Skip to main content

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,...
Post a Comment

SNARE


How is one to acquire knowledge? How is one to attain liberation? And how is one to reach dispassion?

If we are seeking liberation, avoid the objects of the senses like poison and cultivate tolerance, sincerity, compassion, contentment, and truthfulness as the antidote. We do not consist of any of the elements -- earth, water, fire, air, or even ether. To be liberated, we should know ourself as consisting of consciousness, the witness of these. If we will remain resting in consciousness, seeing ourself as distinct from the body, then even now we will become happy, peaceful and free from bonds. Righteousness and unrighteousness, pleasure and pain are purely of the mind and are no concern of ours. We are neither the doer nor the reaper of the consequences, so we are always free. 

We are the one witness of everything and are always completely free. The cause of our bondage is that we see the witness as something other than this. Burn down the forest of ignorance with the fire of the understanding that "I am the one pure awareness," and be happy and free from distress. That in which all this appears is imagined like the snake in a rope; that joy, supreme joy, and awareness is what we are, so be happy. If one thinks of oneself as free, one is free, and if one thinks of oneself as bound, one is bound. Here this saying is true, "Thinking makes it so". Our real nature is as the one perfect, free, and actionless consciousness, the all-pervading witness -- unattached to anything, desireless and at peace. It is from illusion that we seem to be involved in samsara. 

Meditate on ourself as motionless awareness, free from any dualism, giving up the mistaken idea that we are just a derivative consciousness or anything external or internal. We have long been trapped in the snare of identification with the body. Sever it with the knife of knowledge that "I am awareness," and be happy. We are really unbound and actionless, self-illuminating and spotless already. The cause of our bondage is that we are still resorting to stilling the mind. All of this is really filled by us and strung out in ourselves, for what we consist of is pure awareness. Just as a mirror exists everywhere both within and apart from its reflected images, so the Brahman exists everywhere within and apart from this body. 


Recognise that the apparent is unreal, while the unmanifest is abiding.


Comments

Post a Comment

Please tweet for any doubts or problems.

Popular posts from this blog

SILENT MIND

What are we? Is our notion of self real? How does it come into existence? Is it the sum total of our experiences and awareness? Or is it a mere notion sustained by a few persistent memories, attachments and desires? Are we the sum total of a few selected thoughts and memories or all thoughts and memories? Are we sustained by a few aspects of our past or all our past? Do we come into existence by the association of these thought and memories, or do we exist without them? If we are a selection of thoughts and memories, what happens to us when we enter into deep sleep? Do we still exist then? Such were the questions the Upanishadic seers explored in ancient India several thousands of years ago to know the secrets of existence. In doing so they followed a very unique method to minimize the interference of the mind and transcend its limitations. They silenced their minds and allowed the higher knowledge to manifest itself in their consciousness. We can do it even today. There are two types ...
3 comments
Read more

PRECAP FOR BETTER RECAP

Five core Upanishad philosophies that can be learnt for managing our day-to-day life much better and looking at this blog as a precap for a better recap for this optimistic new year. 1. Samsara, Reincarnation The concept of samsara is prevalent in the Upanishads. Samsara, Sanskrit for, “wandering,” is the cycle of being. It represents reincarnation, the concept adopted by several Eastern religions of being reborn after you die according to the karmic cycle. Regardless of our personal beliefs, there’s something important to be taken from the samsara. Samsara tells us that all of life is in flux. The great wheel of life continues to turn, and nothing is ever stagnant: This vast universe is a wheel, the wheel of Brahman. Upon it are all creatures that are subject to birth, death, and rebirth. Round and round it turns and never stops. Samsara suggests that energy cannot be destroyed or diminished. It is simply transmuted. And it really is quite a poetic perspective on the cycle of deat...
4 comments
Read more

MUNDAKA UPANISHAD (PART 3-3)

THIRD MUNDAKA   FIRST KHANDA 1. Two birds, inseparable friends, cling to the same tree. One of them cats the sweet fruit, the other looks on without eating. 2. On the same tree man sits grieving, immersed, bewildered by his own impotence (an-isa). But when he sees the other lord (isa) contented and knows his glory, then his grief passes away. 3. When the seer sees the brilliant maker and lord (of the world) as the Person who has his source in Brahman, then he is wise, and shaking off good and evil, he reaches the highest oneness, free from passions; 4. For he is the Breath shining forth in all beings, and he who understands this becomes truly wise, not a talker only. He revels in the Self, he delights in the Self, and having performed his works (truthfulness, penance, meditation, &c.) he rests, firmly established in Brahman, the best of those who know Brahman. 5. By truthfulness, indeed, by penance, right knowledge, and abstinence must that Self be gained; the Self whom spotles...
4 comments
Read more