Gita Satsangh Chapter 14 Verses 12 & 13

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Dandavat pranams to all!

 

Gita Satsangh Chapter 14 Verses 12 & 13

 

To listen to Swami Brahmanananda of the Chinmaya Mission

chanting this Chapter...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jn3Hro5Ib4U & feature=channel_page

 

To listen to Meena Mahadevan of KailashMusic

chanting this Chapter...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9FyEwbZAOs

 

 

Lobhah pravrittir aarambhah karmanaam ashamah sprihaa;

Rajasyetaani jaayante vivriddhe bharatarshabha.

12. Greed, activity, the undertaking of actions, restlessness, longing-these

arise when Rajas is predominant, O Arjuna!

 

Sankara Bhashya

(Swami Gambiranda's Translation and Commentary)

 

This is the characteristics of rajas when it has become prominent:

 

12. O best of the Bharata dynasty, when rajas becomes predominant, these come

into being: avarice, movement, undertaking of actions, unrest and hankering.

 

O best of the Bharata dynasty, when the quality of rajas vivrddhe, becomes

predominant; etani, these indications; jayante, come into being; lobhah,

avarice, the desire to appropriate other's possessions; pravrtih, movement in

general; arambhah, undertaking;-of what?-karmanam, of actions; asamah, unrest,

lack of tranquillity-(i.e.) manifestation of joy, attachment, etc.; and sprha,

hankering, desire in general for all things.

 

 

Swami Chinmayananda's Translation and Commentary

 

THE CHARACTERISTIC MARKS THAT INDICATE THE PRE-DOMINANCE OF " RAJAS " ARE

DESCRIBED IN THE FOLLOWING:

 

12. Greed, activity, undertaking of actions, restless-ness longing --- these

arise when RAJAS is predominant, O best in the Bharata family.

 

GREED, ACTIVITY, ENTERPRISE, (UNDERTAKING-OF-ACTIONS) UNREST (RESTLESS-NESS),

LONGING --- Enumerating the type of thoughts and motives that rise up in a mind

in which Rajas predominates, Lord Krishna lists the following as the most

important. GREED is the inexhaustible desire to appropriate the property of

another, an appetite which has the tendency of growing more in volume as we

satisfy it. By " ACTIVITY " is meant here, officially engaging oneself in matters

which are not one's own. The term ENTERPRISE is here used to indicate all

activities motivated by extreme egoism, undertaken with the intention to fulfil

and satisfy the ego-centric, and therefore, the selfish desires. RESTLESSNESS is

another type of experience that is lived through by a Rajasic personality.

Because of restlessness, the individual fails to enjoy quietude. The term UNREST

is oscillation of the mind which is defined as by Shri Shankaracharya " Giving

vent to joy, attachment, etc. "

 

To a large extent these three are inter-connected, and each successive one can

be seen to have risen from the previous tendency. Greed must make the greedy

very active indeed, and, when an activity motivated by greed is undertaken, it

expresses in selfish enterprises, and once a man enters such a field of selfish

activities --- in his anxiety for the results, in his mental agitations --- he

creates a set of unhealthy circumstances around him and gets dragged towards

their centre, where he is led to perpetrate more and more bitter cruelties, base

immoralities and bloody crimes; and his inward quietude gets completely

shattered. He experiences extreme unrest. Naturally, one who is in this

condition of mind, sweating and labouring in the outer fields, with a heart

poisoned by Rajas, must come under the sway of endless longings --- for things

not-yet-accomplished, for objects not-yet-acquired, for profits not-yet-gained.

 

In short, under the contagion of Rajas, the psychological being in us gets

extremely persecuted by its own restlessness which gets expressed in its endless

plans, exhausting actions, agonising desires, painful longings, maddening greed

and oppressive restlessness. When such an individual works in society, his

sorrows do not rest with himself --- they spread, like contagion, to many

thousands around him.

 

SIMILARLY, WHEN 'TAMAS' PRE-DOMINATES, WHAT EXACTLY ARE THE SYMPTOMS? LISTEN:

 

Aprakaasho'pravrittishcha pramaado moha eva cha;

Tamasyetaani jaayante vivriddhe kurunandana.

13. Darkness, inertness, heedlessness and delusion-these arise when Tamas is

predominant, O Arjuna!

 

 

Sankara Bhashya

(Swami Gambiranda's Translation and Commentary)

 

13. O descendant of the Kuru dynasty, when tamas predominates these surely [i.e.

without exception.-M.S.] come into being: non-discrimination and inactivity,

inadvertence and delusion.

 

Kuru-nandana, O descendant of the Kuru dynasty; when the quality of tamas

vivrddhe, predominates; etani, these indications; eva, surely; jayante, come

into being; extreme aprakasah, non-discrimination; and apravrttih, inactivity;

its [i.e. of non-discrimination.] effects, pramadah, in-advertence; and mohah,

delusion, i.e. stupidity, which is a from of non-discrimination.

 

Swami Chinmayananda's Translation and Commentary

 

13. Darkness, inertness, heedlessness and delusion --- these arise when 'TAMAS'

is predominant, O descendant-of-Kuru.

 

DULLNESS, INERTNESS, HEEDLESSNESS AND DELUSION --- When these symptoms are

recognised by an individual in himself, according to the Geeta, the seeker can

take it that he is suffering from Tamas. Dullness (Aprakashah) is that condition

of the intellect where it is incapable of arriving at any decision, a state when

a sort of drowsiness veils the potentialities of one's intelligence and makes it

impossible for one to discriminate between the right and the wrong. This

condition is experienced everyday by every one of us, as sleep conquers our

nature at night.

 

INACTION (Apravritti), IDLENESS --- The tendency to escape all responsibilities,

the sense of incapacity to undertake any endeavour and the lack of enthusiasm to

strive for and achieve anything in the world --- is the state of inaction

explained herein. When Tamas predominates, all ambitions are sapped. Energy is

dormant; capacity is gone, and thereafter, eating and sleeping alone become the

individual's main occupations in life.

 

The natural effect on the personality of a man who is living such a life is

that, as an individual, he becomes heedless of the higher calls within himself.

Nor can one be, in fact, a Ravana-like destructive criminal. Even to be bad, it

needs a good amount of enthusiasm and an endless spirit of activity.

 

He not only becomes incapable of responding to the good or the bad in him, but

also slowly sinks into delusions. He miscalculates the world around him,

misinterprets his own possibilities, and always makes mistakes in determining

his relationship with the world around. When thus an individual fails to

understand rightly himself, the world outside, and his own right relationship

with the world around him, the life becomes an error --- his very existence, a

sad mistake.

 

After thus indicating how the mind and intellect would react under the three

distinct influences of Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas, the Gita Acharya wants us to

understand that, not only are these gunas effective while we live the present

embodiment, but the tendencies of the mind, cultivated and developed, pursued

and strengthened while living, will determine the life and condition of the

individual even after death.

 

Life after death is a topic that does not seem to have been fully thought out in

any other school of philosophy except in the exhaustive Science of Life,

Hinduism. All other creeds have their own different explanations but none of

them actually believes that there is no life after death. The other creeds have

only dogmatic declarations regarding life after death, but they have no logical

thought development regarding this topic which can be crystallised into a

complete philosophy.

 

Earlier in the Geeta, we had exhaustively dealt with this topic of

re-incarnation. We had indicated that death is the total divorce of the

subtle-body from its physical-structure. Therefore, death is the destiny of the

body in me and not a tragedy of my ever-existing personality. I, as my

subtle-body, move out of the present physical-structure, when I have exhausted

my purpose with the present body. The subtle-body is constituted of my

mind-and-intellect which is nothing but a bundle of thoughts. Even while I am

living in this body, my thoughts determine my movements, both physical and

subtle. Therefore, the Hindu philosophers are logical when they indicate that

after death, one would still be pursuing the resultant of one's thoughts, which

one had in life while acting through the body.

 

When I am transferred from my present station of office to another area, I can

call at my bank and expect to get from them not the total amount of money I had

DEPOSITED in the past, but only the " BALANCE " that stands to my credit. So too,

the resultant of the positive and negative thoughts entertained, actions done,

motives and intentions encouraged, should determine the type and texture of the

thoughts in us at the moment of our leaving the physical-structure.

 

That the quality of our thoughts is influenced by the type of guna that

influences our inner make up is a truth that is already known. Therefore, it is

logical that the predominant guna, cultivated by each one of us through the life

of activities and thoughts, should determine the direction and the range of the

disembodied, in its flight to the beyond after its release from the body. These

possibilities are explained in this section of the Geeta.

 

WHATEVER LIFE IS OBTAINED AFTER DEATH IS CAUSED BY THE QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF

DESIRES AND ATTACHMENTS, AND THE NATURE AND NUMBER OF DESIRES AND ATTACHMENTS

ARE DETERMINED BY THE 'GUNAS'. THIS IS TAUGHT HERE:

 

to be continued...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hare Krishna!!!