changes forever and these changes have been systematised into definite stages. They are common to all bodies everywhere. These stages are birth, growth, decay, disease and death. These five stages are common to all. Each one is a packet of pain; birth is painful, growth is agonizing, decay is disturbing, disease is tyrannical and death is terrible indeed!

But all these sorrows are only the sorrows of Matter and not of the Consciousness that illumines them. One, who has realised himself to be the Awareness, transcends all these sorrows. The Sun may illumine floods, famine, war, pestilence, funerals, marriages and a million varieties of happenings, and yet, none of them is IN the Sun. Similarly, the Consciousness in us illumines the various changes in our matter-envelopments, but they do not appertain to the Spirit. Therefore, he who has realised himself to be the Spirit, goes beyond all these struggles. AND ATTAINS TO IMMORTALITY --- Not only does the man of realisation experience the absence of sorrow but he also lives the positive joy of perfection. This is indicated by this phrase. In deep-sleep, a man in his sick bed forgets his pain; the disappointed one escapes his disappointment; the hungry no more feels his hunger; and the sad is no longer sorrowful. But, thereby, the illness is not cured, the disappointment is not removed, the hunger is not satisfied, the sorrow is not mitigated. Sleep is a temporary truce with the existing world of sorrows within. On waking, the sorrows too return; but the State of Bliss experienced at the moment of realisation of the Self is not a mere temporary cessation of sorrows of life, but it is a vivid experience of the Changeless, Infinite Nature. Hence it is said here that one experiences the State of Immortality even while living in this very same embodiment.

It is, indeed, a rare experience to be a God-man upon the earth. What then are the marks of such a liberated soul, so that we may understand him and also recognise this State in ourselves? How will he conduct himself in society and what exactly will be the relationship of such a Master living the God-experience, with the world outside? ARJUNA GETS AN OCCASION FOR ASKING THESE QUESTIONS REGARDING THE NATURE AND BEHAVIOUR OF SUCH A GOD-MAN:

Arjuna said: 21. What are the marks of him who has crossed over the three GUNAS, O Lord? What is his conduct, and how does he go beyond these three GUNAS?

The Geeta is written in a conversational style, to remove the tedium unavoidable in the early studies of any philosophy, and to make it more entertaining. In this conversation between the Lord of Perfect Knowledge and the mortal of extreme delusion, Vyasa, the poet, has evidently not forgotten the human element in his philosophical pre-occupation. In any Hall of Knowledge, the questions of Arjuna sound like some childish inquisitive-ness, the play of some intellectual pranks. The patience with which the Lord answers all the questions of the lesser types of intellect, clearly indicated the duties of a true Brahmana in answering exhaustively al the questions raised by the sceptic, nay even by the non- believers.

Even though we are blessed by such a healthy tradition in our literature, somehow, a cruel spirit of secrecy has come to rob this healthy spirit from our glorious culture. Philosophical ideas putrefy when they are not properly ventilated. Every disciple has the full freedom to seek, first of all, to understand properly the logic of the philosophy. Understanding alone can give rise to a true appreciation, and unless we appreciate an idea, we will never be able to live it in our day-to-day life. The Hindu philosophy is a WAY OF LIFE, and therefore, it is essentially to be lived. Arjuna asks here three definite questions: (1) What are the marks by which a man who has gone beyond the influences of these three gunas can be recognised? and, (2) what would be, in that State-of-Perfection, his relationship with the world outside and how is his behaviour among us who are still under the persecutions of the three gunas? and, lastly, (3) how does such a Man-of-Perfection conquer his inner confusions and entanglements and attain spiritual glory? THE LORD PROCEEDS TO ANSWER ALL THESE QUESTIONS IN THE FOLLOWING STANZAS. FIRST, HE ENUMERATES THE CHARACTERISTIC MARKS BY WHICH WE CAN RECOGNISE ONE WHO HAS CROSSED THE THREE GUNAS:

The Blessed Lord said: 22. Light, activity, and delusion, when present, O Pandava, he hates not, nor longs for them when absent. In answering the first question of Arjuna, the Lord tries to explain how the man of right understanding does not hate the effects of the three gunas when they are clearly present in his inner life; nor does he long for them when they have disappeared. Equanimity is the essence of perfection and a Man-of-Knowledge is ever in perfect balance. He craves for nothing, nor does he strive to acquire anything new. To have and not to have --- both are equal to him, because he is beyond both, living a life of inward peace which is totally independent of all environments. LIGHT ACTIVITY AND DELUSION, WHEN PRESENT, HE HATES NOT --- The three terms LIGHT, ACTIVITY and DELUSION are the effects of their respective causes, the predominance of "Sattwa," of "Rajas" and of "Tamas." The three gunas are indicated here by their effects. Their presence within him, does not create in him either any special attachment nor any particular aversion. Whether his mind and intellect are under the influence of Rajas or Tamas, even when he feels agitated or deluded, he is not in the least affected by them, and therefore, he hates them not. It is only in the absence of Self-Knowledge, that one hates them. He who has risen above the gunas, is unaffected when they appear in his mind. No doubt, a man who is Sattwic develops an attachment for its essential peace and serenity, its thrills and joys, and he hates when this inward joy is disturbed by agitations (Rajas) or by dullness (Tamas). NOR LONGS FOR THEM WHEN ABSENT --- Not only has he no particular attachment for them, but also, he is not at all worried by their absence, because he has risen much above these three gunas, and they, together or severally, have nothing to offer him which he has not already gained! To a millionaire, it is immaterial whether or not he gets, by chance, a 25-paise coin on the roadside. He may stoop down and pick it up but he would never congratulate himself for it as much as a poor man would do under the same circumstances. Thus, he who has extricated himself from the entanglements of the gunas, has transcended fully the equipments of the mind and intellect and lives the infinite joys of the Self. To him, the ordinary vehicles of joys and sorrows can no more supply any special quota of experiences. Ever steady and balanced, he lives beyond all storms and clouds in a realm of unbroken peace and brilliance. He conquers the world of Pure Awareness --- attains the State of Godhood. NOW FOLLOWS AN EXHAUSTIVE ANALYSIS AND VIVID DESCRIPTION OF THE CONDUCT OF HIM WHO HAS RISEN ABOVE THE 'GUNAS':

23. He who, seated like one unconcerned, is not moved by the 'GUNAS, ' who, knowing that the 'GUNAS' operate, is self- centred and swerves not . . .

In this section, constituted of the following three verses, we have an exhaustive picture of the relationship that a Man-of-Perfection maintains with the things and beings of the world. A man's culture may be a false mask. Many of us can act the part of God as long as the situations around us are not too tempting. A man may not be a tyrant as long as he has no power; he may live a quiet life, as long as he is poor; he may be above corruption, as long as he has no seducing chances. Thus, many good qualities which we attribute to many people around, are all a falsely painted, superficial beauty, concealing behind its artifice a weak and unhealthy personality. Potential devils stalk about in the world in the borrowed garbs of artificial raiment. Therefore, the real test of a Perfect One is not in the jungle or in a cave, but in the market-place where he is teased by the mischiefs of the world. Christ was never so great as when he was nailed to the cross! The true nature in us will come out only when we are crushed; the fragrance of chandana (Sandal wood) emerges only when rubbed; Tulasi (Ocimum) leaves leave their fragrance on the very fingers that crush them. HE WHO, SEATED LIKE ONE UNCONCERNED, IS NOT MOVED BY THE GUNAS --- In all his experiences in the world, good, bad or indifferent, he is unconcerned, since he knows that it is the play of the mind and intellect. In a cinema hall, the tragedies and comedies on the screen need not affect us, since we know that it is a show put up for our entertainment. This does not mean that the Seer is totally unconcerned with the happenings of the world. Vyasa is very careful in his choice of expression. He says that the Man-of-Perfection looks

"LIKE ONE UNCONCERNED." That is to say, he is not in the least agitated; nor does he become hysterical by anything that is happening around him in life. WHO, KNOWING THAT THE 'GUNAS' OPERATE --- He understands that the changes in his own inward personality are all nothing but the kaleidoscopic changes of the gunas and that the world outside changes according to one's mental conditions. A man of True Wisdom lives, ever fully aware of the technique behind the changes in himself and in the world around him. IS SELF-CENTERED AND SWERVES NOT --- In order to watch the play of the three gunas in himself, he should be an observer from beyond the gunas. Thus, established in his Pure Spiritual Nature, he is able to observe detachedly and enjoy the play of the gunas in himself and in the world around him. An observer of a street fight, looking down from his balcony, is not affected by what he observes; so too, the Man-of-Wisdom, awakened to the Spiritual Consciousness, swerves not from his consummate equilibrium, when he witnesses the play of the gunas in himself and ever remains established in his own Divine Nature (ava-tishthati). CONTINUING TO ELUCIDATE THE THOUGHT SUGGESTED IN THE PREVIOUS STANZA, THE LORD SAYS:

24. Alike in pleasure and pain; who dwells in the Self; to whom a clod of earth, a precious stone and gold are alike; to whom the dear and the not-dear are the same; firm; the same in censure and self-praise. . . .

The equanimity and balance of personality which are observed in a Perfect Man, in the midst of the changing vicissitudes of life, are brought out in this stanza. One who has gone beyond the tyrannies of the three gunas lives in a kingdom of his own, wherein neither the thrills of Sattwa, nor the noisy clamours of Rajas, nor the weariness of Tamas have any admission at all. Serenely self-composed, he dwells in the Self, far away from the sweat and agitations of base appetites, low impulses and selfish passions. To the average man, this state of equipoise may look like complete death. And, no doubt, it is so; it is the death of the limited, finite life of relative experiences, lived by the baser ego. Spirit, conditioned by Matter, behaves like a reed upon the tumultuous surface of an ever-agitated mind. Always disturbed by the constant storms of love and hate, likes and dislikes, this unhappy sense-on- individuality suffers its shattering agitations and endless sorrows. To withdraw, therefore, from this chaotic field of desires and attachments into the shelter of the Self, is to release the diviner possibilities in ourselves. The dreamer dies to be reborn as the waker; the individual sense of the ego dies to release the infinite glories of the Self. Having awakened from the dream, what would be the waker's relationship with his dream-world, is the question that Arjuna asks Krishna! One who has gone beyond the shackles of the three gunas, has awakened from all the misconceptions of the world, fed by one's 'I'-ness and 'my'- ness. In that state of godly awakening, there cannot be any deep and sincere relationship with the experiences of the lower world, whether it be joy or sorrow, things dear or not-dear, blame or praise. In all the experiences, he is a balanced, unattached witness. WHO DWELLS IN THE SELF (Svasthah) --- One who has transcended the gunas that rule the tendencies of the mind, becomes the Self, just as one who has crossed the frontiers of a dream, discovers himself to be waker. What would be the relationship of one who dwells in the Self, with the things around him, and what would be his attitude to things happening around him, is being answered here. Established as he is in Supreme Wisdom, the world that is contacted from the levels of the body, the mind and the intellect does not touch him. He lives in a world of his own, far above the plane of Matter. ALIKE IN PLEASURE AND IN PAIN --- To come in contact with the outside world through sense-perceptions, to evaluate them in terms of similar experiences in the past, and to experience pleasure or pain, is a trick of our individual personality. The worlds of stimuli march into us and we respond to them and these intelligent responses can fall under two categories: pleasure and pain. That which is pleasurable to one is bound to be painful to another. If the things of the world were in their own nature either pleasurable or painful, they would have certainly caused the same uniform reactions in all of us. It is the nature of the Sun to be hot, and therefore, the heat of the Sun is common to us all. But the things of the world do not produce reactions in everyone in the same way, and therefore, it is an interpretation of our mind and intellect, which is coloured by our own past experiences. He who is not looking at the world through these coloured goggles of the mind and intellect will be alike in pleasure and pain. REGARDING A CLOD OF EARTH, A PRECIOUS STONE AND GOLD ALIKE --- Possession of things is another appetite which the majority of living creatures have. People like to possess and hoard precious-stones or gold, but do not care for a clod of mud. But to an awakened Man-of-Wisdom, all these possessions are one and the same and from his estimation none of them has any real value. Children collect peacock feathers, shells, marbles, broken glass-bangles, old stamps, shapely stones, etc., from the roadside or from waste-paper baskets, and with extreme possessiveness, they keep them as their precious possessions. But as they grow, without a regret, they throw them away and the younger ones in the family accept them with gratitude as a precious inheritance from their elders. Similarly, a man living his ego-centric life of desires for possessions, may value gold and precious stones; but to the Awakened Soul, in his sense of Infinitude, these limited possessions, hugged on to by lesser minds, have no charm at all. THE SAME TOWARDS THINGS DEAR AND THINGS NOT-DEAR --- In our relationship with others, where there is an agreeable nature, we come to love it dearly, while, wherever there is a disagreeable nature, we hate it. Love and hate, dear and not-dear, are all our reactions to the agreeable and disagreeable natures of things or situations. These reactions are, no doubt, from the levels of the mind. One who is standing on windy shores wearing a thick coat will not feel the cold that another must feel, when, in his nakedness, he is dipping in the sea. the cold waters come in contact with the skin of the naked man and he experiences the discomforts, while the man on the shore, comfortably warm in his coat, knows no cold.

The average man, plunged in identification with his own mind and intellect, suffers the world and interprets it as agreeable or disagreeable, and brings down upon himself a lot of confusions and problems. The man of Steady Wisdom is he, whose equilibrium is not disturbed by the onslaught of things and circumstances of the world, whether they be dear or not dear. SAME IN CENSURE AND IN PRAISE --- A Man-of- Perfection is the same in censure and praise. The experience of a dream cannot contribute either joy or sorrow to one who has "awakened," he might have been a beggar insulted by the entire society in the dream-world or might have been an adored Raja ruling a vast empire in his dream. But when he wakes up, neither the PRAISE he received as a Raja, nor the CENSURE he suffered as a beggar can leave any reactions upon him. Awakened from the "dream", the Man-of-Wisdom evaluates the blame and praise of the world outside and finds them both utterly insignificant. In the above four beautiful, chosen phrases, Vyasa has indicated some of the main conditions of life in which the ordinary man comes to eke out his joys and sorrows. Pleasure and pain, good and bad possessions, agreeable and disagreeable experiences, joys and sorrows provided by praise and censure, are some of the conditions of life by which we get entangled in a web of agitations and sorrows.

MOREOVER:

25. The same in honour and dishonour; the same to friend and foe; abandoning all undertakings --- he is said to have crossed beyond the GUNAS. If the above has drawn a flat picture of the Man-of- Perfection, herein we have added strokes that shade the outlines and give them a rounded beauty to depict them vividly for our keener observation and closer vision. THE SAME IN HONOUR AND DIS-HONOUR --- The sense of equanimity in honour and dis-honour is described here as one of the definite signs of perfection attained. Rooted in his own lived experiences of divinity, a man of Vision is not afraid of life and its rewards, because, such a Perfect One looks at things and happenings from his own special angle. The egoistic evaluation of life tends to respect honour and shun dishonour. Even in ordinary life, we have found martyrs courting what others consider as dishonour. They energetically love and serve their generation in spite of the insults and disgrace piled upon them by ignorant people. For Archimedes, running along the streets naked from his bath-tub crying "Eureka," "Eureka," might have been a dishonour on any other day except on that day of his discovery! Honour and dishonour are the evaluations of the intellect that change from time to time, from place to place. To one who has transcended the ordinary planes of egoism and vanity, both are the same; a crown of thorns is as welcome as a crown of roses!! THE SAME TO FRIEND AND FOE --- To one who treads the Path of Wisdom and has risen above the gunas, there is no foe in the world; nor is he attached to anyone in earthy friendships. My right hand is never a foe to me; nor is it merely a friend; it is myself. Another, other than myself, alone can claim enmity or friendship with me. When I have realised the ONENESS of my spiritual nature, Infinite and All-pervading, as the Spirit, I have no relationship with the world outside; I live my vivid personal experience: "THEY ARE I." ABANDONING ALL UNDERTAKINGS --- The man of tranquillity, living in God-consciousness, has no more ego in him, nor is he pestered by the endless ego-centric desires which are the sorrows of life. Desire-motivated activities, undertaken with an anxiety to earn and to acquire, to possess and to hoard, to aggrandise and to claim ownership are indicated by the term "undertaking." All these are possible only when the ego is there. When the limited ego-sense has volatilised in the realisation of the Infinite, all ego-motivated activities also end. Thereafter, he, the God-inspired, works in the world as a God-man.

HE IS SAID TO HAVE GONE BEYOND THE GUNAS --- The above three stanzas together paint the complete picture of one who has transcended the gunas. These three stanzas answer Arjuna's second question. Shankara recognises in these three stanzas "A RULE OF CONDUCT LAID DOWN FOR THE SAMNYASIN WHO SEEKS MOKSHA." These qualities are to be cultivated by every SEEKER who is trying to live the Hindu-culture. Once the seeker has gained inner freedom, these become the characteristic features of his nature. They form the essential marks that indicate one who has risen above the gunas. THE LORD PROCEEDS NEXT TO ANSWER THE QUESTION "HOW DOES ONE TRANSCEND THE GUNAS?"

26. And he, serving Me with unswerving devotion, and crossing beyond the GUNAS, is fit to become BRAHMAN.

Being a practical text-book of religion, the Geeta is never satisfied by giving mere philosophical discourses. Every discourse, after explaining a definite aspect of our philosophy, prescribes immediately a way of training by which the imperfect can aspire to be and ultimately achieve Perfection.

HE WHO SERVES ME WITH UNSWERVING DEVOTION --- Love for God is called "devotion." Our minds revel readily and with pleasure wherever there is love. Our entire nature is fed by our thoughts, and, as the thoughts, so the mind. To contemplate steadily upon the Infinite Nature of the Self is, ultimately, to become the Self, and thus end our limited, mortal ego. Contemplation upon the nature of the Lord in all sincerity and intensity cannot be maintained effectively at all times. As we are today, we are not capable of maintaining the mind in a state of meditation all the time. Therefore, Krishna, knowing this weakness of man, advises a practical method of maintaining this thought for a longer period of time through the process of dedicated service (seva). That all work, if intelligently undertaken in a spirit of dedication and service, can be readily converted into a worship, has already been explained in Chapter-III. This clearly and evidently shows that mere devotion to the Lord is not enough. The Gita Acharya expects his devotees to bring religion from the Pooja-rooms and temples to the fields of their every-day-life of activities and in all their contacts with others around. Such a practice of constant God-awareness and dedicated service removes the agitations of the mind and tunes up the inner instrument for a more efficient flight through meditation. Tamas and Rajas get more and more reduced, and thereby the proportion of Sattwa in the seeker's subtle constitution increases. And such a seeker "IS FIT TO

BECOME BRAHMAN." Such an individual who has gained a wealth of Sattwa in his inward composition will discover in himself a greater ability and poise during his meditation. The re-awakening to the consciousness of the Self cannot then be very far off. Here, it is said that the seeker is fit for becoming Brahman. To realise Brahman is to become Brahman, to realise the waker, is to become the waker. HOW CAN THE SAGE HIMSELF BE BRAHMAN? LISTEN:

27. For I am the Abode of BRAHMAN, the Immortal and the Immutable, of everlasting DHARMA and of Absolute Bliss.

In describing the Yoga of Devotion and its ultimate goal, the Geeta has already indicated: (XII-8) "YOU SHALL NO DOUBT LIVE IN ME THEREAFTER"; and the devotee, under the inspiration of his love, will forget himself as a separate individual, and his mind will merge with his point-of-contemplation, the Lord. In the previous stanza, we were told,

"HE WHO SERVES ME WITH UNSWERVING YOGA-OF-DEVOTION", will steadily transcend his identification with his Matter-envelopments. To the extent the ego dies, to that extent the experience of the Divine can manifest. To retire from waking is to enter the hall-of-sleep; and while one is dozing, one is walking further and further away from the realm-of-wakefulness and proportionately entering the peaceful abode-of-sleep. To leave completely one plane-of-Consciousness, is to enter entirely into another plane of Consciousness. The waker himself totally becomes the DREAMER and the DREAMER knows no waking-state. The DREAMER ends his dream when he either wakes up to the world or slides into the joys of peaceful slumber. There is no transaction across the frontiers of these distinct planes-of- Consciousness. FOR, I AM THE ABODE OF BRAHMAN --- The Self that vitalises the seeker's bosom is the Pure Consciousness, that is the same everywhere,

"IMMORTAL and IMMUTABLE, ETERNAL and BLISSFUL." To realise the Self within, is to realise the Infinite Self. To taste a piece of cake is to taste all cakes of all times and for all times, because the KNOWLEDGE OF the taste of cake is ever the same. In the realm of experience, if a meditator apprehends the Self in him, he at once experiences the Omnipresence of the Self. As long as a pot exists, the pot-space is seen distinct from the space around. Once the pot is broken, the pot- space itself becomes the unbounded space in the Universe; similarly, when life's false identifications with the body, mind and intellect are broken down --- in short, when the ego is dead, the Awareness of the Infinitude rises up to flood the bosom with THE ETERNAL DHARMA AND THE UNFAILING BLISS. Shri Shankara, in his extremely rational and analytical commentary, gives for this stanza three alternative interpretations, each one not contrary to the others, but each one elucidating more and more the philosophical contents of this verse. Shankara says "BRAHMAN IS PARAMATMAN, IMMORTAL AND INDESTRUCTIBLE. HE ABIDES IN ME WHO AM THE SELF (PRATYAG- ATMAN). THAT BEING THE SELF, ONE RECOGNISES, BY RIGHT KNOWLEDGE, THE IDENTITY OF THE SELF IN ONESELF AND THE SELF EVERYWHERE." Shankara gives an alternative meaning to the verse: "IT IS THROUGH THE POWER (MAYA) INHERENT IN BRAHMAN, AS ISHWARA, THAT HE SHOWS GRACE TO HIS DEVOTEES. I AM THAT POWER IN MANIFESTATION, AND THEREFORE, BRAHMAN AM I." Again, as another alternative interpretation, he suggests a third meaning which, as we said earlier, is not contrary to the former two suggestions, but, in fact, paints in greater detail, the beauty of the stanza and its contents. "BY BRAHMAN IS MEANT HERE THE 'CONDITIONED- BRAHMAN'; WHO ALONE CAN BE SPOKEN OF BY SUCH WORD AS 'BRAHMAN'... CONDITIONED- BRAHMAN ALONE CAN BE CONCEIVED OF IN THE FINITE INTELLECT, PERCEIVED BY THE MIND AND

EXPRESSED THROUGH LANGUAGE AS A CONTRAST TO MATTER. Here the term Brahman only means Spirit as opposed in nature to inert Matter. Thus, Matter and Spirit, both factors conceived by the limited intellect, are limited and so finite objects of knowledge. But both are known by the Consciousness, the Supreme. Therefore "I, THE UNCONDITIONED AND THE UNUTTERABLE, AM THE ABODE OF THE CONDITIONED-BRAHMAN, WHO IS IMMORTAL AND INDESTRUCTIBLE." The Illuminator is always different from the illumined. The "subject" is the knower, and the "object" is the known. Krishna, the Infinite, represents the Eternal Subject, and therefore, He is the Abode of all "objects," including the concept of the Self which is the Spirit that vitalises and gives a similitude of sentiency and appearance of activity to all the Matter-envelopments. The conditioned Brahman (sa-upadhika) rests upon the Consciousness that is aware of it, which is the Unconditioned (nir-upadhika) Brahman. In the following chapter (XV-16, 17 and 18) it will be explained as the three Atmans: Anatman, Jivatman and

Paramatman.

Thus, in the UPANISHADS of the glorious Bhagawad- Geeta, in the Science of the Eternal, in the scripture of

YOGA , in the dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna, the fourteenth discourse ends entitled: THE YOGA OF GUNAS