Commentary on the Isavasya Upanishad : 11. Swami Krishnananda.

 ==============================================================

==============================================================

Saturday, May 07, 2022. 21:00. 

Part-2.

Post -11.

==============================================================

In a similar manner, the whole circumstance into which one is born is conditioned by every kind of experience. All the processes of our life, all the joys and sorrows, everything that has happened, everything that is yet to happen, including the length of our life in the world, all of these have to be seen in a seed form in that particular causative factor that has been the reason behind our coming into this world. When a child is born and an old man dies, it does not mean that something suddenly has taken place. A vast sea of causes has been pushing the waves of these conditions that gradually concretised themselves into the birth of an individual and matured into the further action of the decay of that formation and the death of the individual.

Similar is the case with every kind of action, every work, every event, every occurrence. The omnipresence of the Ultimate Reality, about which the first verse of the Upanishad told us so much, and on which we dilated a little bit earlier, implies that everything has to move towards it. We noticed that every part that belongs to a whole is not only conditioned by the nature of the whole to which the parts belong, but the whole also determines the very function and the manner of the working of the parts. I mentioned last time the analogy of the working of the physiological organs. The characteristic of our physical body as a whole will decide how each limb of the body will work. The parts of the body are conditioned by the intentions of the whole.

Likewise is the activity that takes place in all creation. It is not that only human beings work. There is activity taking place in all levels, subhuman as well as superhuman. In the Bhagavadgita, again, we have this statement, that neither on earth nor in heaven can we find anything that is free from the operation of the properties of prakriti, known as gunas. “Na tad asti pṛithivyāṁ vā divi deveṣu va punaḥ, sattvaṁ prakṛiti-jair muktaṁ yad ebhiḥ syat tribir guṇaiḥ (Gita 18.40). The propulsion to work, is the cause originating from the rajasic quality of prakriti. The stability that we sometimes experience in our life, is the work of the tamas of prakriti. The balancing of forces between rajas and tamas, is sattva. All that is born, gods in heaven, human beings on earth, whatever be the created being, everything is composed of these three gunas.

Sattva, rajas and tamas are not merely abstract qualities, like the colour of a rose or the whiteness of a flower. These three gunas, as they are called, are properties of the very substance of the world. They constitute the brick and mortar of all things, living as well as non-living. The weight of the body, its substantiality, is the tamas thereof. The agitation, causing impulsion to movement of any kind, is the rajas there. And any kind of satisfaction that we feel in our mind, is the sattva prevalent in the mind. If we are always agitated and there is no satisfaction of any kind, we are never happy at any moment of the day, it will mean that there is no sattva working; only rajas is active. But if we feel sleepy and lethargic and very heavy in our personality, it would mean that tamas is predominant.

To be continued ...

==============================================================