Dear Friends,
Namaste!
Remember the famous line “God is in His heaven and everything is right with the world”? With the insight into Reality that we have been trying to obtain – about why and to what avail this world has been created – this line would suddenly start making much more sense!
For we have seen in our discussion so far that –
1. Diversity comes from Unity at the beginning of Brahman’s “Day”. At the end of the day, this Diversity converges into Unity again.
2. So-called Diversity is actually only an illusion created with an element called “ignorance” which gives rise to “ego”. The essence of Evolution for every being is eradication of this ignorance and hence ego.
3. In this journey of removal of ignorance, a being assumes many births across several species and inherits a plethora of roles that the being must play as part of its evolution or “growing up”.
4. Everything is thus designed with great care and attention to detail. Nothing ever happens without it being part of the “Script”. Even aberrations, calamities, grief, destruction that seem to be going against the script when looked at in isolation have their part to play in “connecting the dots”.
God runs this world as per His wish. Living beings too go through their lives continuously trying to fulfil their wish (“Raaga” – “I want” and “Dwesha” – “I don’t want”). Living beings’ wishes are at conflict due to “ego” and the net effect is always the same as God’s wish.
Let’s explore this fact in more detail for clearer understanding.
We know the Johari window where everyone’s personality is divided into four elements – what one knows about self, what one does not know about self, what others know about that person and what others do not know about that person. The part of one’s personality that is known to that person as well as others is the “Open” part. The part that is known to others but not to him/her is the “Blind” part. The part that is known to him/her but not to others is the “Hidden” part and the part that is not known to both that person as well as others is the “Unknown” part.
We have discussed that God (“Jagadish”) is the sum total of a being (“Jeeva”) and its environment (“Jagat”). Using this equation, we can now draw an analogy and express God’s wish as distributed in the following four elements:
1. Conscious wish of a Jeeva – Conscious mind represents the state of mind in the present moment. The wish or desire of a being at the present moment is the conscious wish of that Jeeva.
2. Sub-conscious wish of a Jeeva – When present becomes past, conscious becomes sub-conscious. Thus sub-conscious desires of aJeeva are a stack of what once were conscious desires of that Jeeva.
3. Conscious wish of Jagat – Jagat consists of a Jeeva’senvironment. Therefore Jagat also has innumerable other beings that are having some conscious desire or the other at the present moment. The net effect of all such desires is the collective conscious wish ofJagat.
4. Sub-conscious wish of Jagat – Net effect of all conscious wish(es) of Jagat that have been relegated to the past is the collective sub-conscious wish of Jagat.
These four (oft-times conflicting) forces interplay among each other to give rise to one collective universal wish that is called God’s wish. This wish is the cause behind all actions that take place at all times and all places within this universe. By the law of action and reaction (the Law of Karma), the collective result is necessarily equal to the collective effect of the actions taken and variousJeeva’s experience that effect (or part of it) as a result of their actions.
The important thing to note (again) is God’s wish is the cause and Jeevas’wishes are the effect rather than the other way round!
How is all this related to Yoga?
Understanding this “Bigger Picture” or the jigsaw puzzle and then relating where our piece fits into this jigsaw puzzle is nothing but “GyanYoga” (Yoga with Knowledge).
Becoming egoless and merging one’s wish with God’s wish (to keep the show going), aligning oneself fully with the universal drama, or in other words, completely surrendering oneself to God is nothing but “BhaktiYoga” (Yoga of Devotion).
Understanding the role(s) and playing to perfection, in other words, doing the right thing at the right time in the right place (“right” being understood with respect to the “Bigger Picture”) is nothing but “KarmaYoga” (Yoga of Action).
Internalizing the above aspects in order to follow those automatically and naturally, the effect of which is Permanent Bliss, is nothing but “RajaYoga”(Yoga with Happiness).
But how to understand role(s) determined for us?
Let’s explore in forthcoming articles!
Enjoy...
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