Bhagavad GITA

• Modern science has absolutely no understanding of the first two of the five subjects of Bhagavad-Gita (Isvara and Jiva) and very limited and imperfect understanding of the last three subjects (Prakriti, Kala and Karma).

• This is because the very process of acquiring knowledge that it follows is defective. It is called the ascending or inductive process (aroha-pantha).

• The inductive or ascending process means to not accept any authority and to try to find out the truth by one’s own endeavor and speculation.

• As opposed to the inductive or ascending process, is the deductive or descending process (Avaroha-Pantha).

• The deductive or the descending process means to accept a bona fide authority and learn the truth by inquiring from that authority.

• The inductive process is always fraught with uncertainty and inaccuracy.

• Scriptures like the Bhagavad-Gita are the perfect authority from which we can acquired knowledge, because they are the word of God. This is the simple and straightforward method to obtain true knowledge.

• The word of GOD
• The law book of life
• A manual for the universe
• Absolute knowledge
• Perfect Science

Consciousness means the awareness of being “who I am”.

There are seven good reasons to indicate the source of consciousness is distinct from the body.

• • 1.   Who sees and hears?

• • • • When I say, “I see” or “I hear”, who is it that is actually seeing or hearing? Is it my eye that sees? Or my ear that hears? A dead body has eyes and ears but it does not see or hear. Why?
        Is the perception of sight or hearing, in the brain or the nervous system of the body then? But a dead body has a brain and nervous system too, yet it does not see or hear. Why?
      • The answer is that, the perceiving is being done by something or someone distinct from the body

• • 1.   Put back chemicals in a dead body and make it alive!

• • • • If chemicals are indeed the source of life or consciousness as the scientists say, then one can simply put the chemicals back in a dead body and make it alive again!
        But this cannot be done because life does not come from matter but from some other source. Scientists have never been able to show or prove their claim by making dead things come to life.
        It is our unfailing, common experience that life comes only from life and not from dead matter or chemicals.

• • •   Common-sense understanding

• • • • When a person dies, the relatives lament, “oh! He has passed away”.
        But, who has passed away? The person they love is still lying there.
        The body has not gone anywhere. So who has gone away?
        Obviously, something which is different from the body and which made the body appear ‘alive’ has gone away.

• • •   Intuitive understanding

• • • • We say, “My hand, “My body”, and so on, not “I hand”, or “I body”, meaning thereby that my hand, body etc., are different from ‘me’ the owner of these things.
        So who is that ‘me or ‘I’ who owns this body and who drives it?

• • •   Body changes but “l’ remains the same

• • • • At every moment from conception in the womb till death, our body is constantly changing. In his book, “The Human Brain”, Prof. John Pfeiffer notes that, “Your body does not contain a single one of the molecules that it contained seven years ago… That means every seven years our whole body changes. Yet, our sense of identity, or “I” ness remains.
        In other words the source of “I’ ness or consciousness, does not change with changes in the body. Therefore, it must be something different from and superior to the body.

• • • 6&7.   Out-of-Body Experiences (OBE) Near-Death-Experiences (NDE)

• • • Evidence that the source of consciousness must be distinct from the body is also supported by research on Near-Death-Experiences (NDE).
      Sometimes, people on the verge of death have reported having extraordinary and baffling experiences that defy modern scientific understanding.
      
      NDE includes out of body experiences (OBE) in which people report observing their physical body and events relating to it from a point outside of the body during severe illness or physical trauma resulting into unconsciousness.
      
      Soul is the source of consciousness.
      
      In the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna explained that the source of the consciousness is the spirit soul the ‘Atma’ which is eternal and spiritual. We have seen about seven good reasons to believe that the source of consciousness is distinct from the body.
      Three level of existence:
      • the gross body
      • the subtle body, and
      • soul
      
      The gross body is, in ordinary terms, our physical body comprising earth (solid element), water (liquid element), fire (heat element), air (gas element) and ether (space element). Earth is the grossest element and ether is the most subtle. The subtle body comprises mind, intelligence and false ego. These three elements cannot be directly perceived by any of our senses although they can be experienced.
      • The mind is the storehouse of desires and memories
      • Intelligence is the faculty of discrimination
      • False ego, the subtlest of all brings the eternal soul under illusion and makes it identify itself with the temporary material body.
      • The soul, of course, being non- None material is superior to all the about eight elements is beyond the two bodies and is proprietor of both bodies.

According to the law of karma for every action that is an individual perform there is an appropriate reaction this is a subtle law that governs all the activity of living beings.

There is a similar law in modern science “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”.

The law of karma is a law of cause-and-effect or action and reaction. This means that for everything we do there will be a reaction, and for everything that is happening there is a past cause (known or unknown).

Three types or Karma

• • Karma
  • Vikarma
  • Akarma

The word ‘Yoga’ comes from the Sanskrit word ‘Yuj’ which means ‘to reunite or link’. It is a link of love and service. The Lord and the soul are eternally and constitutionally linked in a bond of love. To re-establish that link, is yoga.

‘Dharma’ means that which cannot be separated from something.

• What is it that cannot be separated from fire? Heat and light.
• From sugar? Sweetness.

Thus the ‘dharma’ of fire and sugar are heat and sweetness respectively.

Similarly, the ‘Dharma’ of the living being is to serve.

We all have an innate tendency to love and serve. But presently that propensity is being directed towards the people and things of this world. Therefore, it simply ends in frustration.

Only when we repose our loving and serving propensity in the Supreme Lord, Sri Krishna, can we find real fulfillment and happiness.

This is ‘Sanätana-dharma’, or the eternal function of the soul.