Theos-Talk Archives (June 2005 Message tt00071)

June 3 2005

Thanks Gopi.

That is how I also see it and it is in accord with the BHAGAVAD GITA


THE INDIAN PSYCHOLOGICAL SYSTEM 


Before the Upanishads can be properly rendered, the Indian psychological
system must be understood; and even when its existence is admitted, the
English speaking person will meet the great difficulty arising from an
absence of words in that language which correspond to the ideas so
frequently found in the Sanskrit. Thus we have to wait until a new set of
words has been born to express the new ideas not yet existing in the
civilization of the West. 

The location of the plain on which this battle was fought is important, as
well as are also the very rivers and mountains by which it is bounded. And
as equally needful to be understood, or at least guessed at, are the names
of the respective princes. 

The very place in the Mahabharata in which this episode is inserted has deep
significance, and we cannot afford to ignore anything whatever that is
connected with the events. If we merely imagine that Vyasa or Krishna took
the sacred plain of Kurukshetra and the great battle as simply accessories
to his discourse, which we can easily discard, the whole force of the
dialogue will be lost. 

Although the Bhagavad-Gita is a small work, there have been written upon it,
among the Hindus, more commentaries than those upon the Revelation of St.
John among the Christians. 

I do not intend to go into those commentaries, because on the one hand I am
not a Sanskrit scholar, and on the other it would not tend to great profit.
Many of them are fanciful, some unwarrantable; and those that are of value
can be consulted by anyone anxious to pursue that line of inquiry. 

What I propose here to myself and to all who may read these papers is to
study the Bhagavad-Gita by the light of that spiritual lamp -- be it small
or great -- which the Supreme Soul will feed and increase within us if we
attend to its behests and diligently inquire after it. Such at least is the
promise by Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita — the "Song Celestial."

In the few introductory lines with which I took up this subject, it was
stated that not being a Sanskrit scholar I did not intend to go into the
commentaries upon the poem in that language. The great mass of those
commentaries have looked at the dialogue from various standpoints. 

Many later Hindu students have not gone beyond the explanations made by
Sankaracharya, and nearly all refuse to do more than transliterate the names
of the different personages referred to in the first chapter. 


READING THIS POEM BETWEEN THE LINES

But there is the highest authority for reading this poem between the lines.
The Vedas themselves say that what we see of them is only "the disclosed
Veda," and that one should strive to get above this disclosed word. It is
here clearly implied that the undisclosed Vedas must be hidden or contained
in that which is apparent to the outer senses. Did we not have this
privilege, then surely would we be reduced to obtaining true knowledge
solely from the facts of experience as suffered by the mortal frame, and
fall into the gross error of the materialists who claim that mind is only an
effect produced by the physical brain-molecules coming into motion. We would
also have to follow the canonical rule, that conscience is a safe guide only
when it is regulated by an external law such as the law of the church, or of
the Brahmanical caste. 

But we very well know that within the material, apparent— or disclosed —
man, exists the real one who is undisclosed. 


LOOKING FOR THE INNER SENSE

This valuable privilege of looking for the inner sense, while not straining
after impossible meanings in the text, is permitted to all sincere students
of any holy scriptures, Christian or Pagan. And in the poem itself, Krishna
declares that he will feed the lamp of spiritual wisdom so that the real
meaning of his words may be known; so too the Upanishads uphold the
existence of a faculty together with the right to use it, whereby one can
plainly discern the real, or undisclosed, meaning of holy books. 

Indeed, there is a school of occultists who hold, as we think with reason,
that this power may be so developed by devoted persons, that even upon
hearing the words of a holy book read in a totally unfamiliar language, the
true meaning and drift of the strange sentences become instantly known. 

(1) The Christian commentators all allow that in studying their Bible the
spirit must be attended to and not the letter. This spirit is that
undisclosed Veda which must be looked for between the lines. 

---------------------------Footnote------------------------------
(1) We have in mind an incident where a person of some slight development
in this direction, heard read several verses from the Vedas in Sanskrit
—with which he had no acquaintance —and instantly told what the verses were
about. 
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Nor should the Western student of the poem be deterred from any attempt to
get at the real meaning by the attitude of the Brahmins, who hold that only
Brahmins can be told this real meaning, and, because Krishna did not make it
plain, it may not be made plain now to Sudras, or low caste people. 

Were this view to prevail, then the whole Western body of students would be
excluded from using this important book, inasmuch as all persons not Hindus
are necessarily of Sudra caste.
 
Krishna did not make such an exclusion, which is only priestcraft. He was
himself of shepherd caste and not a Brahmin; and he says that anyone who
listens to his words will receive great benefit. 

The sole limitation made by him is that one in which he declares that these
things must not be taught to those who do not want to listen, which is just
the same direction as that given by Jesus of Nazareth when he said, "cast
not your pearls before swine." 


THE ARYAN PSYCHOLOGICAL SYSTEM

But as our minds work very much upon suggestion or clues and might, in the
absence of any hints as to where those clues are placed, be liable to
altogether overlook the point, we must bear in mind the existence among the
Aryans of a psychological system that gives substance and impulse to
utterances declared by many Orientalists to be folly unworthy of attention
from a man of the nineteenth century civilization. 

Nor need we be repulsed from our task because of a small acquaintance with
that Aryan psychology. The moment we are aware of its existence in the poem,
our inner self is ready to help the outer man to grasp after it; and in the
noble pursuit of these great philosophical and moral truths, which is only
our eternal endeavor to realize them as a part of our being, we can
patiently wait for a perfect knowledge of the anatomy and functions of the
inner man. 

Western Sanskritists have translated many important words into the very
lowest of their real meanings, being drawn away from the true by the
incomplete Western psychological and spiritual knowledge, or have mixed them
up hopelessly. Such words as karma and dharma are not understood. 


DHARMA and KARMA

Dharma means law, and is generally turned into duty, or said to refer merely
to some rule depending upon human convention, whereas it means an inherent
property of the faculties or of the whole man, or even of anything in the
cosmos. Thus it is said that it is the duty, or dharma, of fire to burn. It
always will burn and thus do its whole duty, having no consciousness, while
man alone has the power to retard his "journey to the heart of the Sun," by
refusing to perform his properly appointed and plainly evident dharma. 

So again, when we read in the Bhagavad-Gita that those who depart this life
"in the bright half of the moon, in the six months of the sun's northern
course," will go to eternal salvation, while others, "who depart in the
gloomy night of the moon's dark season while the sun is in the southern half
of his path," ascend for a time to the moon's region, to be reborn on this
earth, our Orientalists tell us this is sheer folly, and we are unable to
contradict them.
 
But if we know that the Aryans, with a comprehensive knowledge of the vast
and never inharmonious correspondence reigning throughout the macrocosm, in
speaking thus meant to admit that the human being may be or not in a state
of development in strict conformity to the bright or dark moon, the verse
becomes clear. 

The materialistic critic will take the verse in the fourth chapter, which
says that "he who eats of the ambrosia left from a sacrifice passes into the
supreme spirit," and ask us how the eating of the remnants of a burnt
offering can confer salvation. 

When, however, we know that Man is the altar and the sacrifice, and that
this ambrosia is the perfection of spiritual cultivation which he eats or
incorporates into his being, the Aryan is vindicated and we are saved from
despair. 

A strange similarity on one point may be noticed between our poem and the
old Hebrew record. The Jews were prepared by certain experiences to enter
into the promised land, but were unable to do so until they had engaged in
mighty conflicts with Hivites, Jebusites, Perizzites, and Amalekites. Here
we find that the very opening verse signalizes a war.
 
The old, blind king Dhritarashtra asks his prime minister to tell him what
these opposing forces of Pandus and Kurus have been doing assembled as they
are resolved upon war. So too the Jews assembled upon the borders of the
promised land, resolved on conflict, and sustained in their resolve by the
declarations of their God who had brought them out of the darkness of Egypt,
carried on the fight. 

Egypt was the place where they had, in mystic language, obtained
corporification, and stands for antenatal states, for unformed chaotic
periods in the beginning of evolution, for the gestation in the womb. 

We are on the eve of a gigantic combat, we are to rush into the midst of "a
conflict of savages." If this opening verse is understood as it was meant,
we are given the key to a magnificent system, and shall not fall into the
error of asserting that the unity of the poem is destroyed. 

{these are some of the notes taken from Mr. Judge's NOTES ON THE B GITA.}

Best wishes,

Dallas

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-----Original Message-----
From: ekcvv@juno.com [mailto:ekcvv@juno.com] 
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 11:09 AM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Re: ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES IN LIFE


Dear Dallas,

In short, embrace Karma without judging if it is good or bad. All of the
happenings are for my body to go through. The wise go through it by
embracing all of it. That is the way to be out of the body and its Karma.
The Knower is free form all of it to start with! Be the Knower! (Bhagavath
Gita - Chapter 13)

Gopi

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