If you awaken from this illusion and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death (or shall I say death implies life?), you can feel yourself – not as a stranger in the world, not as something here unprobational, not as something that has arrived here by fluke - but you can begin to feel your own existence as absolutely fundamental.
I am not trying to sell you on this idea in the sense of converting you to it, I want you to play with it. I want you to think of its possibilities, I am not trying to prove it. I am just putting it forward as a possibility of life to think about. So then, let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream you wanted to dream, and that you could for example have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time, or any length of time you wanted to have.
And you would, naturally, as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure during your sleep. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each you would say “Well that was pretty great”. But now let’s have a surprise, let’s have a dream which isn’t under control, where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it's gonna be.
And you would dig that and would come out of that and you would say “Wow that was a close shave, wasn’t it?”. Then you would get more and more adventurous and you would make further- and further-out gambles what you would dream. And finally, you would dream where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.
That would be within the infinite multiplicity of choices you would have. Of playing that you weren't god, because the whole nature of the godhead, according to this idea, is to play that he is not. So in this idea then, everybody is fundamentally the ultimate reality, not god in a politically kingly sense, but god in the sense of being the self, the deep-down basic whatever there is. And you are all that, only you are pretending you are not.
-Alan Watts, The Dream of Life
A
Bhagavad Gita Chapter VII Verse 15 – Explanation
The sinful, deluded, lowest of men, deprived of understanding by maya and following evil ways, (the ways of the asuras) do not take refuge in Me. (Bhagavad Gita Chapter VII Verse 15)
All sin is a form of ignorance. When our intelligence is clouded by maya, or ignorance, we then become sinful. We lose sight of the Truth, that in reality all beings are united in God, that in the last analysis we are all one Spirit appearing as different individuals. And we mistake the differentiation for the true state of affairs. In other words, we see separation and lose sight of the underlying oneness.
The Upanishad says, ‘Where one sees another, where one hears another, that is small. Where one does not see another, where one does not hear another, that is infinite.’
Seeing and feeling separation brings selfishness, the source of all evil. As this cloud of ignorance becomes heavier and thicker, the feeling of separateness increases. With it also increases egotism and sinfulness.
Sri Krishna speaks here of the lowest class of human beings possessed of asuric tendencies or evil qualities like cruelty and untruthfulness.
Such persons are so entirely enveloped by ignorance that their understanding has become very much clouded. They are atheistic and in their intense egotism they cannot admit of any power superior to their own.
They look upon God, eternal Life and a supreme Ruler of the universe as so many myths. How can they then take refuge in God, whose very existence they deny? They are unable to see or understand Truth. They hear, but understand not; they see, but perceive not. Their evil deeds, committed in the past, prevent them in the form of samskaras (that is in the form of stored-up impressions and tendencies) from accepting Truth, even when presented to them. They scoff. They cannot do otherwise. It is their nature. The fever patient suffering for a long time loses all healthy appetite. He craves for unhealthy food that will only increase his malady and suffering. His taste has become perverted.
So it is with those who suffer the fever of egotism, lust and desire. Their taste has become degenerated. Vulgar, unhealthy tendencies make them crave sinful enjoyments. The holy, unselfish, loving, sacrificing life appears to them most unattractive. They feel at home wallowing in the mire. But all are not like that. These are only the very lowest class, who care not for God or Truth.
Others accept Truth, though in different measures. And Sri Krishna mentions all this in the next verse, where He divides them into four classes of devotees, according to their motives and spiritual capacity.
Bhagavad Gita Chapter VII Verse 15 – Source - Reflections on the Bhagavad Gita By Swami Atulananda – Prabuddha Bharata August 2003 Issue
A
No comments:
Post a Comment