uddhavagita-eng Chapter 16 - On Distinguishing between Good and Bad
(1) The Supreme Lord said: 'They who give up My paths of jñāna, karma and bhakti, will, in the cultivation of their lusts and fickle senses, keep moving through the cycle of birth and death. (2) When one manages to be steady in one's position that is called virtue, while the opposite of it is considered vice; this is the conclusion about these two [see also B.G. 2: 16]. (3) What would be pure or impure concerning the religion, what would be vice or virtue in normal affairs and what would be favorable or unfavorable for one's physical survival, are matters [of good and bad] one must evaluate from the same category of elements, oh sinless one [what is good for the body e.g. is not necessarily good for the religion]. (4) This approach of matters I put forward for the sake of those who bear the burden of religious principles. (5) Earth, water, fire, air and ether are the five basic elements that, from Lord Brahmā down to the nonmoving creatures, constitute the bodies of the living beings who are all connected in the Supreme Soul. (6) Even though they consist of the same elements and in that sense are equal, the Vedas assign different names and forms to them in service of their self-interest, Uddhava [see varṇāśrama]. (7) What would be the right and wrong considerations concerning the time, place, the things and so on, is established by Me with the purpose of restricting materially motivated activities. (8) Among all places, those places are impure where there is no respect for the brahminical culture and no spotted antelopes can be found, where there are no saintly, cultured men even when there are spotted antelopes, where it is unclean like Kīkaṭa [a place of low-class men, see mleccha and *], places not consecrated and unprepared, and places where the earth is barren. (9) The time that by its nature [solar position, lunar phase] or by its objects [appointment by calendar and sundial] is suitable for performing one's prescribed duties is considered good and the time that impedes the performance of one's duties or is unsuitable [night time e.g. or times of different obligations] is considered bad [see also B.G. 7: 8, 11.20: 26, kāla and kālakūṭa **]. (10) The purity or impurity of a thing [or of a substance] is determined [validated] with the help of another thing, in respect of what one says about it, by means of a ritual performance [of purification], in respect of time or according to its relative magnitude [***]. (11) Whether it [- viz. the quality of a thing -] imposes accordingly a sinful [or pious] reaction upon a person depends on that person's power or impotence, intelligence, wealth, condition and place. (12) By a combination of time, air, fire, earth and water, or by each of them separately, [matters are purified, like] grains, things made of wood, clay and bone, thread, skins, liquids and things won from fire. (13) When something in touch with that what is impure removes a bad smell or dirt and thus restores the original nature of an object, one speaks of purification. (14) A twice-born soul should be pure in his activities with cleansing himself, in remembrance of Me, by bathing, charity and austerity, as also by performing his duties and purificatory rituals according to his age and individual capacity. (15) The purification derived from a mantra is a consequence of the correct knowledge about it. The purification by a certain act is the consequence of one's dedication to Me. Dharma [religiosity] prospers by [the purity of] the six factors [as mentioned: the place, the time, the substance, the mantras, the doer and the devotional act], whereas godlessness [adharma] is produced by the contrary. (16) Sometimes though, a virtue turns out to be a vice and a vice - by providence [or Vedic instruction] - turns out to be a virtue. Respecting the regulative principles, one is thus faced with the fact that the distinction between what is good and bad is factually effaced by them [4*]. (17) The same performance of karma because of which one person falls down is not the cause for another to fall down. Someone who fell [in love e.g.] does not fall any further; for such a one natural attachment changes into a virtue. (18) Whatever one desists from one is freed from - this is for human beings the foundation of religious life [natural pious living] that takes away the suffering, fear and delusion. 19 When one presumes the objects stimulating the senses to be good, a person will develop attachment as a consequence, from that attachment lust originates and because of that lust [to enjoy at will] there is quarrel among people. (20) Because of quarreling there is the anger that is difficult to handle and because of anger there is ignorance; and thus someone's broad consciousness is quickly overtaken by darkness [or narrowed consciousness]. (21) Oh saintly soul, a living being bereft that way [of clear understanding] becomes empty-headed so that, as a consequence having fallen away from the goals in life, such a person - just like dull matter - is as good as dead [compare B.G. 2: 62-63]. (22) Adhering to the sensual affair, vainly living the life of a tree, one fails in knowing oneself and others, so that one's breathing is nothing more than pumping air. 23) The awards promised in the [karma-kāṇḍa part of the] scriptures are for man not the highest good; they are merely enticements to create a taste for the ultimate good [upāsanakāṇḍa], similar to what one says to make someone take a medicine. (24) From the moment they are born, mortals develop a mind of attachment to their family, their vital functions and the objects of their desire, because of which they lose sight of the interest of their soul. (25) Why would those of intelligence [the Vedic authorities] encourage souls to further engage in those [attachments], because of which they, on the path of danger blind to their real interest, in submission [to karmic actions] land in darkness [see also 5.5: 17]. (26) Some who thus with a perverted intelligence do not understand the purpose [of finding fulfillment in Kṛṣṇa], speak in [karma-mīmāṁsā] flowery language about [sacrificing for the sake of] material benefits; something about which he who really knows the Vedas does not speak [see also B.G. 2: 42-44]. (27) Those who are lusty, miserly and greedy take the flowers [of karmic sacrifices] for the fruit [of realization]; bewildered by the fire they suffocate from the smoke and do not realize their position [their true identity of being an individual soul instead of a body]. (28) Armed with their expressions, My dear, they do not know Me who is seated within their heart and from whom this universe generated that is also Me. In their self-indulgence they are like people staring into fog. (29-30) Not understanding My confidential conclusion [see also10.87 and B.G. 9] they, absorbed in their sensuality, [as meat eaters] are attached to the violence [against animals] that may occur under conditions [in nature], but certainly never is encouraged for sacrifices. In reality they take pleasure in being violent against the animals that [without necessity] were slaughtered for their sense gratification. With their ritual worship of the gods, the forefathers and the leading spirits, they are mischievous people. (31) In their hearts they all - like businessmen investing their money -imagine to achieve in a world that in words sounds nice, but which is as unreal as adream. (32) Established in the mode of passion, goodness or ignorance, they worship the gods and others headed by Indra who likewise delight in passion, goodness and ignorance; but Me they do not worship properly [thus, see also B.G. 9: 23 and 10: 24 &25]. (33-34) [They think:] 'When we worship the demigods with sacrifices here, we will enjoy heaven, and when that has ended, we will turn back to earth in a nice home and a fine family.' With their minds thus bewildered by the flowery words [of the Vedas] they nevertheless, as proud and most greedy men, are not attracted to My topics. (35) The trikāṇḍa divided Vedas have the spiritual understanding of the true self, the soul, as their subject matter, but also the seers, who esoterically express themselves more indirectly [the 'other gurus'], are dear to Me. (36) The transcendental [Vedic]sound [the Śabda-brahman] manifesting itself [at different levels] in the prana, the senses and the mind [of the pure, self-realized, enlightened person], is most difficult to understand; it is unlimited and as unfathomably deep as the ocean [see also 11.12:17-18]. (37) The groundless, changeless Absolute of endless potencies that I promote [as My nature, see Oṁkāra], is represented within the living beings in the form of sound vibrations, just as in a lotus stalk there is the appearance of a single strand of fiber [see also 11.18: 32 and 6.13: 15]. (38-40) The way a spider weaves its web from the heart by its orifice, the breath of the Lord [the prana] from the ether is manifesting the sound vibration through the mind in the form of the different phonemes. Full of nectar comprising all the shapes that branch out in thousands of directions, the Master, decorated with consonants, vowels, sibilants and semivowels, has expanded from the syllable oṁ.By the elaborated diversity of expressions and metrical arrangements - that each have four more syllables -, He Himself creates and withdraws again the vast, unlimited expanse[of the Vedic manifestation of sound, see also B.G. 15: 15]. (41) For instance, theme Tres Gāyatrī, Uṣṇik and Anuṣṭup; Bṛhatī and Paṅkti as also Triṣṭup, Jagatī, Aticchanda,Atyaṣṭi, Atijagatī and Ativirāṭ [have each in this order four more syllables]. (42) The[confidential] heart of the matter of what these literatures [karma-kāṇḍa] enjoin [to bedone], what they [upāsana-kāṇḍa] indicate [as being the object of devotion], what aspects they describe or what alternatives they [jñāna-kāṇḍa] thus offer [as philosophy],is in this world not known by anyone else but Me [compare 11.20, B.G. 4: 5, 7: 26, 10:41]. (43) I am the One enjoined, I am the object of worship, I am the alternative [the philosophical hypothesis] that is offered and the One who is explained away [5*]. The transcendental sound vibration of the Vedas establishes Me as being their meaning, and elaborately describes the material duality as the department of the bewildering energy one has to emasculate to ultimately become happy.' *: Śrīla Madhvācārya quotes from the Skanda Purāṇa as follows: 'Religious persons should reside within an eight-mile radius of rivers, oceans, mountains, hermitages, forests, spiritual cities or places where the śālagrāma-śīlā [a black oval river-stone suitable for worship] isfound. All other places should be considered kīkaṭa, or contaminated. But if even in such contaminated places black and spotted antelopes are found, one may reside there as long as sinful persons are not also present. Even if sinful persons are present, if the civil power rests with respectable authorities, one may remain. Similarly, one may dwell wherever the Deity of Viṣṇu is duly installed and worshiped.' **: The paramparā adds here: 'Political, social or economic disturbances that obstruct the execution of one's religious duties are considered inauspicious times.' Therefore the - form of,type of - time with which one achieves the association of the Supreme Lord or the Lord's puredevotee, is the most auspicious time, whereas the form of time which is politically, economicallyor socially determined and with which one loses such association, is most inauspicious. Religious timing - to the sun and moon e.g. - is sat-kāla, or true timing and proper conditioning, whereas humanly determined timing is asat-kāla, or time conditioning by false authority,a karma motivated time driven by ulterior motives. Scientifically it concerns a biological conflict at the level of the nervous system between natural stimuli of time, like the regularity of daylight, and the cultural stimuli of time that oppose with linear and generalized concepts of time like mean time and zone time. The time sense of modern man is for this reason disturbed, he suffers psychological time, an unstable sense of time which is fundamental to the cultural neurosis, or the problematic experience of one’s culture. ***: An example to illustrate this rather abstract formulation is the clock: the clock is pure orimpure relative to its object measured: the time of nature as another 'thing' of time. This iscalled the criterion of scientific validation or the determination of the zero point of measurement. But also speaking of it in a scientific lecture telling that the mean of time, the clock deviating from nature, is derived from and refers to nature itself through a scientific formula that expresses the so called equation of time, is a political way of sanctifying, declaring the truth of, an obviously deviating clock. Furthermore there is also the religious ritual that presents the cross of Jesus Christ for instance, or the Mahāmantra of Lord Caitanya, to the standard of time on the clock in order to forgive the sin of the pragmatical deviating from Krsna’s nature of time and the scientific rationalization about it. Next we can simply set theclock to the nature of time, to the time of Kṛṣṇa, to be true to the religious insight [see Full Calendar of Order]. And finally, realizing that the confidentiality of Kṛṣṇa's time cannot be imposed politically, there is the purity to the relative magnitude, as this verse states, that with the modern complexity of time awareness can be respected with a dual display of time offered by some clocks or else with two clocks combined: one display set to nature and one to the politics of pragmatical timekeeping. Thus we can by this verse tolerate the impurity of profit motivated karmic time manipulations and still manage with purity as devotees [Prabhupāda who on the one hand demanded punctuality, requested his devotees to further study the subject of time. 'All days and hours are the same to me. I leave that matter to you', he confided in 'A Transcendental Diary' by Hari Śauri Dāsa]. 4*: The paramparā gives an example: 'Someone who abandons one’s wife and children is certainly irresponsible and thoughtless. If one takes sannyāsa, however, and remains fixed on ahigher spiritual platform, he is considered to be a most saintly person. Piety and sin therefore depend upon particular circumstances and are at times difficult to distinguish.' According toŚrīla Madhvācārya, persons above the age of fourteen are considered capable of distinguishing between good and bad and are thus responsible for their pious and sinful activities. 5*: This 'explaining away' of Him as an absolute norm is associated with the relationship between form and content. In bhakti one is faced with His form, the form of the ācārya and the form of the other devotees as the entrance gate giving access to the Vedic knowledge. Oncehaving passed that gate on one's way inside, the gate for which the Lord stands with His formis of a lesser importance than the content taken care of by jñāna. When one has accessed the content, the form is just as obsolete as the package of a product is when one wants to use it af-ter being bought. But Lord Kṛṣṇa is of course just as well the form as the content. In that senseone rather finds Him on one's way inside. The explaining away pertains to the form thus. Thus the necessity is demonstrated of the trikāṇḍa threefoldness of yoga: karma yoga constitutes the way, bhakti yoga constitutes the shop and jñāna-yoga shows the contents of spiritual realization to procure there. K Rajaram IRS 27725 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CAL5XZoqb0fb83RsxoSEE-OLXe6fxgR_uWHUTJgybR31zSPyS_g%40mail.gmail.com.
