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Karma as the Source of Diversity

The vedas acknowledge divine karma as the origin of all creation, preservation, and destruction. However, since God does not have desires, unlike humans, he is not constrained by them. In the first chapter of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (1.6.1), we discover that karma is one of the three main causes of diversity, alongside name and form. The variety in names is a result of speech, and the variety in forms is a result of the eye, while the mind and body are the sources for the variety in actions. For every action, the body serves as the source, the controller, or the lord.  Within the body, the mind, speech, breath, organs of action, and organs of perception are regarded as the primary deities who receive sustenance from the body and carry out their respective functions. Nevertheless, we cannot solely depend on them to combat the impurities and the malevolent forces that can infiltrate our body, as they are susceptible to evil and demonic influences, thoughts, desires, temptations,...
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Maitri Upanishad


The laying of the formerly-described sacrificial fires is indeed the sacrifice of Brahman. Therefore let the sacrificer, after he has laid those fires, meditate on the Self. Thus only does the sacrificer become complete and faultless. But who is to be meditated on? He who is called Prana (breath).

What is the use of the enjoyment of pleasures in this offensive, pithless body - a mere mass of bones, skin, sinews, marrow, flesh, seed, blood, mucus, tears, phlegm, ordure, water, bile, and slime! What is the use of the enjoyment of pleasures in this body which is assailed by lust, hatred, greed, delusion, fear, anguish, jealousy, separation from what is loved, union with what is not loved, hunger, thirst, old age, death, illness, grief, and other evils!

He who, without stopping the out-breathing, proceeds upwards, and who, modified (by impressions), and yet not modified, drives away the darkness (of error), he is the Self. He who in perfect rest, rising from this body (both from the sthula and stikshma), and reaching the highest light', comes forth in his own form, he is the Self this is the immortal, the fearless, this is Brahman.

Now then this is the science of Brahman, and the science of all Upanishads, I shall tell it to thee

We hear (in the sacred records) that there were once the Valakhilyas, who had left off all evil, who were vigorous and passionless. They said to the Pragapati Kratu: "O Saint, this body is without intelligence, like a cart. To what supernatural being belongs this great power by which such a body has been made intelligent? Or who is the driver?

He who in the Sruti is called "Standing above," like passionless ascetics, amidst the objects of the world, he, indeed, the pure, clean, undeveloped, tranquil, breathless, bodiless, endless, imperishable, firm, everlasting, unborn, independent one, stands in his own greatness, and by him has this body been made intelligent, and he is also the driver of it.

Sound, touch, and other things are like nothings; if the elemental Self is attached to them, it will not remember the Highest Place.


Comments

  1. Ganesh YegneshwaranMarch 13, 2022 at 5:06 PM

    Wonder whether Samadhi is possible without Sambhog for majority of us. Tvam Tatva Masi

    ReplyDelete

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