The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita - 10-20.

[Ramavarma Parameswaran]

04/02/2018

 Google-Group

 The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita - 10-20.

Chapter 10: The One Supreme Absolute Alone Is -20

But this is a very interesting analogy for us, for the purpose of meditation even. We know very well that we are always accustomed to this concept of the 'above' whenever we think of the higher realities, especially the Creator. Don't we look up when we pray to God? 

Do we look down on the ground? This is a symbolic inclination of the human consciousness – to recognise the transcendence of higher realities. And, whenever we speak of the sky, we look above, as if the sky is only above, though it is also underneath. If the sky is all around the earth, why should we say it is above? 

This earth is hanging in space, in mid-space – there is no below for the earth. But it is a notion of our mind on account of our inability to see the whole structure of this planetary system, and we cannot believe that we are a moving in a spaceship called this earth. We are not in a rocket, though it is so, perhaps, in some way. 

We are rushing, rocket-like, in some direction, but we think we are on the solid ground of the Earth. 

This habit of the human mind is to consider that it is on a low ground, and everything which is of a controlling nature and an administrative type, especially divine in nature is above because the world and everything connected to the world is considered as 'effect' which proceeds from a cause, and the cause being superior, is also transcendent. 

And we, like children, think that all transcendent things are above in a spatial way, and look up. But, it is above also in a logical sense. 

Logically, God is above us. 

To repeat what I told you earlier, He is above in the same way as the higher class in a school is above the lower class. It is not above in space – it is not a 'spatial aboveness'. We don't find the higher classes in a school or a college standing in the sky and the lower classes below – yet, we still say it is a higher class. 

So in what sense do we call it a higher class? 

You know very well – it is a 'logical, conceptual higherness'. In that sense we speak of the 'higher self' transcendent to the lower self. 

We conceive of the realities above the world as 'above' in a very very specific, psychic, psychological or philosophical sense, mystical manner. In this way, we have to conceive that the rootedness of the tree of this universe in the Transcendent Being – God the Creator, the Absolute, and the descending of this tree, and all the effects that you see here, spread out as branches of which we are all parts.

THE END

Swami Krishnananda