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A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in India
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INTRODUCTION
The development of religious and philosophic thought in India comprises a many-sided presentation of the higher aspirations in man. While the Veda-Samhitas embody the prayers of the human spirit to the Universal Reality revealed in creation and record the vision of the One in the many, the Upanishads represent an attempt to dive into the One from the forms of the many. Though modern history sees an advance of thought from the Samhitas to the Upanishads, tradition does not permit any such bifurcation and sees in them two types of the vision of Reality, the former emphasising its aspect as creation and the latter its being, as it is. There is, no doubt, a tendency to view the essential nature of Reality as transcending creation, but it is not possible to ignore the creational aspect as a realm outside Reality, for creation also is within it. From this point of view, it seems quite reasonable to follow the way of ancient tradition that the Samhitas and the Upanishads are not to be divided as inferior and superior, but as pictures of one side and another side of Reality. It is an important aspect in the interpretation of the Vedas to regard them as a single body of scriptural lore, of which the Upanishads form the consummation. Without taking the purely historical view that the Upanishads transcend the Samhitas in their value, the former may be said to be an improvement upon the content of the latter in the sense that the Samhitas look upon creation and its Maker more in their cosmological significance maintaining a kind of awe-inspiring distance between man and God, while the Upanishads stir up within man a consciousness of the immediacy, in his own being, of that cosmic grandeur of God in creation. The distinction of God, world and soul, when it is handled by the Upanishads, resolves itself into the unitary Absolute.
But a very meaningful point of view which is sought to be emphasised here is the importance of the Epics and Puranas in the history of Indian thought. The ancient sages were quick to appreciate the necessity to appeal to the various sides of human nature and to alter the method of teaching in adjustment with this need. As it was stated earlier, Reality and creation are not to be regarded as two facts or problems to be encountered but two ways of witnessing the same thing. The human mind is composed not only of the rational powers but also the emotional and the instinctive elements which feel the presence and working of certain truths that rationality cannot explain adequately. The Epics and Puranas answer to that aspect of human nature which is other than the ratiocinating or the investigative. It is human egoism which asserts that only scientific discoveries and affirmations in their modern sense are real and there is nothing true in the world which observation and experiment cannot certify. It is forgotten that reason is not all and science is not the last word in knowledge. The heart revolts against the conclusion of science that tears of grief consist merely of certain chemical substances or that the beauty of a painting is just the effect of a combination of colours. Religion, likewise, is not an invention of human crotchet or an outcome of fear or even a social necessity but the answer to a living surge of conscious aspiration which cannot be intelligible either to reason or to science. Human nature is not a combination of scientific facts or a bundle of physical laws or chemical elements, but manifests in itself a meaning higher than all observable values in the world of mathematics, physics, chemistry or biology. The religious spirit of the Epics and Puranas is different from the beaten track of logical philosophy, for it reads an eternal meaning in the temporal structure of the world. The power and purpose of an Avatara, for example, infuses into the historical process of the universe a truth which is above history. Everything that is human has a touch of the mathematical and the logical in it - - whether it is history, or science. But the eternal religion is that which feels the existence and activity of a supernal Reality, even in what is earthly. The personalities and events described in the Puranas cannot always be taken as myths and fables which have no substance in them, for the universe is nothing but the Absolute beheld through the channels of human perception. In their attempt at a bringing together of the temporal and the eternal, the Epics present before us a picture of divine perfection commingled with human weakness. In these records of cosmic history, the usual meanings of past, present and future assume a different suggestiveness and it is futile to read into them a mere human viewpoint of understanding. It is here that we come face to face with the fact that religion is neither a social practice nor a human contrivance but the perennial activity of timeless being.
The Bhagavadgita is a part of the Mahabharata and thus occurs in the context of an Epic, and so it is called a Smriti (secondary revelation), as distinguished from the Sruti (primary revelation), which are the Vedas and the Upanishads. Yet, the Gita plays a unique role in the history of religious and philosophic thought. The Upanishads are like an extensive forest ranging over a wide area and covering almost everything which may be said to be of the nature of reality.
The Bhagavadgita is, on the other hand, a kind of garden of select plantations which are deliberately nurtured, keeping in view the needs of human psychology. It is at once rationalistic, volitional, emotional and charged with a high spirit of activity. In the Upanishads, Reality seems to be musing over itself and contemplating its own glories, while in the Bhagavadgita it speaks to man in a language which is intelligible to the mind that sees meaning in pleasure and pain, reward and punishment, progress and evolution, bondage and liberation. The Bhagavadgita is a world-gospel which tries to link man with God, enlighten him on the concrete relation subsisting between the world and the Absolute, and solace him that there is a way leading from the finite to the Infinite.
Nevertheless, the Upanishads may be said to have sown the seeds for every thought that occurred later In spite of their excessive concern with the trans-empirical Reality, whatever be its relation to the cosmos of creation, they make here and there profound statements, though at random, which sum up the principles of ethics, psychology and the path that leads to the Supreme Being. The Bhagavadgita is a detailed accentuation of some of the terse observations made already in the Upanishads. We have, for example, a statement on the nature of the universal Virat in a single verse of the Mundaka Upanishad, which may itself be said to be an inspiration after the Purushasukta of the Samhitas. The Isa, Katha and the Svetasvatara Upanishads have verses that embody some of the important themes of the Bhagavadgita, which, on the whole, manifests the spirit of God descended into the field of action.
The Yoga-Vasishtha rises to a high watermark in the philosophic thought of India. It is a classic inimitable in its kind. Through elaborate descriptions, almost in an epic style, it works upon the fundamental principles enunciated in the Upanishads and combines philosophy with a lofty psychology by which it explains creation, evolution and involution purely from a spiritualistic point of view. In this way, it tries to give an ultimate explanation of everything in terms of the Infinite consciousness which manifests itself as the objects of experience on one side and the experiencing subjects on the other side. The sorrows. which follow in the wake of every effort of man for acquisition of happiness in a world of transient phenomena, the knowledge needed to diagnose the common malady of everyone, and the ethical prerequisites to be cultivated for the attainment of true freedom are its main subjects. The uniqueness of the methodology of the Yoga-Vasishtha is in its attempt to analyse all things in terms of consciousness which is the ultimate reality of everything. Health and disease, happiness and misery, success and failure, bondage and freedom are all explicable in terms of the right adjustment or maladjustment of consciousness. Finally, even birth and death are traced to this mysterious cause which cannot be directly seen, as it is involved in the seeing consciousness itself. Another text, known as the Tripurarahasya (Jnana-kanda), follows the lead of the Yoga-Vasishtha in the treatment of a spiritual idealism which it regards as the alpha and omega of all things.
An interesting part of the manifestation of Indian Philosophy as religion is its concept of the pantheon which has an immense practical significance in the day-to-day life of the country. The gods (Devatas) hold such sway over the minds of persons that the theological evaluation of life may be regarded as a commonplace throughout India. A final interpretation of any problem hinges upon a Daiva or a presiding deity, a heritage of thought which may be said to have directly come down to the present day from the Upanishads that viewed the universe as constituted of the object (Adhibhuta), subject (Adhyatma) and deity (Adhidaiva). There is nothing which is not involved in this triadic relation, in any stage of creation. It is interesting to note this concept of deity entering as an invariable concomitant of every stratum of evolution in the recent philosophy of emergent evolution, particularly in Samuel Alexander; who propounds this theme in his Space, Time and Deity. Herein he makes the principle of deity unavoidable in the evolutionary process on a nisus to progress upwards. It is needless to add that the Upanishads have already, many centuries back, anticipated in their intuitions this novel doctrine of deity; with an added significance and purpose, and even today it is impossible to remove from the minds of the Indian people the belief in the governance of the subject-object relation by a presiding deity. It is this presiding principle which the Bhagavadgita confirms as the final deciding factor in all actions and processes of man and the world. The crystallisation of this doctrine is the great religious theology of India, which posits various deities as the guardians of the cosmos and sets forth rules of their worship in the interest of man's march towards his great destiny. Theology is an essential part of religion, which is a name for philosophy in practice.
The rules of conduct are a part of the religious way of life. The Smritis are the codes which lay down the laws of human behaviour in one's personal capacity as well as in society. The ancient dictum of the Veda that Satya (truth as being) and Rita (truth as law) are the primary principles of Reality and its manifestation is the background of the canons of Dharma, or a life of righteousness. It is the intention of the Smritis to make explicit the forms of righteousness as they manifest themselves in practical life, which are only implicit in the principles of Satya and Rita or in the account of creation given in the Upanishads. The modes of living according to class (Varna) and order (Ashrama) instituted for the purpose of ensuring mutual cooperation in society are the main contents of the Smritis. These texts not only deal with the ethical problems of man as an individual and as a member of a family or of society in general, but also dilate upon the rules of administration. politics and statesmanship, legal principles and statecraft. The Smritis of Manu, Yajnavalkya and Parasara, the Santi-Parva of the Mahabharata and the Arthasastra of Kautilya are the primary sources of information on this subject. The social, political and legal systems enunciated in these codes are ultimately spiritual in their tone, for they analyse the life of man into the fourfold scheme of practical endeavour, known as rectitude of conduct (Dharma), and a righteous pursuit of economic values (Artha) and of the fulfilment of one's normal desires (Kama), to culminate in the blossoming of the flower of existence into the experience of eternal bliss (Moksha). There is, thus, no clash between the individual and society, man and the State, or between God and creation.
- mg330
Chapter I
THE VEDAS
The Vedas and Their Classification
It is customary for historians of the philosophy and religion of India to commence their studies with the Rig-Veda, which is regarded as the earliest sacred text of ancient Indian culture. A study of the Vedas forms generally the beginning of an advanced learning in the philosophical and religious literature of India. The Rig-Veda is a book of metrical hymns and is divided into ten parts called Mandalas. Another division of the book is into eight sections called Ashtakas. The hymns of the Rig-Veda, called Mantras, are powerfully constructed poems, with an amazing power of rhythm, spontaneity and sublimity of effect, and charged with soulful inspiration, usually with four feet of the metre into which every poem is cast. The poem is pregnant with great meaning and force which can be directed, by a proper recitation of it, for or against any objective here or hereafter. The hymn has the power to protect (Trayate) the one who contemplates (Mananat) on it, and hence the name Mantra. The Mantras of the Vedas are intended to invoke the deities to whom they are addressed, and to summon the power of the deities for executing an ideal. They are the means of connection with the denizens of the celestial world and the divinities that immanently guard and perform different functions in the various planes of existence. There are also Mantras addressed in glorification of the Universal Being or the Absolute.
The Vedas are classified into four groups, called Rik, Yajus, Saman and Atharva. The Rig-Veda is primarily concerned with panegyrics to the gods in the heavens, and is the main book of Mantras. The Yajur Veda is classified into the Krishna (black) and Sukla (white) recensions. The Yajur Veda contains mainly sacrificial formulae in prose and verse to be chanted at the performance of a sacrifice. The Sama Veda consists mostly of verses from the Rig-Veda set to music for singing during the sacrifice. The Atharva Veda abounds mainly in spells and incantations in verse meant for different lower purposes than the purely spiritual.
Every Veda has four divisions, called the Samhita, Brahmana, Aranyaka and Upanishad. The Samhita portion of the Vedas embodies the hymns or prayers offered to deities, as already mentioned. The Brahmanas are the ritualistic portion of the Vedas which expatiate on the details of performing sacrifices. The most famous and costly of these sacrifices are the Rajasuya, Asvamedha, Agnishtoma and Soma Yaga, undertaken either for earthly sovereignty or for heavenly joy. There are many minor sacrifices for the performance of which directions are given in the Brahmanas. The Mantras of the Samhitas are supposed to be recited in the sacrifices, mainly. They can, however, also be used as pure spiritual exercises in prayer and meditation, which aspect received emphasis in a development that led to the philosophic mysticism of the Upanishads, as we shall see later.
The Theme of the Vedas
The Veda Mantras are, as stated above, praises offered to the deities, or Devas, who are regarded as capable of bestowing any blessing on man. It does not mean, however, that the poets of the Samhitas were ignorant of the existence of the Supreme Being and that the gods of the Vedas are mere puerile personifications of the processes of Nature, as many Western orientalists are inclined to think. The Veda Mantras are not the ignorant prattle of immature cattle grazers, the pastoral hymns of primitive minds, as certain historians opine. The historical evaluation should not be oblivious of the logical grounding of process, whether of thought or of society. The trend of visualising the manifold as expressions of the One, and the One as revealing itself in the many is unmistakably traceable in the hymns of the Rig-Veda. It is true that the main gods of the Vedas are Indra, Varuna, Agni, Surya (Aditya or Savitr), Soma, Yama, Vayu, Asvins, Brihaspati and Brahmanaspati; and a correct chanting of the Mantras, summoning the power of the divinities could produce supernatural results, and even the actual materialisation of them here. But it is easy to discover at the same time, in the Rig-Veda, the germinal sources of the concepts of Vishnu, Rudra and Prajapati or Hiranyagarbha as universal divine presences and as the supreme gods of the cosmos. We must reserve for treatment another grander concept - the Supreme Being enunciated in the Purusha Sukta and the Nasadiya Sukta.
In the Purusha Sukta or the hymn of the Cosmic Person, we have the most magnificent description of the spiritual unity of the cosmos. Here is given, perhaps, the earliest complete presentation of the nature of Reality as both immanent and transcendent. The all-encompassing Purusha, who is all-heads, all-eyes and all-limbs, everywhere, envelops and permeates creation from all sides and stands above it as the glorious immortal. The Purusha is all that was, is and shall be. The whole universe is a small fraction of Him, as it were, for He ranges above it in His infinitude of glory. Such is the majestic Purusha, the God of all gods. From Him proceeds the original creative Will (later identified with Brahma, Hiranyagarbha or Prajapati), by which this vast universe was projected in space and time. The Purusha Sukta proclaims once and for all, the organic inseparability of the constituents of society. The Vedic seer loved mankind and creation as much as he loved God.
The Nasadiya Sukta of the Rig-Veda gives, for the first time, intimations of the seer's sounding the depths of being. The astounding vision of the transcendent by the relative is the apparent theme of this famous hymn. Though the Absolute is the Being above all being, existence beyond all possible concepts about it, it becomes an intriguing something, about which nothing definite can be said and of which no definition can be given, when it is envisaged by the individual. Reality is here depicted as not capable of being designated either as existence or non-existence, for there was none to perceive it then, before the manifestation of the heaven and the earth. There was, as if, only an indescribable stillness, deep in its content and defying all approach to it by anyone. There was neither death nor immortality, for there was no differentiatedness whatsoever. Naturally, there was neither day nor night. There was only That One Presence, throbbing in all splendour and glory but appearing as darkness to the eye that would like to behold it. There was nothing second to it; it alone was. From it this creation arose. But how it all happened no one can say, for everyone came after creation. This is the central point of the Nasadiya hymn, a development of which leads to the various ramifications of philosophic and religious thought in the Upanishads and the later classical established form of religion. In a famous Mantra, the Rig-Veda declares that 'Existence (or Reality) is one, though, the wise ones call it by various epithets like Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, Yama, Vayu', thus unifying all the gods in a single Being.
There are other Suktas in the Rig-Veda, which are of great importance in different ways. The Asyavamasya Sukta has a very complicated structure of meaning and hints at certain vital issues of the creation and pattern of the universe. The Hiranyagarbha Sukta sings of the rise of the universe from the cosmic Hiranyagarbha or Prajapati (who is later identified with Brahma, the Creator). The Aghamarshana Sukta refers to the cycle of creation from the cosmic equilibrium in the beginning, in a recurring manner, so that the essential features of creation repeat themselves in every cycle. The Vamadeva Sukta mentions the spiritual realisation of sage Vamadeva even while he was in the womb of his mother and his exclamations of joy on his attainment of freedom from the fetters that bound him to individuality. The concluding portion of the Rig-Veda is a heartening call to unity in thought, word and deed among people, a message which has so much meaning to humanity today.
The Rudra Adhyaya or the Satarudriya, a hymn of the Yajur Veda, is a thrilling invocation of the Supreme Being as Rudra-Siva, wherein He is addressed in all the visible and conceivable forms. The Almighty Lord is the big and small, the gross and subtle, the low and high, the distant and near, the visible and invisible, what is and what is not. This is an address of invocation to Siva as the all-comprehensive being, ready to shower blessings on the devotees who crave for His grace. The Purusha Sukta and the Rudra Adhyaya are chanted even this day during worship in the temples of India, as invocatory and purificatory process for bringing about world-solidarity and commonweal. The Vedic Almighty God combines in Himself aesthetic beauty and splendour, ethical goodness and law, and spiritual reality and perfection, all in one.
The Gayatri Mantra stands unparalleled in the Vedas, and it is regarded as their seed-word, which, with the three Vyahritis (Bhuh, Bhuvah, Svah), according to Manu, is supposed to have been the 'open-sesame' for universal manifestation at the commencement of time.
The Concept of Law and Sacrifice in the Vedas
The Rig-Veda gives two code words: Satya and Rita, signifying the spiritual law as such and the law in its working process in the cosmos. While Satya is the principle of integration rooted in the Absolute, Rita is its application and function as the rule and order operating in the universe. Sometimes Rita is interpreted as the original principle of being and Satya its manifestation. The world is sustained by a just and inexorable law which is the decree of God for the well-being of all. Conformity with this law tends to material and spiritual progress and advancement, leading to higher forms of integration in life, while its violation is punished with a series of transmigratory lives in the different planes of manifestation.
In the Purusha Sukta we observe the concept of sacrifice carried to the degree of perfection where the whole universe is regarded as an act of sacrifice on the part of God. God becomes in the form of creation the field and opportunity for individual sacrifice. The universe is a sacrifice (Yajna), and all actions, properly performed, in so far as they involve an element of self-abnegation for self-transcendence, are forms of sacrifice of one's individuality or whatever belongs to it as its appendage. The Supreme Being Himself is a transcendent sacrifice when viewed in the form of this manifestation, when the relative is construed as a self-alienation of the Divine Being. The essence of sacrifice is existence for others' sake, not necessarily in the form of social activity, but in a wider perspective of consciousness which gets engulfed gradually in a series of its higher reaches, pointing to a final absoluteness of being. This is the concept of supreme sacrifice in the Purusha Sukta.
From the point of view of such lofty thoughts as embodied in the Purusha Sukta and the Rudra Adhyaya, the adoration and contemplation of God is possible in any place and at any time, for God is here, just before us, and He can be worshipped through anything in the universe. In this worship and contemplation, which is the highest sacrifice, God is the articles of worship, He is the worship, the worshipper and also the worshipped. His existence and manifestation mean one and the same thing. His being and activity constitute a single whole. Immortality and death, life and non-life are both His modes. The Supreme Being is here and now. He can be realised by this mighty act of universal self-sacrifice.
To the seers of the Vedas, life is a joy of sacrifice, and a daily visualisation of Divinity in all Nature.
Karma and Reincarnation
The principles of Rita and Satya imply a strict adherence to law and rule in conformity with the aim and purpose of the processes of the universe. Any action which originates in a sense of personal individuality set in opposition to or incongruous with the universal order of Rita and Satya should obviously mean the work of a nemesis, as a natural reaction to such action, endeavouring to set right the balance of cosmic equilibrium which has been disturbed by it. This principle of the redounding of the effect of action upon the doer of it is the metaphysical, ethical and psychological regulative force called Karma, which requires the doer of such action to pass through a series of experiential processes called metempsychosis or rebirth in other conditions and environments than that in which the action has been done. Thus it would be clear that the law of Karma and reincarnation is a scientific law of the integrality of the cosmos. The Vedas accept the operation of this principle and recognise the fact that one's future life depends on the way one lives the present one. We shall have occasion to revert to this famous doctrine of Karma and Samsara in our studies of its further development.
The Vedas as Fountainhead of Development
The Vedas may be regarded as the source and fountain to which the later developments of thought can be traced. The bold speculative trend and philosophic flights of the Vedas culminated in the Upanishads and the system of the Vedanta. Their descriptions of religious ecstasy in divine contemplations inspired the formulation of the school of Yoga which was codified in the aphorisms of Patanjali. Their visions of the creation of the universe helped the rise of the Sankhya doctrine which regularised the prevalent notions on cosmology and psychology. The logical trend in the Vedas stimulated the development of Anvikshiki (application of reason) and the rationalistic bias of certain systems among the Darsanas. The ritualistic and sacerdotal emphasis in the Vedas laid the foundation for the purely authoritarian Mimamsa school. The forms of meditation and prayer predominant in the Vedic hymns sponsored the building up of the Bhakti schools among the Vaishnavas, Saivas and Saktas. The accounts of sages, anchorites and kings which the Vedas furnish, formed the beginnings of the elaborate Itihasas or epics, and the Puranas. The social rules and customs of the time of the Vedas became the cornerstones for the systematisation of conduct and law in the Smritis or Dharmasastras. The social, political and religious institutions were all meant to help the gradual evolution of the individual, according to each one's capacity and aptitude, towards the realisation of spiritual universality.
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Chapter II
THE UPANISHADS
The Period of Transition
The predominant tone of the Samhitas and Brahmanas was one of piety and ceremonialism, interspersed with raptures of religious feeling and contemplative ecstasy, which led occasionally to a spiritual vision of the Virat or the Cosmic Almighty. Though the undercurrent of the thought of the Vedic Rishis had an overtone of a spiritual vision in the things of the world, and their idea of sacrifice reached its zenith in a meditation on the Universe itself as a sacrifice of the Supreme Purusha, the tendency to material sacrifices or Yajnas for propitiating the gods hymned in the Samhitas still continued to receive great stress in the ordinary life both of the Brahmanas and Kshatriyas, who formed the upper classes of the social strata. Side by side with the concept of sacrifice and an obedience to the laws of Rita and Satya, the concept of Samsara or worldly existence as a part of the requirements of the principle of reincarnation of souls due to Karma received more and more attention, and the thoughtful began to feel a need for discovering a way of redemption from transmigratory life, since it was realised that transmigration is the result of subjection to a law which was being violated in life by the individual. The necessity felt for an austere achievement of freedom from desire, which was the cause of the violations of law, crystallised itself in the doctrine of Tapas or asceticism and self-control which finds expression in the Aranyakas as a fruit ripening from the Brahmanas and Samhitas. The Tapasvin or anchorite, living a life of retreat in the forest, began to command more respect than the priest of the Brahmanas and the hymnist of the Samhitas. The tendency to regard the Vedic sacrifice more as an act of internal meditation than outward oblation gained firm ground and the ceremonial piety of the earlier part of the Vedas flowed into a mystical contemplation of creation, while, at the same time, it was discovered that the inner sacrifice is more powerful than the outer in producing results.
The Quest for Reality
The sages who dedicated their lives more and more to meditation in sylvan retreats rather than to the external Yajnas of the Brahmanas demonstrated their superiority over others by the spiritual prowess they possessed. The sage rose above the conventional formalities of ritualistic dogma and concerned himself with the duty of mastering Nature through Tapas or self-restraint, which enabled him to have a knowledge of everything in the world simultaneously. He gained omniscience and could have access to the different regions of the Universe without hindrance. Certain sages almost approximated God in their powers and could create, preserve or destroy things, if they so wished, by a mere glance or even a thought. By meditation the sage solved the cosmic mystery and attuned himself to the Absolute, or the Divine Lord of the Universe. He overcame mortality and attained salvation from birth and death. He was regarded as the supreme conqueror, and in the words of the Upanishad, 'the world belongs to him, nay, he himself is the world'. Such was the dignity of spiritual realisation. The collection of the revelations of such sages formed the Aranyakas and the Upanishads.
The Philosophy of the Upanishads
The Doctrine of Creation: The Upanishads do not reject the authority of the Brahmanas or the efficacy of sacrifice. But they go behind the sacrificial cult and regard it as a spiritual exercise. The thirst for knowledge could not be quenched by a routine of external Yajnas or ceremonies. It was necessary to find an answer to the question of the creation of the Universe and one's relation to it inwardly and outwardly. The creation hymn of the Rig-Veda, the Nasadiya Sukta, heralded the quest for the Absolute, and in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad the Asvamedha sacrifice is contemplated as a process of the Universe, to be regarded in meditation. From the various theories of creation advanced in the Upanishads, we may sum up the whole scheme as follows:
Brahman is the Reality, and is often identified with Purusha. The condition when Brahman is potent with the possibility of a future creation is called the Avyakrita or Unmanifest, known also as Ishvara in the later Vedanta. In the Sankhya terminology, this condition is the Prakriti of all things. When the Cosmic Will is fully projected, it is Hiranyagarbha, or in Sankhya parlance, Mahat. Hiranyagarbha or the Cosmic Intellect, when fully manifest as the Cosmos, becomes Virat. Now the subsequent process of creation is the beginning of Samsara or individualisation by separation.
The universal Virat is conceived as Adhyatma, Adhibhuta and Adhidaiva, when the diversified forms appear as divisions therein. The senses of knowledge and the organs of action, as well as the psychological functions, have their external counterparts and also their presiding deities ruling over them. Thus, the sense of hearing has sound (ether) as its physical counterpart and the deities of the quarters as its presiding deities. The sense of touch has tangibility (air) as its physical counterpart and Vayu as its presiding deity. The sense of seeing has colour (fire) as its physical counterpart in the world and Sun or Aditya as its presiding deity. The sense of taste has gustatory enjoyment (water) as its physical counterpart and Varuna as its presiding deity. The sense of smell has odour (earth) as its physical counterpart and the Asvins as its presiding deities. The organs of speech, grasping (hands), locomotion (feet), procreation and excretion have respectively Agni, Indra, Vishnu, Prajapati and Yama as their presiding deities. The faculties of thinking (Manas), understanding (Buddhi), self-arrogation (Ahamkara) and memory (Chitta) have Soma (Moon), Brahma, Rudra and Vishnu as their presiding deities. Apart from the physical counterparts and the presiding deities, the individual functions mentioned above have their locations in the body, such as ears, skin, eyes, palate, nostrils, mouth, hands, feet, genitals and anus. The psychological functions are the mind, intellect, ego, and the subconscious, including the unconscious. These details are all not fully available in the older Upanishads but have to be gathered from the elucidations in the later Upanishads.
The doctrine of creation delineated up to this stage is as far as what can be gathered into a systematic whole from the different statements on the subject made in the Upanishads. But this scheme of creation is developed into a further detail of completeness in the Epics and, especially, the Puranas, which we can consider here with benefit, though these developments are not to be seen in the creation theories of the Upanishads. Together with the senses of knowledge and organs of action, and their locations in the body of the individual, there is the creation of their physical counterparts, viz., Ether, Air, Fire (with light and heat), Water and Earth. The Creator Brahma or Hiranyagarbha projects out of his Mind the original individuals - Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatana, Sanatkumara and Sanatsujata. There is, then, the manifestation, from the cosmic body of Brahma, of the first progenitors of beings - Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, Bhrigu, Vasishtha, Daksha and Narada. Then is described the appearance of Rudra or Siva who is one of the trinities or primary gods of the Universe. Then, out of the body of Brahma we hear of the creation of Manu and Satarupa, the first king and queen, who formed two halves of an aspect of the body of Brahma. Manu and Satarupa had Priyavrata and Uttanapada as their sons, and Akuti, Devahuti and Prasuti as daughters. The relationships of these offsprings of Manu and Satarupa with the earlier progeny of Brahma, such as Marichi, Atri, etc., became the sources of the entire creation in all its Lokas or planes of manifestation.
The Puranas go into more detail of the creation of lesser divinities, such as the Devas, Gandharvas and Apsarases, Pitris, Yakshas, Siddhas, Charanas, Vidyadharas, Kinnaras, Kimpurushas and lower still Nagas, Rakshasas, Bhutas, Pretas and Pisachas. The creation of the plants, animals and humans is said to have taken place, according to the Srimad Bhagavata Purana, simultaneously with these lesser grades of beings.
One important feature in creation is that in the case of Ishvara, Hiranyagarbha and Virat, the appearance or existence of objects is posterior to perception by the ramified Cosmic Will (Drishti-Srishti), while individual psychological perceptions are posterior to the existence of the objects so manifested cosmically (Srishti-Drishti).
The Puranic classification of the seven regions or planes viz., (1) Bhuloka, (2) Bhuvarloka, (3) Svarloka, (4) Maharloka, (5) Janaloka, (6) Tapoloka and (7) Satyaloka may be regarded as pertinent to the worlds respectively of (1) inanimate matter, plants, animals and humans; (2) Pitris, and beings of their category; (3) Devas, Gandharvas and Apsarases with Indra as their ruler and Brihaspati as their preceptor; (4) the Siddhas and Rishis engaged in meditation (who may be considered as occupants of Maharloka, Janaloka and Tapoloka; the higher order of creation above the manifestation of Rudra being hailed as the presiding divinities in the region of Satyaloka. There is also to be mentioned a superior order of spiritual beings like Narayana and Nara, Vasishtha, Vyasa, Suka and such other Rishis, who may be residing in any region at their will. These subsequent descriptions of detail in greater concreteness are not to be found in the Upanishads, but form the central theme of the creation theory in the Puranas.
Metaphysics: The Upanishads hold that the universe is in essence a spiritual unity. All this is pervaded by the Lord (Isa), whatever moves or moves not. To worship Him, therefore, implies a relinquishment of one's possessorship in regard to things. Covetousness is, thus, a denial of God's existence as the all-pervading reality. Life and its activities are non-different from divine contemplation. To bear what comes with fortitude and to act without initiative is real contemplation, in the light of the consciousness that He is all things.
The Supreme Being can neither be seen, nor heard, nor thought, nor understood, with the faculties of the individual. He can be recognised where the ego is abolished. He sees through the eyes, hears through the ears, thinks through the mind, understands through the intellect and breathes through the breath; but these instruments cannot apprehend Him. One who thinks that he knows, knows not. He is known by him who does not think that he knows anything in particular. If He is known here in this life, then there is the true end of all aspirations. If one does not know Him in this life, great indeed is the loss to such a one. Sages become immortal, after death, having seen Him alone in each and every being in this world as its very Self. Hence one should adore and contemplate on Reality as Supreme Love and Delight, whereby the universe begins to reciprocate this love to the votary of such a meditation.
The pleasures of the senses are ephemeral. They wear away one's energies, and tend to one's destruction. Even the longest life with the greatest pleasure is indeed worth nothing in the end. The only desirable aim in this world is the knowledge of the Self. The pleasant is one thing and the good is another. Both these come to a man together for acceptance. The wise man discriminates between the two and chooses the good rather than the pleasant. But the foolish one chooses the pleasant and falls into the net of the widespread death, on account of attachment to personal comfort. There is really no diversity here. As an indivisible Being alone should one behold it in all these things. He goes from death to death in a series of transmigration who perceives diversity here.
By knowing it, everything is known at once. He becomes it, who knows it. It is 'all this', and it ranges above perception. It transcends the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep. It is the cessation of all phenomena, the peaceful, the blessed, the non-dual. It is Truth, Knowledge, Infinity. One possesses all things simultaneously, becomes all things at one stroke, and enjoys all things at once, who knows this as identical with his own being. Wonderful is that experience, marvellous is that man, great is his fortune, blessed are his friends, freed for ever are his relatives, gone is the bondage of those who have his blessings.
The Absolute is consciousness. It is the root of all existence. It blazes as the sun, shines as the moon, twinkles as the star. It sleeps in stones, breathes in plants, thinks in animals and discriminates in man. No part of this world is to be regarded as complete unless it is taken together with all its other parts. The sun and moon are only a part of it. The solar system is a part. The stellar regions are a part. The earth and the heavens are a part. No meditation can be perfect when any particular thing alone is taken as its object. Meditation is defective when it does not comprehend all existence. Meditation is rightly done when its object is the totality of which the visible and the conceivable are just aspects. In such meditation individuality is swallowed up into Universal Being. Here meditation itself ceases, and the object of meditation alone remains. The actions of one who knows this secret are universal actions. The food that he takes in is the food offered to the universe, and the universe rejoices in such satisfaction. The food offered to him by anyone is a spiritual sacrifice performed in the altar of creation. Knowing this, if one were to throw some grains of food to an outcaste, it shall be veritably offered into the Absolute. As children sit round their mother for food, hungry and craving for her benign look, so do all beings in this creation look to him for their existence, who knows this secret.
The Infinite alone is bliss. There is no bliss in the small and finite. Where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else - that is the Infinite. Where one sees something else, hears something else, understands something else - that is the finite. The Infinite is the immortal. The finite is the mortal. The Infinite is based on its own greatness. It has no resting place or support other than itself. It is in front, behind, to the right, the left, above, below and everywhere. It is all this at once. For one who knows this, everything springs from his own Self. The whole universe, manifest and unmanifest, arises for him from his Self, and serves him without limitation of time and place. This is the consummation.
One who knows that He is the 'All' becomes the 'All'. Knowing is being. Knowledge is power. Consciousness is existence and bliss, immediately. He who seeks for the 'All' in any particular thing here, finds it not. The Eternal is not reached through the non-eternal. The permanent cannot be attained by the impermanent. The means and the end are both the Absolute.
None loves an object for its own sake. All love is for one's own universal Self. Things are dear because of the Infinite that peeps through them. The Infinite summons the Infinite in the perception of the beloved. Persons and things are not dear for their own sake. Though all love has a selfish origin in the world, it has a transcendent meaning above the phase of the seer and seen. He who knows the secret behind temporal loves knows Truth and is liberated from the thraldom of mortality. The knowledge of the Self is knowledge of everything. But he who, by an error, regards anything as being outside himself in truth, shall lose that thing, whatever it be.
Where there is duality, as it were, there one sees the other, hears the other, smells the other, speaks to the other, tastes the other, touches the other, thinks the other, understands the other. But where the One alone is, who can see what and by what, who can hear, smell, speak, taste, touch, think or understand what and by what? How can one know that by which one knows all these things? How can one know the Knower? This is the great admonition. This is the treasure-house of knowledge. If one were to give the whole earth as a gift for the sake of this knowledge, one should regard this knowledge as greater than that. Lo, this is greater than all things.
The Upanishads proclaim in this strain the content of spiritual realisation and have as their aim and objective of existence the aspiration to rise from the unreal to the Real, from darkness to Light, from mortality to Immortality.
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Chapter III
THE ITIHASAS AND PURANAS
The Rise of the Epics and Puranas
The Brahman of the Upanishads, which stirred the awe and reverence of the sages, could be realised only by the cream of mankind, and those who are fit to pursue the path chalked out in the Upanishads are small in number. But religion has to extend beyond realisation and cater to the emotional needs of the lesser category of humanity. No historian of philosophy, to our knowledge, has been able to get over the prejudice that all religious thought subsequent to the Vedas and Upanishads, and apart from the later systematic Vedanta of the Darsana school, is a kind of trash, or, at best, a concession to the weakness of the popular mind. But it need not be emphasised that, if the religion of the Hindus had exhausted itself in the visions of the Vedas and Upanishads and the metaphysics of the intellectual Vedanta, Hinduism would have died out long ago and remained today as a memory, like the cultures of Babylon, Greece or Egypt. The almost universal sweep of the thought of the Hindus has enabled their religion to withstand the onslaughts of foreign culture and pass through the vicissitudes of time.
The appeal of the great religion of India is not merely to the intellect or reason, or even to an empirical need, but to man as such. The longings of human nature are not Eastern or Western, but of the world. The awe-inspiring Brahman or Purusha had to be made accessible to the warrior and the businessman, the servant and the farmer in the fields, in a way intelligible to them all, and practicable to their endowments and temperaments. While the Upanishads called forth special qualifications, the Epics and Puranas came to the help of the general man.
The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are the towering Epics of India. While the Mahabharata is constructed out of a complicated theme of tradition, mythology, history, philosophy and mysticism, the Ramayana is a straight and running chronicle depicting the deeds of a divinely great hero who came to set an example to mankind as a whole. The Mahabharata soars into the realms of the supernatural and the marvellous, giving at the same time an easier exposition of the nature of the goal of human life. The Ramayana written in the ideal ornate style of Valmiki, mildly shaking the heart of the reader from beginning to end, and giving a silent touch of transformation to the feelings, brings about, without its being known or announced loudly, the requisite regeneration of the human mind into an ideal condition of humaneness, a sense of brotherhood, filial affection, fraternity of feeling, obedience to rule, servicefulness, honesty, firmness in resolution, and an unbounded goodness coupled with an adamantine adherence to truth. The Mahabharata, which is the magnum opus of the brilliant insight of Vyasa, on the other hand, raises a tumult of emotion and feeling and throws the mind to giddy heights, scattering it into the empyrean of a wondrous perfection of the ethical and spiritual ideal, and the student of the Mahabharata finds himself dashed by the waves of the powerful thoughts of Vyasa, now sinking down and now rising up in that ocean of Epic literature. Valmiki and Vyasa are the real builders of Indian culture, and their names will be remembered as long as Hinduism lasts. The great heroes and heroines of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata - Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata, Sita, Hanuman, Krishna, Yudhishthira, Bhishma, Arjuna, Draupadi - are bywords even to a schoolboy in India, and it is impossible to think of these noble personages without a sense of the supernormal creeping into one's veins. It is the Ramayana and the Mahabharata that have driven into the minds of people in India the idea of a compassionate and powerful God ruling the destinies of man and yet ready to help anyone who really craves for His grace. It is the Ramayana and the Mahabharata that have built India through the ages and saturated the Indian mind in religious thought and hammered down the ideal of God-realisation as the goal of human life and the possibility of receiving help in this endeavour from the Rishis and the Avataras of God. It is these sublime Epics that have cemented the hearts of the Hindus into a single whole, and if today India stands as a powerful Nation ready to face undaunted any force that may threaten it from outside, it is because of the moral toughness and courage that has been instilled into the blood of the Nation by the superminds of Valmiki and Vyasa. It is impossible for us here to adequately estimate the indelible impact which the thoughts of Valmiki and Vyasa have produced on the minds of the people of India. They brought into being an effect which cannot be erased out of history, for they touched the being of man.
The great works of Valmiki and Vyasa became the reservoirs for the streams of several inspiring works by the immortal poets of India - Kalidasa, Bhavabhuti, Bharavi, Magha, Sriharsha, Tulasidas, Kamban, and many other writers in poetry and prose, who drew inspiration from the inexhaustible founts of the authors of the two great Epics. The famous saying, 'whatever is of worth in the literature of the world is what has been already spoken by Vyasa (Vyasochhishtam Jagat Sarvam)', gives an idea as to the nature of the contents of the work of Vyasa. In the very words of the Mahabharata, 'whatever is here (in this Epic), whether concerning ethics, politics, human well-being or spiritual salvation, is elsewhere; what is not found here will not be found anywhere else'. The religion that the common Hindu knows and practises is the religion of the Epics and Puranas. It is this prolific literature that has made India spiritual in character. When the religious man of India, in general, prays to God or even contemplates on God, his idea is really that of the God of the Epics and Puranas. This is the popular religion of India, the religion of the masses and of the orthodox religious elite even today. The great religious festivals and ceremonies, rituals, vows and observances practised throughout the country are the result of the untiring proclamations made in this body of literature, ascribed to Valmiki and Vyasa. Under these circumstances, it is surprising that historians of philosophy, even of Indian origin, should have proffered a step-motherly treatment to these works of great literary merit, and in most cases ignored their very existence, as if they are the chaff of religious literature, while in fact it is to these alone that the religious man has clung for centuries down to this day for inspiration and solace in times of emotional depression or dispiritedness in life.
This appraisal of the genius of Valmiki and Vyasa is indeed much less than the regard and attention that these masters and makers of human culture really deserve. We hope that students of the history of philosophy and religion will find time and patience enough to dive again into the depths of this ocean of Epic literature, for no one can be said to have truly grasped the spirit of Indian culture without having mastered the import of these Epics. As it is said in the Mahabharata, 'the Veda is afraid of him who has not studied the Epics and Puranas, for he would indeed kill it with his ignorance of its truth propounded in them.'
History and Symbology as Modes of Teaching
The method of the Epics is different from that of the Veda-Samhitas and the Upanishads. The latter lead the mind direct to the ultimate truth of things, with a forceful pressure of the revelation of a universal unity exerted on the understanding. The penetrating insight of the authors of the Epics and Puranas quickly discovered the impossibility of the application of this method on the minds of the masses and followed a way which can be easily accepted by everyone. The mind has a tendency to love the beautiful, admire the marvellous, fear the mysterious and imitate the heroic or chivalrous. The feelings of affection, sympathy and compassion, and a longing for the ideal of justice are all to be found even in the most learned or the philosophically minded. The human side does not vanish even for a metaphysician of the highest order. To understand this aspect of man is a little difficult, and ignorance of this fact is the cause of man's failures in social life. The mind resents following a beaten path and yearns for variety. It loves and hates. It has prejudices and, occasionally, it is even fanatic. All this admixture of curious ingredients in the human mind does not receive full sympathy from the Upanishads or the Vedas. Man, being what he is, needs a friend, philosopher and guide in his day-to-day life. And this need is admirably filled by the works of the great Epic poets.
The personalities of the Epics are eternal inspirations for the drooping spirits of mankind. Consider, for example, the invincible power of Rama, that exemplar of truth and justice, who was like a thunderbolt to all evil and the tenderest consoler of the simple and innocent, and a forgiver of even the enemy who came to him for refuge, infusing into every heart, devotion, admiration and fear, all together, by the character of his ideal personality. Consider the wondrous Krishna who could walk on earth and in heaven simultaneously, bring kings down from their thrones by a mere word of his, assume the cosmic form of the Almighty and yet wash the feet of the guests who attended the Rajasuya sacrifice of Yudhishthira, bewitch charming girls who loved him, give assurance and comfort to the weeping Draupadi, put courage and energy into the diffident Arjuna, terrorise even the terrific gods in battle, speak the highest philosophy and fight as the mightiest of soldiers, give spiritual vision to Yogins in their meditations, hypnotise the whole army of the Kauravas by a mere look, converse with Brahma and Rudra as friends and yet hold the reins of Arjuna's chariot in war, and remain at once the source of omniscience and omnipotence, a master of Yoga, a centre of love and a dynamic man of action, a perfection of personality as man and God in one. Vyasa, by his majestic descriptions of Krishna, stimulates one's being into an ecstasy of thought which the mortal frame cannot endure, for it may break if the thought deepens a little more in such contemplation. Consider the virtue of Yudhishthira, which bore the impertinence and meanness of the Kauravas in the court where Draupadi was grossly insulted in public, the virtue which ordered the release of the evil Duryodhana from the bonds of Chitrasena, the Gandharva, the virtue which had the understanding and patience to withstand the incitations of his brothers, while in forest, to take up arms against the enemies, which showed the presence of mind that had the boldness to walk singly through the thick of the arrayed army to receive the blessings of the elders before the war, which asked for the revival of his stepmother's son rather than his own mighty brothers when they were all in a swoon of death, which would rather give up the prospects of going to heaven than abandon a faithful dog which followed him in his weary journey. Who could remember Yudhishthira without tears in one's eyes! Consider the dexterity of Arjuna, the strength of Bhima, the might of Hanuman, the sorrow of Draupadi, the grief of Sita, the misery of Damayanti, the courage of Lakshmana, the sacrifice of Bharata, the greatness of Bhishma, the spiritual splendour of Vasishtha which foiled the mightiest weapons known on earth. Consider the wisdom of Vyasa, the realisation of Suka, the glory of the divine sages, Narayana and Nara! Who can read the lives of these great ones without a thrill of wonder, fright, love, and an aspiration for the higher life! These are some of the many picturesque and unforgettable lessons that the Epics have left behind them as a legacy for directing the human heart to blossom from humanity to Divinity.
Apart from the great lessons that one learns from the lives of the towering personalities of the Epics, they also provide a symbolic representation of the activity of the cosmic forces, working both within and without, an activity which is the very nature of the Universe. The wandering of Rama in the forests also reminds one of the aberration of the Jiva (individual soul) in Samsara, with his consort Sita, the mind that implores him to run after the golden deer of sense-object. The power of discrimination and virility which is Lakshmana gets grossly insulted by the desirous mind and is made to take leave of it by a misconstrued interpretation of situation. The ten-headed Ravana is the group of the ten senses which carries away Sita, the mind, impetuously, and Rama, the soul, is left all alone, seeking union with his consort in the wilderness of life. Another reading of this symbology takes it to signify the separation of Sita, the individual soul, from Rama, the Absolute. Here Ravana may be regarded as the mind working with the ten senses. The good tidings which Hanuman conveyed to Sita are like the happy news of the possibility of the soul's salvation, received from a Guru or spiritual teacher. The Guru's power of insight dispels the darkness of the mind and shakes the Jiva from its slumber of ignorance, as Hanuman disillusions the Rakshasas by his terrifying power, dashing down their fortresses and challenging their unified attack all alone. In this symbology, the union of Sita with Rama, after the destruction of Ravana, is the union of the individual with the Supreme Being, after the annihilation of ignorance.
The Mahabharata, likewise, serves as a great symbol of the universal drama. The dark forces as the Kauravas banish from their estates the virtuous characters as the Pandavas, with apparent success in the beginning. Goodness in the world seems to have no support and it is put to shame by the vices which gain an upper hand. The Pandavas who represent good character and right conduct are disconcerted and defeated and forced out of their kingdom into the forest, where they live with the sympathy of some good people, who are naturally not many in number. Virtue is put to test and does not receive help even from God in the earlier stages - Krishna is far away, busily engaged in something else, and does not know the woe of the Pandavas. There is also, after a time, a temptation to try the impossible and break a vow, when the younger brothers and Draupadi advise Yudhishthira, the chief among the virtuous and the good, to cut short their exile in the forest and retaliate upon the Kauravas. Only the sagacity of a Yudhishthira could realise the unworthiness of such a move at that time. After a period of severe test, virtue is rewarded, and armed forces come to its rescue, and God Himself as Krishna takes up the reins of its destiny in His hands, and the war with vice is waged. Even here is another symbology of the chariot, of which Krishna is the charioteer, a figure which occurs in the Kathopanishad. The supreme intelligence in man is the charioteer or the guiding principle in the battle of life. Arjuna is the individual soul. The horses are the senses. The body is the chariot. The mind is the reins. The objects of the senses are the path and the direction of the movement of the chariot. In this war with unrighteousness one has to face not merely gross wickedness as of Duryodhana and his henchmen, but also outdated conservatism and tradition as in Bhishma, a character which may be called misplaced understanding that does not take cognisance of the subtlety of changing situations; alliance of knowledge and power with injustice as in Drona; and ability and conduct vitiated by bad association as in Karna. God, the Master of the destiny of the Universe, has His own plans, and Krishna, the Lord of Yoga rousing the confused soul with His gospel of the Bhagavad Gita and infusing confidence by His Visvarupa, Himself does all the work of the destruction of evil and establishment of righteousness, while the soul is merely an instrument in His hands. As long as God is seated in the body it lives and moves and when Krishna descends from Arjuna's chariot it is instantaneously reduced to ashes. God takes up the responsibility of caring for the Jiva when there is true self-surrender, and Krishna takes up arms against the fierce Bhishma when the need is felt. God sees that the vow of the soul in its battle is fulfilled as is illustrated in the overcoming of Jayadratha. The traditional concept of Dharma, like the rule of mathematics fixed for ever, has to be abandoned and seen as it is in its vitality, a living, changing and ruling force, as was demonstrated in the vanquishing of Karna. The surgeon's knife has to be applied when the body is going to be eaten up by cancer. Whether one is a Bhishma, worthy of respect, or a Duryodhana deserving kingly honour, he has to be put down when he goes counter to the divine order prevailing in creation.
The above description of an inner symbol in the Epics does not mean that they are only a symbol and there is no substance or truth in them. There are many who imagine these Epics to be the concoction of a brave genius, with no historicity whatsoever in their annals. Such a hazardous view goes to an extreme and truth is always in the middle. It is possible that some minor details, such as the Upakhyanas in the Mahabharata, have grown out of some old legends or traditions, but there is no reason to disbelieve the historical character of the central figures of the Epics. May we also suppose that the restless anxiety of some writers to reduce persons like Rama and Krishna to mythical or imaginary concepts of poets is due to an eagerness to see that the case of spirituality or divine living does not triumph in the world? Even during the time of Krishna himself, there was at least one man who denied his very existence.
The Metaphysics of History
Here it will be profitable to make a slight digression from the main subject and discuss the meaning of history and symbol, and how the charge of the non-historicity of the Epic figures cannot affect the main purpose of the Epics. Perhaps it is a feeling of many that non-historicity means non-existence. It is our purpose here to show that this erroneous notion is based on a wrong view of history itself. There is a cosmic significance of things, in addition to the historical and isolated meaning which they seem to have in social life. The human mind has a habit of looking at events in a straight line and this linear march of events is normally regarded as history. This is what we call the three-dimensional perspective or the spatio-temporal vision of the mind - to look at objects as bodies, as existences cut off from others, in such a way that there cannot be any intrinsic or organic connection among them. This is the classical historical view. The events of political history have no organic connection. There appear to be sudden jumps, in space and time, of characters which cannot be predicted easily. But that this is not the truth of history will be clear to a true philosopher of history. The historical view takes account of the causal connection of events, while causation is not the whole truth of the universe. Arthur Eddington introduces a distinction between causation which is the commonsense meaning of the relation of cause and effect in which there is the notion of the temporal antecedence of cause to the effect, and what he calls causality which is the symmetrical relation of the totality of events in the universe, which is a complete system of reciprocally connected events. Whitehead holds a similar view when he considers reality to be of the nature of an organismic process. Here the three-dimensional or spatio-temporal view of history gives way to the truth of a universal situation, which though it may appear as extra-mental to individual observing centres, is involved in the very constitution of the observers, and hence incapable of observation at all. A necessity of thought need not be an uncontradictable truth. James Jeans observes: "We can no longer say that the past creates the present; past and present no longer have any objective meanings, since the four-dimensional continuum can no longer be sharply divided into past, present and future". "If we still wish to think of the happenings in the phenomenal world as governed by the causal law, we must suppose that these happenings are determined in some substratum of the world which lies beyond the world of phenomena."
As the universe is a connected process and not a collocation of isolated objects hanging in space, no one thing or event can be said to be the cause of another thing or event, for, in an unbroken process, every part has to pervade and penetrate every other part, so that everything in it becomes a cause as well as an effect. Every event, thus, reflects a universal condition and does not stand as an element abstracted from the whole. Causation among things is to be understood as the individualistic reading of the consequences of an indivisible consciousness appearing as the witness of objects which have it as their existence and content. The function of this universal principle as an unbroken continuum appears, where it is manifest in individuals, as the law of causal relation. The dynamic self-expression of the Absolute in the world of objects involves among them a living connection which appears in this manner. Causation has a meaning in the empirical world, but is meaningless to the Absolute. The mechanistic senses of man cannot observe the teleological purpose hidden in the Universe, an aim towards which all evolution is directed.
The story of Lila and Padma, in the Yogavasishtha, demonstrates the truth that an event can have several dates and locations. Every event is a universal event and is valid to the whole cosmos. The past, present and future have no absolute determinations of their own. An event may have a different significance altogether with a different space-time meaning in some other framework of reference. What is past need not be necessarily past for everyone, and this law applies to the present and future, also. Any event taken by itself and at a given moment of time may belong either to the past, present or future according to the space-time coordinate from which it is viewed. From the point of view of the Reality behind the Universe, an event is a universal process inseparable from the consciousness in which it occurs. Space-time is a relation and not existence. This world of space-time in which we live is not the only possible one, for there can be as many worlds, with as many space-times, as there are frames of reference or modes of consciousness. Our world-history, therefore, need not be an ultimate reality. When subjected to critical analysis, the reality of the historical existence of things, as we conceive it, vanishes like mist before the sun.
What we understand to be history has a significance wider than that the historical level would permit. The crass notion of a historical being would perhaps be of a person or thing capable of being seen with the physical eye at the time when it existed. Perhaps the existence of someone who has never been seen by anyone would be an object of doubt as to his existence. As there is nobody today who can say that he has seen Rama or Krishna, for example, we are ready to doubt their reality. We seem to reject everything which cannot be empirically proved right now and here. But in this weddedness of ours to the historical dogma we seem to forget that history need not merely be a straight march of certain events in time but can comprehend situations and realities overstepping the limits of sensory phenomena.
Is God a historical person? Perhaps the reason why his existence is often denied is because his being cannot be subjected to the test of empirical history. Is the world or the universe a historical entity? The solidness, the simple location, in short, the temporal historicalness of the contents of the world has been smashed down once for all, by the discoveries of the modern Theory of Relativity in physics, and its startling philosophic interpretations by such thinkers as Eddington and Whitehead. In this predicament one should really hesitate to give opinion against the historical existence of the personalities of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The perception of Valmiki and Vyasa ranged beyond the empirical view of history and looked at the universe from the point of view of being qua being. The Sages sang the history of the cosmos, which an uninitiated mind cannot comprehend. Any attempt by the layman to probe into their implications would be like a science student of a secondary school trying to read the discoveries of Einstein for himself and understand them. No one who is incapable of a universal perspective of things can appreciate the truths presented in these Epics, which proclaim to the world the outer meaning of the inner reality revealed in the Upanishads.
The history of a thing is not what happens to that thing in a particular country or village, but what it is in creation as a totality. We do not exist merely in a country; we exist in the cosmos. That some of us are visitors, some are pilgrims, some have arrived from foreign countries, and some have this or that character, quality or duty, is a description of our personalities; but we are all more than this descriptive form. Our status in the cosmos is our true history, and no study of a person can be complete or be free from doubt unless it is studied from the cosmical standpoint. Taking things bit by bit, in isolation, is not the method of a true historical study. The biography of a person, at least according to the viewpoint of seers like Vyasa, should include the story of body, mind and spirit together, and not merely of the sociological existence of the body. As our social relations today touch all nations, our spirits touch all the planes of being. This is the wider view of history, in which questions like "Did Krishna exist?" cannot arise. When creation is taken in its total perspective, everything in it becomes a historical reality.
To study universal history we require a different apparatus of understanding from that we need when we read European and Indian history. If, as the poet said, we cannot touch a flower in our garden without disturbing a star in the heavens, no one's reality can be evaluated without reference to his wider meaning in the cosmos. This is true not only of human beings but also of the smallest atom in the world or the gods in Paradise.
Apart from this inner truth of history and the reality of a person from this standpoint, there is nothing to disprove the historical existence of the important personalities of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata even from the point of view of our own physical view of earthly history. That we have no means to adduce as proof of their existence need not imply that they did not walk on this earth at some distant date.
The Puranas
The Puranas are chronicles containing ancient history, mythology and longer or shorter discourses in religion, philosophy, Yoga, mystical attainments and spiritual realisation, and many other kindred subjects.
Large sections of the Puranas are devoted to glorifications of the exploits of Vishnu, Siva, Devi, Ganesha and Skanda, either in their original forms or through their manifestations. Other deities such as Brahma, Surya and Vayu occupy prominent places in the Puranas and receive great attention though not in the same measure as the five mentioned. The other themes are also widely spread through the Puranas in greater or lesser emphasis. The Puranas also describe at length such other subjects as medicine, art, rhetoric and literary appreciation, grammar, ethics, politics, ritual, social laws of the castes and the stages of life, pilgrimage to holy places, religious vows and observances, the nature and value of charitable gifts, and the philosophy of Sankhya, Yoga and Vedanta in all their variegatedness. Their vivid biographies of stalwarts who lived and moved in the world as paragons of sagely wisdom, prowess and moral toughness, devotion to God and self-sacrifice give a concrete picture of the universal truths which they elucidate in a homely but magnificent style. The classification of human conduct and duty into the four Purusharthas or aims of existence is a master-stroke of the ethico-philosophical concept of ancient India, and it formed the groundwork of the great systems of law embodied in the Dharmasastras or Smritis.
The gods, Rishis, kings, saints and moral heroes described in the Puranas have an exceptional educative value to the human mind. As regards the historicity of the personalities of the Puranas, our observations on those mentioned in the Epics have to be called back to memory, for the Puranas are only an amplification of those themes which are concisely hinted in the Epics during the course of the narration of their main subjects.
The major Puranas are eighteen in number and are classified, generally, into three categories of six each, dedicated to the glorification of Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. The other gods also find their proper places in the recountings of these texts in suitable contexts. As far as the essential content, philosophical profundity and religious impressiveness of the Puranas are concerned, the most important among them are the Vishnu Purana and Srimad-Bhagavata. The Srimad-Bhagavata, in particular, deals with the creation of the world, following the trend of Sankhya and Vedanta; the various incarnations or Avataras of Vishnu, which are twenty-two or twenty-four in number (including the ten great Avataras); the dynasties of gods and demons, sages and kings, as following from the original progenitors issuing from the Creator; the lives of great devotees of God such as Dhruva, Rishabhadeva, Jadabharata, Ajamila, Prahlada, Gajendra, Ambarisha, Sudama and the like; philosophical discourses on Sankhya, Yoga and Vedanta, especially those delivered by Kapila to Devahuti and Sri Krishna to Uddhava; astronomy and geography; the principles of the Dharmas of castes (Varna) and orders of life (Ashrama); and a description of time cycle (Kalpa), the four ages (Yuga) and the four kinds of dissolution of things (Pralaya), etc. But the most striking and enchanting section of the Bhagavata is that which describes the life of Krishna. The forceful presentation of the great Avatara has become the source of a marvellous development of the various Bhakti schools in India. This part of the biography of Krishna, though referring to the events of the Mahabharata, carefully avoids the details of his public life as a statesman, warrior and teacher, which is so colourfully portrayed in the Epic. The chapters describing the Rasa Lila or the amorous dance of the lasses of Vrindavana with Krishna as a small boy, his childish pranks of earlier days with a divine import hidden behind them; his marvellous feats of strength and valour striking awe upon everyone even while he was an adolescent, have given rise to a vast literature by devout poets in later times and their spirit pulsates through the emotions of ardent lovers of God even till this day. The Puranas, backed up by the Epics, with their compelling force and grandeur of mien, form an efficient mouthpiece of the Vedas and Upanishads.
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Chapter IV
THE BHAGAVADGITA
The Context of the Gospel
The central philosophical thesis of the Mahabharata is contained in the famous song of the Lord, the Bhagavadgita. Arjuna, at the commencement of the Mahabharata war, shows signs of bewilderment and mental confusion and refuses to take up arms even after having undertaken this task after great deliberation earlier. Having engaged himself in a duty befitting his position in society, he withdrew himself from discharging an obligation, which was really more than a question of personal prestige and etiquette, for it involved a principle transcending a simple option on his part. Human weakness overcame the powerful hero, and Arjuna succumbed to the temptations of love and hatred and an eye to the coveted result of action. This condition of the mind of Arjuna raised a universal question, that of duty in the human world. An event in the battle opened the portals of the larger problem of life. Arjuna's predicament became a human situation, for the problem of Arjuna was the problem of man. And the answer of Krishna to the query of Arjuna is the gospel of God to humanity as a whole.
A peculiar human difficulty evoked an astounding reaction from Krishna. The Bhagavadgita commences with a dramatic setting described in its first chapter, wherein the spiritually blind Dhritarashtra's question is followed by the entry of the proud Duryodhana into the scene of the battlefield. The self-aggrandising boast of the Kaurava king revealed his secret anxieties over the result of war and he was suspicious over the qualitative strength of his quantitatively larger army. He had invincible but unwilling fighters like Bhishma, mighty but unscrupulous warriors like Drona, and reliable but disabled friends like Karna. On the other hand, the Pandavas had whole-hearted supporters like Krishna and the blessings of the gods who were eager for the victory of the Pandavas. Notwithstanding that destiny seemed to favour the Pandava forces the man in Arjuna disclosed his foibles before the Divinity in Krishna, when Arjuna's heart sunk in grief over the inevitable destruction of his loved relations, the uncertainty of victory and the social usability which, he thought, was to be the outcome of mass-scale destruction of people. These reasons were enough for Arjuna to make up his mind not to fight. Krishna's answer to Arjuna's question is the eternal gospel.
The Immortality of the Soul
Krishna commences his teaching with a declaration of the indestructibility of the Soul and the futility of grief over the death of what cannot die. The birth and death of the Soul are like the changing of one's clothes while the person in essence undergoes no change in the process. All experience of change like pleasure and pain is the consequence of the contact of the elements with the essential consciousness projected through the mind and the senses. The contact, naturally, is impermanent and hence its reactions are to be endured with fortitude. The unreal cannot be, and the real cannot not be. The Soul is real. The contacts are not real. No one can destroy the indestructible Soul. The argument of Arjuna against destruction of life is answered by the doctrine of the deathlessness of the Spirit behind all life, but the essence of the gospel of Krishna is something more than this, for it is centred upon the Absoluteness of God.
God, the Almighty
The ultimate reality is God, who is Absolute. He is the supreme Brahman which cannot be designated either as being or non-being, from the human standpoint. It has hands and feet everywhere; eyes, ears and faces everywhere; and it exists enveloping everything. It has the characteristics of the percepts of all senses, but it is itself devoid of the senses of perception. Though it is unattached to external objects, it is the basis for everything. Though without descriptive qualities or epithets, it is the reservoir of all of them. Being inside and outside all things, it may be said to be both moving and unmoving. On account of its subtlety it is not visible to the eyes. Being infinite, it looks at if it is far, but being the Self of everyone, it is very near. Though it appears divided among the divided bodies, it is really undivided like the ocean beneath the waves. It is the absorber and releaser of everything, the Light of all lights, beyond the darkness of ignorance. Such is the description of the Absolute given in the Bhagavadgita.
The Absolute appears as the universal Virat when it is regarded as the support of the Universe. In the eleventh chapter of the gospel is sung a description of the Universal Being. The form of this Divinity is incapable of being visualised by the transitory mind of the mortal individual, for all thoughts and acts, whether of mind or of body, have objectives in space and time as their ends, while the Divine Being is above space and time. To understand (Jnatum), to see (Drashtum) and to enter (Praveshtum) into Reality, a transcendence of individuality in a state of universal transfiguration of personality is necessary. God in His form as the Universal Maker of things determines the course of events in His cosmic scheme of creation, and it is the duty of the individual to act merely as His instrument and not assume a false responsibility of doership and enjoyership in life, which belongs to God alone. This perception of truth requires the development of a spiritual vision (Divya-Chakshus) and it cannot be comprehended by the senses or even the logical intellect. The Universal Form which Krishna assumed stunned the egoistic individuality of Arjuna, and in a thrill it looked as if his very being would evaporate in those dizzy heights of that blazing eternal form, which, with its supernal radiance, darkened the lights of thousands of suns. The descriptive powers of the poet reach their summit here in this apotheosis of human language.
There is no place where God is not, and no object in which he is not present. His glory is seen in high relief in everything which exhibits an intensified type of power in any manner. No one who looks to him for solace does ever perish or come to sorrow. Whoever, in undivided contemplation, resorts to him as the final refuge, to such a person he provides all needs and affords protection at all times. God does not need any rich offerings from man; he is satisfied with a dedicated feeling of devotion which can be conveyed through even a leaf that may be consecrated to him. God has neither friend nor foe and he is not concerned either with the good or the bad action of the individual. Krishna declares, as the God of the Universe: "I am the sacrifice and the offering. I am the Mantra and the ritual, the oblation, the fire and what is offered in the sacrifice. I am the Father of the Universe, the Mother, the Grandfather and the protector of all. I am the goal, the support, the Lord, the witness, the abode, the refuge, the friend, the origin, the desolation, the substratum, the reservoir, the seed indestructible. As the sun, I give heat; I withhold and send forth rain; I am immortality and also death; I am existence and also non-existence. O Arjuna."
God can be approached in any way suited to one's temperament and capacity. He does not belong to any creed, cult or religion. He is accessible to everyone, whether man, woman or child, whether learned or ignorant, whether high or low, in society. What is needed is undivided devotion, unflinching love for Him. The way out of all sorrows is to take refuge in Him, to the exclusion of all earthly aids. This devotion, however, is not easy to acquire. It comes by cultivation of it in many lives through which one has to pass, and it is difficult to find one who realises that God is all.
The Incarnations of God
God incarnates himself in the world, whenever there is decline of righteousness and rise of unrighteousness, for the purpose of the protection of the good, the vanquishing of the wicked and establishment of justice in every age.
The theory of divine incarnation has been a controversial issue in the philosophy of religion and has been one of the intriguing questions in theology. It is impossible metaphysically to interpret to the mind of man the divine secret of the movement of spiritual force in the world. When a solution is attempted, the Avatara reveals itself as the answer of God to the needs of man. There is an internal bond of inseparable relation between the relative and the Absolute, and the descent of God on earth is the pressure of the power of truth forcing itself into the realm of the relative when the harmony of this bond and relation gets dissipated by centrifugal psychic energies that seem to run counter to the integrating centripetal call of God to all manifestation. The descent of God as the Avatara is said to be for the ascent of man to his divine home. As the health-giving forces of harmony in the body perpetually wage a war with the disease-producing toxins, the universal balancing power of the Absolute introduces itself as a corrective element amidst the disturbing forces of darkness. The Avatara is a perpetual activity of God who manifests himself at every juncture or critical situation (Yuge, Yuge) in the life of the world. The Avatara is the recurring reminder of God to man that it is impossible for the undivine to triumph over the essential goodness and divinity immanent in creation.
The Secret of Right Action
The Bhagavadgita is the classic treatise on the science of right activity, called Karma Yoga. Krishna exhorts Arjuna to engage himself in the performance of duty, by regarding pleasure and pain as well as success and failure as equal, for the purpose of rightly directed work is not the achieving of any result for oneself but discharging the duty of cooperation with the law of the Universe. The merit that a right action produces never perishes in time, however small it be, and even the least effort done in the direction of righteousness is capable of saving one from the danger of falling into the bondage of life. One should, for this purpose, go beyond the pairs of opposites like pleasure and pain, by centring oneself in purity of thought achieved through a care-free life of the establishment of consciousness in the Universal Self.
One's duty is only to act and not covet the fruit of action. The secret of right action is in so conducting oneself that there is neither regard for the result of the action nor is there total abstinence from action. But the non-regard to the fruit of action is not to be interpreted as callousness to the performance of duty and a carelessness towards its method and purpose - that would be another form of selfishness - for Karma Yoga is 'dexterity in execution' and 'balance of mind' in the performance of action. Lest this science of action should be mistaken for mere prudence of behaviour and shrewdness in conduct, Krishna adds that all action is to be done after fixing oneself in Yoga and detaching oneself from any ulterior motive behind it. And Yoga is the equanimous settling of oneself in the consciousness of God.
No one would gain anything by trying to cease from action, because no one can remain without action even for a moment, as everyone is forcibly driven to it by the properties of Prakriti whose very nature is to evolve increasingly into higher levels of being. There is no point in maintaining an inactivity of the body while the mind and the senses are engaged in the quest of their objects. It is true Karma Yoga when one engages oneself in outward action in keeping with the way of the world, while the mind and the senses are under perfect control. The purpose of work is not the achievement of any selfish end but participation in the cooperative activity of creation. Society everywhere lives on cooperation, the mechanism of the body works on cooperation, the world is an embodiment of mutual cooperation, the solar and stellar systems have their meaning in cooperation, the universe with all its contents is a dramatic scene of an all-round cooperative process. This marvellous system of the universal government becomes intelligible in the concept of the Virat-Purusha or God as the Cosmic Person described in the Purusha-Sukta of the Veda and the Vishvarupadarsana of the Gita.
The responsibility to work is said to cease only in the case of him who is satisfied with the Self and delights in the Self and is contented with the Self. For him there is nothing to achieve and it is immaterial whether he does anything or not, as he has absolutely no dependence on anything in the world. This extraordinary condition of non-action propounded in the Gita is not to be taken as a licence for inactivity of any kind. For the so-called inaction of the knower of the Self is the highest form of action. Noteworthy is the qualification 'he has absolutely no dependence'. It is humanly impossible for anyone not to depend on the world for something or the other, and man depends on society for his sustenance, on his relations for timely help, on the government for his protection, and on the bounties of Nature for his very existence. The state of consciousness to which Krishna refers in this description of the sage delighting in the Self is not any conceivable bodily condition, but is the state of the transcendence of individuality in Universal Being. Naturally, work ceases to have meaning in Universal Consciousness. But work cannot cease in the case of anyone who feels that he exists in a world.
The great wisdom of action is expressed in the immortal enunciation of its technique that the wise one should engage himself in action outside without attachment inside, in the same way as the ignorant one does it with attachment; nor should the wise one condemn the erroneous acts of the ignorant, because such condemnation would, instead of educating them, mislead them into a state of dispiritedness and lack of zest in life. The duty of the wise is to encourage the ignorant and not to rob them of their faith, for the educative process is a rise from the lower to the higher understanding and not an outward compulsion. What mars the spirit of right action is selfishness in the form of passion, anger and greed. Freedom from these psychological diseases is real spiritual health. Real action is not bodily movement but inner volition born of desire. One who is freed from it does no action, though he is apparently engaged in it in the ordinary sense. The action which tends to the consuming of individuality in the sacrifice of God-consciousness melts away and does not bind the doer thereof. When one beholds the diversity of beings as rooted in the One, he attains to the Absolute, then and there.
Universal Religion
The religion of the Gita is not a sectarian doctrine relegated to a section of humanity but a call of the One God to all humanity. While there are those who worship Him in erroneous ways by limiting symbols, they too shall reach Him, if their devotion to the ideals they have set up is exclusive in the sense that it can accommodate or harbour no other thought. Fanaticism in religion arises when there is devotion to one's ideal with hatred for the ideals of others. But this, according to the Gita, is not the way to God, since, thereby, selfishness would stultify the very purpose of religious worship. While the universal religion promises fulfilment of the aspirations of the followers of all paths, it recommends worship of the Universal God, as the ultimate salvation lies in this realisation alone. There is no need to worry about accumulating rich articles for gorgeous rituals, for God is pleased not with the objects offered but with the heart which makes the offering. God is satisfied even with a leaf or flower or a small measure of water offered as token of true devotion unto Him. The duty of the devotee is therefore to dedicate all his actions to God, whether the actions are physical or mental. The God of the Gita declares that He is the same to all in His dealings and even the sinner and the fallen can reach Him with devotion. This is the great gospel of God to man, the religion of man in general, for the sake of the experience of freedom which is immortal.
Yoga
In two terse verses, the Gita, at the end of its fifth chapter, says: "Shutting out all external objects; fixing the gaze between the eyebrows; regulating the harmonised currents of Prana and Apana within the nostrils; the senses, mind and intellect restrained; with Moksha as the supreme Goal; free from desire, fear and anger;-such a man of meditation is verily liberated for ever."
The sixth chapter is like a commentary on this aphoristic teaching. In its details, it is declared that no one will become a Yogi who has not renounced the desireful will. Though action is the means for one wishing self-purification leading to the state of meditation, the higher inaction of tranquillity of mind is the means to him who has attained to Yoga. He is said to be established in Yoga, who has no attachment either to sense-objects or to actions, and has no purpose to serve anywhere, being rid of all volitional motive. The Yogi should practise meditation on the Atman, retiring into solitude, with mind and senses subdued, and free from ambition and possessions. Having established a seat on a clean spot and placing oneself on it, making the mind one-pointed and subduing its activity and the rovings of the senses, let one practise Yoga for the purification of oneself. Let him firmly hold his body, head and neck erect and still, with gaze inwardly fixed and looking as if at the tip of his nose, and not glancing around. Fearless, being firm in the vow of Brahmacharya, the Yogi, always steadfast in meditation, attains to the peace residing in God, the peace which is at-one with final liberation. Yoga is not for him who eats too much or too little, not for him who sleeps too much or too little. Yoga comes to him who is moderate in eating and in recreation, in work, sleep and wakefulness. Establishment in the consciousness of the Atman is Yoga. This obviously implies freedom from all desires.
As the flame of a lamp in a windless place flickers not, so steady is the mind of the Yogi practising meditation. Where the mind, completely restrained through the practice of meditation, attains quietude, and where seeing the Atman by the Atman, one is satisfied in the Atman; where one feels that infinite bliss, which is super-sensuous and is capable of being comprehended only by the higher understanding; established wherein one does not move even a bit; having obtained which one considers no other gain as superior to that; and wherein established one is not shaken even by heavy sorrow;-that state is to be known as Yoga, a state of severance from all pain. This Yoga has to be practised with determination, undisturbed by despondency or depression of spirit. When the mind moves away from the ideal for any reason, let it be brought under subjugation, gradually by bringing it back to the Atman, from whatever object it may be thinking. It is here that the Yogi beholds the Atman in all beings and all beings in the Atman.
It is, however, to be reiterated that control of the mind is not so easy as one would imagine in a state of initial enthusiasm. It is turbulent, fickle, powerful and unyielding. It will not listen to threats and cannot be brought round by cajoling. Hard indeed is the task of the Yogi. But by practice (Abhyasa) and dispassion (Vairagya) it is possible to bring it to concentration on the Atman. An undisciplined and unprincipled person cannot hope to achieve success in Yoga. One who strives to practise Yoga is never a loser, but always a gainer, and even if he dies in his attempt, he will be reborn under conditions suitable for the continuance of the practice left unfinished in the previous life.
It is the opinion of Krishna that even a student of Yoga is superior to an expert in theoretical knowledge of the performance of outward ritual. Though it may take, at times, several lives for one to reach the Goal of Yoga, there is no doubt that it is possible for everyone without distinction.
The Liberated Sage
The sage with spiritual wisdom, who is liberated from bondage is a Sthitaprajna (established in understanding), Gunatita (risen above the strands of Nature) and a Yogi (unified with the Absolute). He is not depressed in grief or exhilarated in joy, for he is free from desire, fear and anger, due to his understanding being fixed in God. Being devoid of personal love for anything, he neither welcomes nor abhors things when he comes in contact with them in the course of life. While his eyes are fixed on the world, his mind is fixed in God. In ordinary persons, the taste for objects persists though they may be physically absent in his presence; but in him, who has tasted the delight of the Supreme Reality, the taste for objects spontaneously vanishes. The senses, however, are powerful and they drag impetuously even a wise man's mind towards objects. It is necessary, therefore, to be perpetually vigilant in subduing the powers of the senses in contemplation on God. This is the condition of settled understanding. As rivers get merged in the ocean, desires get absorbed in a sublimation of the mind in Divine meditation. It is this inner state of composure that is called Moksha or liberation from the thraldom of mortal life. With their intellects fixed in That, with their being absorbed in That, with their life dedicated to That, and depending on That alone, those, whose defects have been removed by the cleansing work of knowledge, reach the Eternal Reality. Seeing the diversity of characters, whether in a learned savant or a low-caste, a cow, a dog or an elephant, the sage of equal vision recognises the Divine Presence in them all, without disturbing the course of life based on such difference. Liberation is the attainment of equilibrium of consciousness and it can be realised even here, for Brahman is everything, and is everywhere. The pleasures born of contacts are wombs of pain; they are transient, and hence the wise one does not delight in them. One who has become Brahman attains to the beatitude of Brahman. He is the real Yogi, with inner delight and inner illumination, which lights up all the Universe.
The sage is without hatred, and loves all. Firm in his resolution, he is yet possessed of the tenderest compassion. While wanting nothing for himself, he gives joy to all. He does not shrink away from anything, nor does he cause the world to shrink away from him. While doing all actions, he refrains from taking initiatives, for this is the business of God. Equal to friend and foe, in respect and censure, in heat and cold, pleasure and pain, attached to nothing in the world, speaking little, satisfied with anything that comes of its own accord, having nothing to call his own, steady in meditation on God - he is the sage who is freed for ever.
Death and After
The Lord assures that one who leaves this world, thinking of Him alone, reaches Him, in the end. One's future is governed by one's last thought, at the time of death. As this thought is, however, the cumulative result of what one has been thinking throughout one's life, it is to be understood that one's future life is determined by the nature of the present life taken as a whole. As a bitter tree does not bear a sweet fruit, one's last thought cannot be expected to be a divine one, if the life that precedes it is one of error and wickedness. By its fruit, we know the tree. Whatever one has been contemplating in one's life, that becomes the last thought which fixes the nature of the future life. Whatever one thinks deeply at the time of death, that one becomes in the next life. He who, by the practice of Yoga, meditates, in an undivided consciousness, on the Supreme Purusha, resplendent like the Sun, and thinks of Him at the time of his death, with deep concentration, devotion and power of aspiration, reaches Him, the Divine Being. In a concise statement, the Gita says that, by controlling all the senses, by centring the mind in the heart, by drawing the Prana to the head, engaged in the practice of Yoga, uttering the monosyllable - Om the Brahman - and meditating on Him, he who departs hence, attains the Supreme Goal. There is no return to the consciousness of mortality (Samsara) and pain after attaining the Divine Purusha.
The Gita confirms the two paths of the departed soul mentioned in the Upanishads - the northern and the southern - in a more pithy statement of this route. The blessed soul moving towards its salvation is said to course through the Deities of Fire, Light, Day, the bright half of the lunar month and the six months of the northern motion of the Sun. The soul that is destined to return to rebirth passes through the presiding powers of the Smoke, Night, the dark half of the lunar month and the six months of the southern motion of the Sun. The Gita does not throw light on the apparently intricate meaning of these stages of the soul's movement after its departure from the world, and we are left in the same position as in the Upanishads on the subject. In all probability the Northern Path (Archiradimarga) and the Southern Path (Dhumamarga) are certain mystical experiences of the Soul in the subtler layers of the Cosmos, through which it traverses, determined by the spiritual and non-spiritual tendencies in it, respectively.
In its classification of the three natures of the individual, the Gita makes mention of the fate of the soul in accordance with the predominance of the qualities of Prakriti operating in it. When, through every sensation or perception in the body or personality, the light of intelligence gets radiated, it is to be understood that Sattva is predominant in the person, and meeting death in that condition, one attains to the shining regions attained by those who are knowers of the highest Reality. When greed, restless activity, impulse to undertake initiatives, distraction and longing are seen in a person, it is to be understood that Rajas is predominant, and meeting death in that condition, one is born among those who are attached to activity. When ignorance, inertia, heedlessness and delusion are seen in a person, it is to be understood that Tamas is predominant, and meeting death in that condition, one is born in the wombs of the deluded and the irrational. Those who die in the state of Sattva go to the higher worlds of light. In Rajas the middle world of action, and in Tamas the lower world of darkness.
But, when one beholds no agent of activity other than the properties of Prakriti, and knows That which is above the Gunas of Prakriti, one attains to 'My Being', says the Lord in the Gita.
The Spirit of the Bhagavadgita
The Gospel which Krishna bequeaths to humanity is not a cult, religion, or secret creed of any particular faith or community. It concerns not merely some remote otherworldly life, unconnected with practical activity here, but the whole range of experience, and lays down rules for systematic discipline. No aspect or phase of existence is excluded from the scope of the teaching of the Gita. Life is a process which is mysteriously connected with the Universe in all its planes of manifestation. The greatness of the Gita is in the integrality of its approach, the universality of its teaching and the all-comprehensiveness of its theme. The perfect person gives the perfect science of the perfect life. In this conversation between man and God, the hidden relations between them get unravelled and the glorious destiny of man revealed before his eyes.
The Gita discloses the fact that the primary cause of the troubles in which man finds himself is the erroneous notion which he has about his relations with the body and the world, and in the end, with God. The perishable nature of the body, the changing character of the world and the immortal essence of consciousness are forgotten and man clings to the reverse of this truth, thinking that the body and the objects amidst which he is placed have a permanent value and that the Self is a dependent entity entwined in interrelations with things that seem to sustain it. Affection for the objects of the world strikes at the root of the peace that the soul is really seeking, for these loves of the world are false evaluations springing from ignorance. Buddhi or the higher reason should be used in distinguishing the truth and falsehood of experience. Often the reason in the human being is seen to work in cooperation with the senses and becomes their tool, carrying out the function of transmitting to the soul the characteristics of the objects as interpreted by the senses in terms of space, time and externality and degrading experience into body-consciousness. All judgment passed in this fashion is erroneous, as it does not take into consideration the fact of there being a unifying reality transcending objectivity. The higher knowledge comes to the aid of the human reason when the latter is purified by freedom from the shackles of the senses. The reason which reflects sense-experience is different from the reason which draws sustenance from the Atman within and commands the sense-powers, independent of spatial and temporal relations. Discrimination between the real and the apparent is possible only when the light of understanding is thrown on the facts and events which become its contents in experience.
Cessation from physical action is not non-action, for one can be physically inactive and yet be performing actions in a different sense. Vital, emotional and intellectual action is real action. Cessation from actions like these would be real inaction. But man has no freedom to do this. Action is the law of all individual life. One is forced to act by the very nature of one's being. To maintain equanimity in the midst of such activity, one should work in a spirit of self-sacrifice, self-surrender, self-restraint and self-knowledge. The Universe is a living organism and every element in it tends to fulfil the law of its unitariness. The duty of everyone, therefore, is to be conscious of this organic structure of the cosmos and attune oneself to its way of working. The Yoga which Krishna teaches is spontaneous action based on the consciousness of the absoluteness of God, the surrender of oneself to God, or one's steadfast concentration on God. Negation of action is not possible, but one can neutralise the effects of action by transmuting it into Yoga. The benefits that one enjoys in life are the products of cooperative action from all things in the Universe and one cannot, therefore, afford to appropriate anything for one's own personal satisfaction.
When knowledge and action blend into a single stream of concentrated force, when Krishna and Arjuna drive forward in unison, seated in one chariot, there are prosperity, victory, happiness and steady polity.
- lvl_130
woah! that was fast!
- mg330
yes RLY
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o RLY
- ********0
have u noticed that taragee and son dont appear at once?
i think son is locked up in her brooklyn basement