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Author Topic: THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION  (Read 3228 times)

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Offline JR

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THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION
« on: February 19, 2007, 07:54:41 AM »
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  • By :-Swami  Chinmayanand
     
    MAN OF PERFECTION

    Secret   Fullness   in   Self   Control
    Lord Krishna gives us a very striking example to bring home, in all its tragic vividness, the wasteful self-destruction of the life of one who has no self-control.

    (11-67) "One, whose mind implicitly follows the wandering fancies of his senses, can have no discrimination : his intellect drifts as a boat in the open seas lashed about by the wild winds." In our explosive days of youthful vigour we may not independently come to review the consequences of our excesses. Thrust by the impatience of passions, and the surge of our baser hungers, we may dash ahead into fields of easy joys and get emptied of all our strength and abilities.

    The Geeta-acharya here clearly points out the dire consequences of a life of cheap dissipations. One who yields readily (Yanmanonu vidheeyate) and runs after the intemperate senses (Indrayanaam hi charataam) his intellectual powers and alertness (parajnam) is smug¬gled out of him (tadasya harati).
    When once the power of the discriminating intellect abdicates, the mind becomes an easy prey to the whims and fancies of the sense-organs. They are essentially made up of gross matter, and so they seek and discover their fulfilment in the outer world of material objects. The storms of their passion toss the helpless mind which has now no captain to steer it clear of dangers, and give it a direc¬tion and a definite harbour to reach. True, a rudderless ship, with its captain dead, on the open seas, becomes a plaything to be tossed about by the whimsical winds, to founder and dash against an unseen rock. So too the life of a man of no self-control wrecks and founders, achieving nothing, reaching nowhere, sinking into the slims of a watery grave. Man, a promising young man, who would perhaps have reached dizzy heights and climbed to shine in his achievements is laid low in disease and death by his own wild passions and stormy lusts. Any young man of ambition must guard against this inner death, by consciously living a disciplined life of constant seeking for some purposeful goal and heroically pursuing a shining ideal. Such a life alone is worthwhile; such indeed is the story of all men who had contributed to life, and whose name History will never willingly let die.

    (II-68)"Therefore", Krishna summarises "Oh ! Mighty-armed soldier, he is Man-of-Perfection and his knowledge is steady, whose senses are completely restrained from their objects." This is the 10th stroke in the word-picture of the Man-of-Perfection.

    Now the intelligent sceptic may ask, "What is the use of a life of complete self-control when the little joys of life that we can eke out from the senseobjects are denied ? Would such an empty and berren life be worth living ?

    The Geetacharya declares in apparent absurdity ; ((11-69) "That which is night to all beings, to that the self-controlled man is awake; that to which all beings are awake, is night to the man of reflection." In short, ordinary people, who live in the excitements and perspirations of sense-gratifications, can never comprehend the fuller joys and ampler bliss enjoyed by a man of self-control. It is also conversely true that a man of serious reflections (Muni) who, as a result of his understanding, has risen above the tumultous world of seething lusts and sweating passions, does not live in our familiar world of ego and ego-centric desires, longings and attachments. Men-of-thought (Munis) do not live and suffer our level of conscious¬ness, and its vulgar incompetence. We accept the baser state of existence seeking power, wealth and sensual satisfaction—all utterly selfish, and arrogantly self-centred. Such a life creates restlessness within, and tensions without. We create our own psychedellic pains and sorrows by wrong thinking and false ways of living. This psuedo-world of make-belief-joys, of immoral successes, transitory pains and pangs, is unknown to the man of self-control. "The man of reflection sees it as night.'' (saa nisha pashyato muneh). But then is not a man of wisdom living even after attaining perfection, in this very same world where we are ? Will not the objects around him shoot beams of temptations into him and generate in his heart desires ? Once the desire is born, is he not thereafter as plastic clay as we are all now ? Krishna answers all these questions. (11-70) "As upto brimful and still into the ocean flow the waters so is the Muni into whom desires flow—he, not a desirer of desires, attains peace." True. A man-of-reflection (Muni) also lives the common frail world of sensuous objects, and desires to reach his mind. But his mind never spills over, just as, the ocean, which is ever full, receives millions of gallons of Water from all the rivers every minute, and yet never overflows and floods the continents !

    It is a strange example, and indeed a mathematical curiosity. The oceans are ever-full—rivers like the Nile and the Tigris the Amazon and the Ganga, the Brahmaputra and the Krishna-together with all other rivers of the world bring millions of gallons of water in to the brimful ocean; yet, it still keeps to its own dimensions. So too the mind of a Muni, is so vast, so deep, so broad that all the desires reaching it cannot make it spill over into sensuous activity. In our case our mind is so small and shallow-just a cup of water-one drop more and it overflows ! !

    Such a man of great depths alone lives in this world, in endless peace-never one who entertains desires. Desire brings agitations-then strife begins, to fulfil the desires. By the time a desire is satis¬fied a dozen other sprng up, each urgently demanding quick and immediate gratifications. How can such a bosom know the cad¬ence of peace ?

    "Thus" the Geeta Acharya concludes, (11-71) "He who is de¬void of longing, giving up totally all desires, and lives without the twin selfish ideas of I and 'Mine', he indeed attains peace."
    This state of consciousness in which the Man-of-Perfection lives is called the State of Brahman-the State of Godhood. That is not a temporary feeling, a passing mood, a momentary state of benumbing ecstacy—all-forgetting joy—an all-consuming Beauty. It is a State of Awakening, a new dimension of living, a total re-orientation in the vision of life. It is permanent : it is an evolutionary leap of the mental man to the state of immortal Godhood. There is no return from it : it is eternal, permanent, immutable. (II-72) "This is the State of being in Brahman, O Partha. None having attained this state gets again deluded. Living his days in enjoyment of this state, at the end of his life here, the man attains oneness with Brahman."
    (Courtesy : Geeta Office, Powai)

    Shri D. A. Ghaisas, who was on the editorial staff of Shri Sai Leela has been relieved of his respo¬nsibilities from 1-6-74, due to his indifferent health. Due to the sudden demise of prof. D. D. Parchure, Executive Editor of this magazine, on 1-6-73, a big vacuum was created; but it goes to the credit of Shri. Ghaisas that he shouldered the editorial respo¬nsibilities of Shri Sai Leela single handed, and brought out the issues of this magazine for the months of July and August 1973 regularly. He was an amiable, cooperative and a sincere worker. We, as well as our readers, will feel his absence very much. [ Editor "] S. 2
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