Gita and Varna-dharma - 2

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Part 2 of three articles:

(Postscript to Part - 1: I forgot to give the exact reference to the

earlier postings referred to by me. Venky's posting was on July 3:

#13909. Ramchandranji's posting was on JULY 15: #14038)

 

Now for the questions:

 

Three Questions pertaining to the entity KNOWLEDGE : (Verse nos.20,

21, 22 of the Gita, Ch.18)

 

Did the individual have a true perception

of the One-ness of all things?

OR

Did he have only an imperfect perception thereby clouding his

perspective of anything beyond the plurality on the surface?

OR

Did he have a totally false perception that spared him no eye for

the real nature of things?

Comment: All the scriptures keep on saying that the right vision is

that which sees the One-ness amidst the plurality of experience.

Perception of difference arises because of the recognition of name

and form. The enlightened one sees the tile, the stone, and the

golden brick, all in the same way. This equanimity of vision is the

ultimate goal of all spirituality. When a wooden elephant is

presented to a child the child is carried away by imaginations about

the elephant. But we shall be only children spiritually if we cannot

see the wood for the elephant.

The normal human being is distracted by the multiplicity of

appearances and is still, as it were, in a dream state, where he

refuses to believe there is a more real world outside of his dream.

Because, no dreamer realizes, while dreaming, that he is dreaming. He

cannot rise beyond the glamour of the plurality that confronts him

and does not perceive there is an essential unity in all that he

sees. This kind of knowledge sees the multiplicity of things only in

their separateness and variety of operation. It looks at the jumble

of pieces of knowledge as if they are forcefully put together -- just

as a high-school kid learning mathematics would think of algebra,

geometry and trigonometry as so many different pieces of skills of

manipulation, or a college junior thinking of each discipline like

Mathematics or Physics as a splintered collection of sub-disciplines.

 

Still another kind of knowledge is a small and narrow way of looking

at things which has no eye for the real nature of the world. It is

fanatic in its faith and in its values. It clings to one moment,

routine or movement as if it were the whole, without a comprehensive

foresight or intelligence and revels in this 'knowledge'. It is

circumscribed by the importance it gives to itself. It is like the

wave saying: ‘Where is the Ocean? I am the Ocean!’ This is the kind

of knowledge which cannot see God in the idol of worship or the soul

in the live body. It sees only the effect, not the cause. In

ordinary worldly parlance, a person with such a perspective is

obsessed with tactical and logistical issues and is rather

uncomfortable with values, principles and the larger purposes.

 

Three Questions pertaining to DOERSHIP (Or Attitude to Work) (Verse

Nos.26,27,28 of the Gita, Ch.18):

 

Was the individual as a doer, free from attachment, free from egoism,

full of a fixed impersonal resolution and a calm rectitude of zeal,

not elated by success, and not depressed by failure?

OR

Was he eagerly attached to the work, passionately desirous of fruit,

greedy, impure, often violent, cruel and brutal in the means he uses,

full of joy in success and of grief in failure?

OR

Was he a doer with a mind mechanical, unthinking, stubborn and

obstinate, cunning, insolent, lazy, despondent and procrastinating?

 

Comment: The right doer is humble and resolute. He does not seek

something for himself. His contentment always shows up. The moon is

not affected by the vibrations of its reflections in a lake. Clouds

bump into other clouds and create great thunder and lightning; but

the space in which all this happens is always the same. The big waves

swallow the small waves; but the ocean remains the same. Where there

is sun, there is no darkness; the sun never meets darkness, the right

doer never indulges in the opposite of righteousness. Just as the

ocean does not distinguish between its waters, whether they originate

from this river or that river, so also the right doer does not

distinguish between his actions, whether this or that is to his

liking. He has the necessary personal warmth, enthusiasm, insight and

originality. He is like the ideal nurse in a hospital, who brings her

entire personality into the picture and works with dedication

irrespective of the ‘success’ or ‘failure’. He genuinely enjoys

helping others and takes his work seriously. When he is faced with a

task he looks at it as his duty and does the best job he can.

On the other hand, the greedy doer is constantly thinking of this

reward or that consequence. In fact such a doer is the fertile ground

for all the desires of the world; and, full of these desires, he

becomes malignant in what he does. He has such a fierce independence

as will repudiate any kind of subordination. He himself engages in

what seems to his colleagues as suicidal brinkmanship. He is not

ignorant, but he is a passionate go-getter irrespective of the means

he adopts. He tries to turn any task given to him into a game that he

can win.

The ignorant kind, however, makes no improvement on his nature. He

has no control over himself, no vitality to meet the challenges of

life. He is so stubborn in error and obstinate in stupidity that even

his attempted good actions give only the opposite results. In

addition he is so mediocre that his mediocrity increases by every

action of his -- just as garbage heaps up by more garbage. In this

way he sets up a pattern for himself that the good things that others

may do for him rebound from him as a virus that hurts and destroys.

And he takes a foolish pride in this doing of his. He puts off any

job as long as he can or he tries to find someone else to do it. He

always needs a lot of cajoling and justification to take up an extra

work. And even while doing the job he pays attention only to somehow

getting it done . He is happy to get it over with.

 

Three Questions pertaining to the entity HAPPINESS (Verse Nos. 37,

38, 39 of the Gita Ch.18) :

 

Did the individual have that attitude to pleasure or happiness that

did not care for the initial unhappiness knowing full well that it

will lead to ultimate happiness?

OR

Was his attitude to happiness motivated by the expectation of

instantaneous pleasure, that anyway finally ended up, to his

surprise, with the disgust and disappointment of unhappiness?

OR

Was he simply satisfied with the dull inertial happiness of sleep,

stupor, laziness, error and sin?

 

And so on, for all the six entities (Details can be found in my

book).

 

Now let us go back to the illustration namely, one satva, three

rajas, and two tamas as one type of response to the six sets of three

alternatives. How many such types are possible? To see this, denote

the above type as the sequence: 1,3,2. -- the first digit in the

sequence standing for the number of satva modes of response, the

second digit standing for the number of rajas modes of response, and

the third, for the number of tamas modes of response. Together the

three numbers of the sequence have to add up to 6 (since we are

considering only six entities). It is therefore a question of finding

in how many ways we can partition the number 6 into an ordered

partition (that is, a partition into parts taking into account the

order in which the parts appear) into three parts which may vary

among 0,1,2,3,4,5,6. The answer is 28 by a mathematical calculation

.. It can also be experimentally verified. These partitions are: (We

shall divide them into four sets for a later convenience)

 

6 0 0 ; 5 1 0 ; 5 0 1 ; 4 2 0 ; 4 1 1 ; 4 0 2 : (First Set)

 

3 3 0 ; 2 4 0 ; 3 2 1 ; 2 3 1 ; 3 1 2 ; 1 5 0; (Second set)

 

2 2 2 ; 1 4 1 ; 1 3 2 ; 0 6 0 ; 0 5 1 ; 0 4 2 ; (Third Set)

 

3 0 3 ; 2 1 3 ; 2 0 4 ; 1 2 3 ; 1 0 5 ; 1 1 4 ; 0 3 3 ;

0 2 4 ; 0 1 5 ; 0 0 6 : (Fourth Set)

 

Now we shall give the criteria of classification. In the illustration

above, (namely, the partition 1,3,2) the dominant mode is rajas,

(because three out of the six are rajas whereas the other modes are

fewer). Dominance is one criterion.

Another facet considered as a criterion is: What comes next to the

dominant mode? In the above illustration, note that the tamas comes

next in dominance.

There is also a third facet for the criterion which we shall explain

a little later, since it is a further fine tuning of the

classification.

With that proviso, we can now state the criteria of classification

of the types for purposes of locating oneself in the spiritual ladder

of evolution, as follows:

 

If satva is the dominant mode that type is said to belong to the

character-type B;

If rajas is the dominant mode with satva following, that type is said

to belong to the character-type K;

If rajas is the dominant mode with tamas following, that type is said

to belong to the character-type V;

If tamas is the dominant mode that type is said to belong to the

character-type S.

 

Applying this criterion, we see that the above illustration

(namely, the partition: 1 3 2 ) belongs to the character-type V.

(Note that there are three rajas responses and two tamas responses).

Now the 28 types divide themselves into the four character-types.

Actually the first, second, third and fourth sets so named above, are

precisely the four character-types B, K, V, and S respectively.

Doubts may arise how (3,3,0) belongs to the K-type, how (2,2,2)

belongs to the V -type and so on, for a few others. This is where the

third facet of the criterion applies. It says: When tamas and/or

rajas is present they get more weight, in that order, for purpose of

this classification. Even common sense tells us, that a lower

spiritual quality, when present, asserts itself even in the presence

of the higher spiritual quality, unless the latter is quite strong.

Thus, in (3,3,0) the three rajas responses dominate the three satva.

In (2,2,2), the two rajas responses dominate the two satva, therefore

rajas is the dominant mode; the two tamas responsesdominate the two

satva, so the tamas is the second dominant; and though tamas

dominates rajas, it is not the most dominant since the other two are

four!

 

Note that there are six types in each of Character-types B, K and V

whereas there are ten in character-type S.

 

These four character-types can be displayed in a chart form

mentioned in the beginning of Part 1 and is available at the web-page

http://www.gocities.com/profvk/btype.html

 

(TO BE CONCLUDED IN PART 3)

 

praNAms to all advaitins

profvk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

=====

Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

My website on Science and Spirituality is http://www.geocities.com/profvk/

You can access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought Vision and

Practice, and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's manuscripts from the site.

 

 

 

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