Gita Satsangh Chapter 14 Verses 17 & 18

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Dandavat pranams to all!

 

Gita Satsangh Chapter 14 Verses 17 & 18

 

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

 

Sattwaat sanjaayate jnaanam rajaso lobha eva cha;

Pramaadamohau tamaso bhavato'jnaanameva cha.

17. From Sattwa arises knowledge, and greed from Rajas; heedlessness and

delusion arise from Tamas, and ignorance also.

 

 

Sankara Bhashya

(Swami Gambiranda's Translation and Commentary)

 

17. From sattva is born knowledge [Knowledge acquired through the

sense-organs.], and from rajas, verily, avarice. From tamas are born

inadvertence and delusion as also ignorance, to be sure.

 

Sattvat, from sattva, when it predominates; sanjayate, is born; jnanam,

knowledge; and rajasah, from rajas; is verily born lobhah, avarice. Tamasah,

from tamas; bhavatah, are born; both pramada-mohau, in-advertence and delusion;

as also ajnanam, ignorance [Absence of discrimination.]; eva ca, to be sure.

 

Swami Chinmayananda's Translation and Commentary

 

 

17. Knowledge arises from SATTWA, greed from RAJAS, heedlessness, delusion and

also ignorance arise from TAMAS.

The functions of the gunas, while they appear on the stage of the

mind-intellect, are explained here.

 

FROM SATTWA ARISES WISDOM --- It has already been explained how Pure

Consciousness, of Its own accord, has nothing to illumine or understand. In the

Pure, Homogeneous Self, there is nothing other than Itself for It to understand,

It being the Undivided and Indivisible One Eternal Truth. Consciousness

reflected in the subtle-body is the 'intelligence' by which we gain knowledge of

the world outside. The knower is the Spirit conditioned by the mind-intellect.

Naturally, when the mind is pure and serene, when there is the least agitation

in it, the light emerging through it is steady and properly focussed. Therefore,

the result of the predominant Sattwa in our mind is ultimately the rediscovery

of the Self, the experience of PURE WISDOM.

 

GREED, FROM 'RAJAS' --- When the mind is seething with a constant eruption of

desires it will be continuously in a state of agitation, and, in its natural

anxiety to pacify itself, it has to rush out into the world to procure and

fulfil its endless demands; and in doing so it expresses its greed.

 

HEEDLESSNESS, DELUSION AND IGNORANCE ARISE FROM 'TAMAS' --- Inertia or

indolence, 'Tamas,' veils the intellect. The capacity to discriminate between

the right and the wrong, and the ability to reject the wrong and accept the

right, are the privileges of man and not the impulses of an animal. True manhood

comes to manifest only when one's intellect is clean and free from all shackles

of false prejudices and wrong tendencies. Tamas veils the capacity to perceive

rightly the world outside, and it also destroys our powers of right judgement.

When anything is not properly understood it is but natural that we will

misunderstand it. This misunderstanding of the world outside compels us to

expect joys, which are impossible to arise from the miserable state of our

imperfections. Can there be even a single cup of sweet-water in the entire

expanse of the saline-waters of the ocean? In a world of change and pain, how

can there be constant joy, or even one instance of perfect happiness?

 

And yet, he who is under the deluding effects of Tamas in himself, miscalculates

the world and expects from it these experiences, which are impossible, and in

the delusion, curses the world for its imperfections!

 

MOREOVER:

 

Oordhwam gacchanti sattwasthaa madhye tishthanti raajasaah;

Jaghanyagunavrittisthaa adho gacchanti taamasaah.

18. Those who are seated in Sattwa proceed upwards; the Rajasic dwell in the

middle; and the Tamasic, abiding in the function of the lowest Guna, go

downwards.

 

Sankara Bhashya

(Swami Gambiranda's Translation and Commentary)

 

18. People who conform to sattva go higher up; those who conform to rajas stay

in the middle; those who conform to tamas, who conform to the actions of the

lowest quality, go down.

 

Sattvasthah, people who conform to sattva, to the actions of sattva quality;

gacchanti, go, are born; undhavam, higher up, in the worlds of gods and others.

Rajasah, those who conform to rajas; [Those who are endowed with sense-knowledge

and actions consequent on the preponderance of rajas.] tisthanti, stay, are

born; madhye, in the middle, among human beings. Tamasah, those who conform to

tamas, jaghanya-gunavrttasthah [A variant reading is vrttisthah.-Tr.], who

conform to actions of the lowest quality of tamas, those who are attached to

its actions-sleep, laziness, etc.-, the foolish; gacchanti, go; adhah, down,

(i.e.) they are born among cattle etc.

 

The association, owing to the false ignorance in the form of 'being seated in

Nature', that an individual soul has with the gunas-in the form of happiness,

sorrow and delusion, and which are matters of experience in such ways as, 'I am

happy,' 'I am sorrowful,' 'I am ignorant,'-that (association) is the cause of

the individual soul's mundane existence characterized by coming to have births

in good and bad species. This was stated briefly in the earlier chapter.

Elaborating that here in the text beginning with, 'the qualities, viz sattva,

rajas and tamas, born of Nature' (5), the Lord has said that the nature of the

qualities, the conduct conforming to the qualities, and the power to bind that

the qualities have through actions conforming to them, and also the course of a

person under the bondage, of behaviour conforming to the qualities,-all this is

false knowledge; it has ignorance as its root and is the cause of bondage.

 

Swami Chinmayananda's Translation and Commentary

 

18. Those who are abiding in SATTWA go upwards; the RAJASIC dwell in the middle;

and the TAMASIC, abiding in the function of the lowest GUNA, go downwards.

In the ladder of evolution, we can conceive of these stages of development. The

lowest state of development is seen in the vegetable and the animal kingdoms.

The middle stage of evolution is seen in man who has intelligence, health and

brightness. And a higher state of existence is seen in the disembodied heavenly

beings. Here evolution means: " a greater awareness of experience, a lesser

amount of agitations and a sharper power of intelligence. " The yard-stick used

here to measure evolution is the quantity of joy or happiness, peace or bliss,

experienced by the being.

 

No doubt, in this measurement, the stone-life is of zero evolution, inasmuch as

it has no awareness at all of the world. The plant-life comes next, wherein

Consciousness has dimly started expressing Itself. In the animal kingdom, this

Awareness has become clearer and more vivid. Of the animals, man is, no doubt,

the greatest being with the fullest Consciousness and the sharpest intellect.

But, man also has his own limitations, and functions only within a limited field

of time and space. The ample possibilities reached when once these limitations

of man are broken down are indicated as the greatest state of existence enjoyed

by beings of a still higher evolution, and they are called the " Denizens of

Heaven. "

 

Every double-storeyed house must also have its staircase. Invariably, after

climbing a few steps, there is a landing from which we turn and climb up the

rest of the stairs to reach the rooms on the first floor. Those who are standing

on the lower flight of steps are considered of a lower evolution. Those who are

standing on the landing are of the middle type and those who are standing on the

top-flights are of the highest evolution. The vegetable and the animal kingdoms

stand on the lower rungs. Man stands on the landing and the Higher Beings on the

upper flights of steps.

 

Remember, none of them has reached upstairs to enjoy the comforts of its halls

and rooms. Those who are standing on the landing. have the freedom either to go

up or to go down. If this picture has come into our mind, we have, to a large

extent, understood the concept of evolution as conceived by Hindu - Philosophy,

wherein " the evolution of a specimen is always measured by the degree of

Consciousness unveiled through Matter in the given subject under observation. "

 

THE SATTWA-ABIDING GO UPWARDS --- Those who are living a pure life of

discrimination, clear thinking, right judgement and self-discipline, cultivate

more and more Sattwa in themselves. When the mind is thus kept in quietude, at

once creative and dynamic, it evolves upwards.

 

THE RAJASIC DWELL IN THE MIDDLE --- Those who are of Rajasic nature, with all

their desires and agitations, ambitions and achievements, again and again

manifest as men until they acquire the required purity.

 

THE TAMASIC GO DOWNWARDS --- Those who are revelling in misconceptions, heedless

of the higher calls in themselves, deluded by their own lust and passion,

existing in a state of drowsiness and inertness, devolve themselves into the

lower natures.

 

The stanza is only summarising the ideas expressed earlier, when Krishna

discussed the effects of the gunas even in the continuity of existence after

death. But where then is the release? That even Sattwa binds us with our

attachment to knowledge and happiness has been already explained. Then when can

I be free? All these three, Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas, are gunas meaning " ropes, "

that bind us down to the flesh and its sorrows, the world and its imperfections,

the mind and its agitations, the intellect and its throbbings. When is man free

to enjoy the Godhood, as a being totally released from all his contacts with the

pluralistic world and from all his subtle attachments to it?

 

So far we were told at length of the nature of the gunas, of the symptoms from

which the most predominating guna in us can be diagnosed, of their reactions in

our life, and of how they affect our future, etc. We were told that the

predominant gunas in us is the heritage which we gather from our past and the

present is coloured by it and the future again is determined by the play of

these gunas. All these are but explanations of the causes of bondage --- a sense

of bondage rooted in illusion, arising from the fact that the Self in us gets

identified with the Matter-vestures around it.

 

The experience of the finite world, the misery of the jerks, the sorrows of its

imperfections, the tragedies of its disappointments --- all together constitute

the samsara of the " ego, " which is nothing other than the Infinite Self

(Purusha), expressing through Matter (Prakriti), and identifying with it.

Release can be had only when we transcend all the gunas.

 

A patient is suffering from high temperature, excruciating headache and back

pain. All three are symptoms of his illness. When the fever is down the patient

is still suffering. We can say the patient has fully recovered, not when these

three symptoms have ended, but only when the patient has also regained his old

health and energy. Similarly, the three gunas may be present in each of us, in

different proportions, but the true release comes not only when all chains have

been snapped --- meaning all the gunas are transcended --- but when we are also

established in the Spiritual Experience.

 

This process of escaping from the subjective shackles on our psychological and

intellectual nature is called " liberation " or Moksha. Bound by their own

limitations, the greater possibilities in us are now idling away in our own

bosoms. To redeem them from their prison-houses of confusions and pains,

agitations and sorrows, passions and lust, is all that spirituality seeks.

 

to be continued...

 

 

 

 

Hare Krishna!!!