Be like the Kindly Light in leading – Bhagavad Gita Verses 3.28-3.29

Re: Be like the Kindly Light in leading – Bagavad Gita Verses 3.28-3.29

Somnambulism is a sleep disorder in which the patient engages in activities that are normally performed while awake. When he wakes up from his sleep, he will not remember anything that he did when he was sleeping. It is not as if he is unconscious while he is sleepwalking. It is just that he is not conscious on that level at which his memory can recall whatever he does during his sleepwalking. Experts say that it is dangerous to wake a sleepwalker during a sleepwalking episode because of the possibility of psychological crash arising out of the sudden confrontation between the conscious and the subconscious states.

We all go through the motions of life like a sleepwalker. We do not understand that we are actually sleeping in our wakeful state. This is what Zuang Tzu, the great Chinese Philosopher of the 4th Century BC, says of our life:
“Fools regard themselves as awake now- so personal is their knowledge! It may be a prince or it may be as a herdsman, but so cock-sure of themselves!”
Whatever we do without understanding the nature of the Self amounts to only sleepwalking. The call of great people like Swami Vivekananda to ‘Arise, Awake’ is meant only to awaken us from the sleep of our mundane existence and make us alive to the role that we need to play as part of the Divine Scheme. Our vedic scholars of yore have reminded us time and again that Karma never dispels ignorance, being under the same category with it. Knowledge alone dispels ignorance, just as light alone dispels darkness.

The Lord’s warning that “the enlightened man should not thrust his understanding of life upon the unenlightened” must be understood in the context of our existence being in the nature of a sleepwalker. The message here is that our Karma represents the combined effect of all our past actions and has to be expended. No one should be stopped from it but should be shown the way to expend the Karma in such a way that our actions of expending our Karma do not add to the ‘Karmic’ balance. Let us take the case of Bagwan Ramana Maharshi. His is a rare case of ‘instant liberation’ and yet he let his body suffer the effects of his residual Karma. His affliction with malignant tumour and the consequent pain and agony that he suffered was only to show us that out Karma has to be understood and endured in a state of enlightenment. He has shown through an incident in his life how the Karma has to be expended. Once while he was taking his walk, he inadvertently trampled upon an anthill and disturbed the peace of the ants. The angry ants started attacking him in retaliation and Ramana stood there with a smiling face until the ants could finish their act of revenge. His feet became swollen beyond recognition. He explained to his agitated followers that by letting the disturbed ants punish him he had ensured against further accumulation to his Karmic account. This is a simple and beautiful example of expending the Karma in a state of enlightenment.

The Lord clearly enunciates in these verses that it is essential that in the process of imparting his knowledge to the unenlightened, the enlightened man should not interfere with the operation of Karma. His job is to enable the unenlightened to understand their life in the context of the Divine Plan. Let us remember that
“wherefore, in the eternal justice, such sight as your earth receives is engulfed, like the eye in the sea; for though from the shore it can see the bottom, in the ocean it cannot see it; yet the bottom is there nonetheless but the depth hides it”
The purer our heart is, the greater will be the depth of the Divine Justice we can see. We may not be able to understand the cosmic process in its entirety but we’ll get an insight into its principles and nature.

 

Dear Corallux
You are absolutely right. Intolerance is the hallmark of the modern leaders, be they religious or political. Everyone thinks he is right and wants his teachings followed. That is why there is so much of turmoil all around us.In the case of great souls like Adi Sankara, they simply won over people by their own example. He was the reason for Buddhism not finding many takers in India where the Buddhism had its roots. Sankara never advocated torching of Buddhist population but he won them over by the sheer depth of his arguments. The religious fanatics today lack an in depth knowledge of their own religion and consequently resort to terrorist methods to subdue their antagonists.
Sri

 

Re: Be like the Kindly Light in leading – Bagavad Gita Verses 3.28-3.29

Dear Pavithra
That is a very interesting classification. I agree with you that extra caution is required when we deal with 'silent' people. People may not open their mouth for several reasons. They may not be entirely in agreement with you. They may know you are wrong and yet would prefer to keep silent because they may not like to enter into an argument. Or they may know you are right but would hate to admit it. Whichever way we look at it, it is more difficult to deal with them! You are right that they are a negative influence on others. Worse still is when their silence is described as 'diplomatic' There is no such nonsense as 'diplomatic silence'!
Sri