Look Within – Talks on the Bhagavad Gita by Swami Venkatesananda.

[Guest guest]

The body is composed of earth, water, fire and air; it exists in space,

it has a mind that thinks, an intelligence that seems to designate some

actions as pleasant and others as not so pleasant (and therefore some

are desirable and others as not so desirable), and there seems to be a

coordinating cohesive principle that holds all these things together.

 

You may call it the `ego' sense.

 

This ego sense is nothing more than an atom, one of the factors involved

in existence.

 

It is another sense – it is also part of this creation, of this

nature. It may be the coordinator of other senses but not the doer of

actions.

 

And there is this living soul which may be nothing more than a cell..

 

There is a cell or a molecule, in that there is a core, there is a

nucleus (which is perhaps comparable to the ego sense) and that's

all!

 

In this cosmic being, action takes place, motion takes continually –

just as movement takes place in space, and which you call the air; just

as motion takes place in the sea, which you call the waves, the ripples

and the eddies.

 

Even so, action, motion takes place in this infinite being.

 

How is it that I feel `I' am doing?

 

How does this ego sense arise as an independent entity?

 

No one doubts or questions the existence of a thing called `ego'

sense, ahamkara. Aham is `I –am'.

 

`I-am' is there, but is this `I-am' something

independent of the totality?

 

That is the question.

 

Is each cell in my body part of the totality or is it something which

has a will of its own? So that if I hang myself and die, the hand still

continues to function!

 

It won't, because it is totally dependent on the totality, it

constitutes one indivisible element in this totality.

 

I have a funny way of describing what is known as individuality – it

is indivisible duality.

 

For instance, we often say `my body is covered with skin', as if

the skin is not part of my body! It is also part of the body!

 

It is figure of speech. Therefore, when I say `I am sitting

here' it is not as though this `I', the ego sense, is a

separate, completely independent entity capable of sitting here or

getting away, but it is part of the totality.

 

Even that expression `part of the totality' is defective. You

cannot call something a part unless the part can part from the whole;

and since the part cannot part from the totality, it is not even a part

– it is the totality.

 

If you can visualise a circle, every point in that circle is the circle,

because the moment you rub out one little point, there is no circle.

 

Every point on that circle, no matter how minute it may be, constitute

the circle.

 

So that, the `I-am' is an integral part of this totality.

 

Without it the totality will cease to be the totality, and without the

totality, this `I-am' has no being at all.

To be continued..