Wednesday, March 26, 2008
GITA 108 DAYS - Day 72
72 We Must ‘See’ the Ultimate as well as the Apparent Truth
We learn history as the journey of mankind from the period of ignorance to the time of know-how that is today. That is, the stone age to the modern age. But the sages had a different way of learning the history all together.
The Upanishads say: son, there existed the knowledge and the truth alone and from there the journey has been towards ignorance. Lord didn’t create the world out of nothing- as nothing can be created out of nothing. When that noble ‘stuff’ desired to become many, it occurred so. Because many things came out of the one, it appears that many creations have occurred. This treatment of the subject matter is available only in the upanishads and the Gita, not in the scriptures of other traditions. Universal vision is to ‘see’ the real in everything.
We must see the truth that is apparent and the Truth that is ultimate. We must be able to enjoy the sunrise with the full understanding that it is an unreal phenomena, because the sun never rises or sets. It just exists. Sunrise and sunset are the illusions of the people living in this world. The main hindrance to see the Lord is the burden of desire we carry along with us. When we see a flower with the desire of owning it, we loose the vision of the flower itself.
Only with the unwavering devotion can one see and realize the Lord. A real devotee is always vigilant, but the modern devotees tend to leave everything to the Lord and do nothing. Those who act for Him, those who have Him as the only goal and those who have no enmity towards all will attain Him. (when we have different aims and when desire for ‘other things’, we will not attain that blissful state) We are afraid that if we keep our ultimate goal as the Lord we may not ‘get’ all the ‘other things’. But the fact is that, once we attain the Lord, all ‘other things’ will fall in place properly. Lack of clarity in our goals is the problem here.
Arjuna asks Krishna: who is the nobler? the saguna (through deities, temples and rituals) worshipper or the nirguna (treating Lord as the formless ultimate reality with no attributable qualities) worshipper ? The Lord tells Arjuna- just as a loving mother would tell her child holding his hands: “you are my precious son”. He says that a little child requires a lot of care and guidance, but those who worship me without any attributes is nobler indeed. They meditate without limiting Me, in any name, form, or space.
We learn history as the journey of mankind from the period of ignorance to the time of know-how that is today. That is, the stone age to the modern age. But the sages had a different way of learning the history all together.
The Upanishads say: son, there existed the knowledge and the truth alone and from there the journey has been towards ignorance. Lord didn’t create the world out of nothing- as nothing can be created out of nothing. When that noble ‘stuff’ desired to become many, it occurred so. Because many things came out of the one, it appears that many creations have occurred. This treatment of the subject matter is available only in the upanishads and the Gita, not in the scriptures of other traditions. Universal vision is to ‘see’ the real in everything.
We must see the truth that is apparent and the Truth that is ultimate. We must be able to enjoy the sunrise with the full understanding that it is an unreal phenomena, because the sun never rises or sets. It just exists. Sunrise and sunset are the illusions of the people living in this world. The main hindrance to see the Lord is the burden of desire we carry along with us. When we see a flower with the desire of owning it, we loose the vision of the flower itself.
Only with the unwavering devotion can one see and realize the Lord. A real devotee is always vigilant, but the modern devotees tend to leave everything to the Lord and do nothing. Those who act for Him, those who have Him as the only goal and those who have no enmity towards all will attain Him. (when we have different aims and when desire for ‘other things’, we will not attain that blissful state) We are afraid that if we keep our ultimate goal as the Lord we may not ‘get’ all the ‘other things’. But the fact is that, once we attain the Lord, all ‘other things’ will fall in place properly. Lack of clarity in our goals is the problem here.
Arjuna asks Krishna: who is the nobler? the saguna (through deities, temples and rituals) worshipper or the nirguna (treating Lord as the formless ultimate reality with no attributable qualities) worshipper ? The Lord tells Arjuna- just as a loving mother would tell her child holding his hands: “you are my precious son”. He says that a little child requires a lot of care and guidance, but those who worship me without any attributes is nobler indeed. They meditate without limiting Me, in any name, form, or space.
# posted by Sukumar Canada @ 7:28 PM 
