Swami Krishnananda Lessons_on_the

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frightening is sitting on the top of a tree.
Indra called one of his emissaries, the god Agni, and said,
Go and find out what it is.
Agni is the god of fire what power! The whole earth,
everything he can burn to ashes. Agni went and looked at this
spectre, and It asked, Who are you?
I am Agni, the god of fire.
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Oh, I see. What can you do?
I can burn anything to ashes. The whole earth I can
reduce to ashes, replied Agni.
I see, said the spectre. It placed a little piece of grass in
front of Agni and said, Burn this.
It was an insult to Agni. You are asking me to burn a
piece of grass!
Agni ran with great speed to burn it to ashes, but he
could not even move it, let alone burn it. He tried again and
again, and he failed in the attempt to burn the blade of grass
though he had the strength to burn the whole earth. He could
not understand what had happened. He went back and told
Indra, I cannot understand who it is. Send another person.
He did not say he was defeated. He only said, I do not
understand.
Then Indra sent Vayu, the god of wind.
Go and find out what is the matter, Indra told Vayu.
Vayu went and the spectre asked, Who are you?
I am the wind god, Vayu replied.
What can you do? asked the spectre.
I can blow away the whole earth, said Vayu.
Now, blow away this, the spectre said, and it put a little
blade of grass in front of Vayu.
Vayu was insulted. You ask me to blow a blade of grass!
And Vayu blew, but nothing happened. The grass would not
move. He was also defeated, and returned to Indra.
Vayu told Indra, I do not understand anything. You can
go yourself and find out.
When Indra went, the spectre vanished. The Upanishad
does not clearly tell us why it vanished when Indra went,
when it was visible to the other two gods. Anyway, there are
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lots of commentaries explaining why it happened in that
manner. It is not very important for us. When Indra went,
what he saw was not the spectre, but something else. Uma-
Haimavati was visible there. The Devi Durga, Lakshmi,
Saraswati, Uma-Haimavati, the Shakti of the universe, the
Power of the cosmos, God s Energy was there in the form of
a divine enchanting medium and told Indra, What you saw
was the Supreme Creator Himself. You were under the
impression very, very wrong indeed, Indra that you won
victory over the demons, these rakshasas. What strength do
you have? You cannot lift even a blade of grass. All the
strength came from that Being. He was operating through
you, and you felt that you did the work. In order to subdue
your ego, the Creator came in this form and taught you a
lesson. Having said this, Uma Haimavati vanished from that
place.
We also have such instances in the case of the
relationship between Sri Krishna and Arjuna. We know the
power of Arjuna. Nobody could stand before him. He could
stun anybody who stood in the way. When he took up his
Gandiva bow and his arrows, the earth trembled under him.
But when Krishna departed from this world, Arjuna could
not even lift a stick, let alone the Gandiva bow. Sri Krishna
was within him as the energising universality and did all the
work, though Arjuna acted as an instrument. When the
power was withdrawn because the purpose of the
manifestation of the power in that manner had been
achieved, Arjuna became an ordinary mortal, so poor and
helpless that even a shepherd could drive him away.
We should not be proud. None of us should be proud.
Arrogance often leads one to say to another, What do you
think you are? Come over here! You should not speak like
that. Everybody knows what kind of person you are. Why do
you parade your ignorance? Go and tell the elephant standing
in front, What do you think you are? Go and touch it and
see! Ego is an abomination. It is the worst evil in this world.
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Ego is the Satan who rebelled against God, asserted
independence and said: The entire kingdom is mine. And
God, You mind Your business! Whoever rebels against God
is ego, and if you assert your individuality, you are rebelling
against God that very moment. As there is only One Being in
the universe, how can there be another being Mr. So-and-so
being? This is not possible. Therefore, every act of yours with
the consciousness of your doing something is a rebellion
against God, which is very dangerous and unbecoming on
your part. You have to be humble.
Trinad api sunicena taror api shisnuna amanina
manadena kirtaniya sada harih (Siksastaka 3), says Krishna
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu: You are not fit even to take the
name of God if you have egoism in your nature. Humbler than
a blade of grass on which anybody can tread, more tolerant
than a tree whose branches anybody can chop off, giving
respect to others and expecting no respect from other people
such a person is fit to chant the name of Hari, the Great
Being. You cannot proudly chant the name of God and say
you are doing kirtan. That serves no purpose. You will be
surprised that every action of yours is finally a manifestation
of your ego, either covertly or overtly. Sometimes you
purposely manifest your ego and project your pride, knowing
that it is so. Sometimes, unconsciously, you pat yourself on
your back.
Who is seeing? Who is hearing? That question is raised
by the Kena Upanishad in the beginning itself. You may be
thinking that the eyes are seeing, the ears are hearing and the
nose is smelling. Nothing of the kind is taking place. The
Smeller is somebody else. If the eyes are seeing, a corpse also
can see, because the corpse has eyeballs. No function or
sensation is possible when life is withdrawn, as you know
very well. The life force is the pervasion of psychic power in
your personality. If the mind is withdrawn, the energy will
also not be operating in the manner required, as the mind,
the psychic power, is nothing but the power of the Soul.
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The Cosmic Soul, operating through the individual soul,
energises the buddhi, or the intellect, through which it is
reflected as knowledge and understanding. Secondly, it is
reflected through the mind and, thirdly, it is reflected
through the energy, or the prana. Fourthly, it is reflected
through the body, and you feel as if you are alive. The body
which is nothing but a corpse, lifeless in its nature basically,
composed of five elements, earth, water, fire, air and ether
appears to be living, grand and beautiful because of a portion
of the life of the Soul, or the Self, which is revealed through
this personality. The Universal Soul is manifest in the
individual soul, the Atman as it is called in you. It is
reflected through the buddhi, or the intellect; that is reflected
through the manas, or the thinking medium; that passes
through the prana that energises the body. Then the sense
organs begin to operate; then you say: I am doing; I am
seeing; I am alive.
The Kena Upanishad says, in the very beginning itself,
He who sees through the eyes, He who hears through the
ears, He who breathes through the breath, He who thinks
through the mind, He who understands through the intellect,
know Him.
There is no use understanding things, says the
Kaushitaki Upanishad. There is no use knowing what you
are understanding. You must know the Understanding itself.
Understand the Understander, which is more beneficial to
you than to know what is being understood by the
understanding as an external object. Now I understand that
there is a tree in front of me; I can see it. But, that is not
enough for me; I must know how it is that the understanding [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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