Thursday, November 22, 2007

Analyzing the Subtle body

AS stated in Bhagavad Gita, we are spirit souls covered by a subtle body of mind , intelligence and false ego and then by a gros body which we can see with our eyes. It is evident that for most mordern proponents this kind of construction of our body is shocking . But analyzing the statements in Bhagavad Gita closely and trying to see them by intelligence , one can understand what Bhagavad Gita is saying is not at all impractical.
It is a known fact that every person we meet has different desires, different mentality, different thoughts and different habits. Intelligent obserever may ask, As per our “modern” evolutionary theory we all have come from a single cell which eventually made higher intelligence like us, then why is that we find such a vast variety in human beings ? Why is that some one is very intelligent in humans and others are not so. Why is there a separate bracnh of psycology which deals with mind , even though we don’t see our mind, since people normally put an argument that since we do not see GOD with our eyes we do not believe in existence of GOD, So it can be safely concluded that , if I donot see someone’s mind with my eyes, that particular person has no mind, and since a person has no mind, there is no point arguing science of God, with a mindless person.
This article will show how the subtle body works as explained in Bhagavad Gita .
In Gita, Sri Krishna , says , that we the spirit souls are covered by 2 layers of material coverings.
Soul is independent and cannot be harmed in anywhich way, It is a part and parcel of the Lord and hence is eternal.
Soul is further covered by a layer of mind, intelligence and false ego.
Mind , intelligence and false ego are material elements which constitutes the subtle body of a living entity. It is not visible to the eye , but works on a sublte form. The hierarchy based on the power of control is explained in Bhagavad Gita,
Gita says,
Senses are more powerful than the gross matter, mind is powerful than the senses, intelligence is still power ful than the mind and soul is more powerful than the intelligence. False ego is the false identity of the living soul related to body( eg. Indian, american etc) . AS per Gita , real identity of the soul or in other words real ego of a living entity is that he is a eternal servant of Lord Krishna, and always subordinate to him.

So based on these statements, we can conclude that Senses, mind, intelligence, and ego are subtle material instruments for the functioning of the bodily mechanism, which is a gross matter made up of earth , water , fire, air, ether. One may know by observation that body contains all these elements , namely earth, water, fire, air, ether.

Now senses include, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hands, legs, genitals, anus, etc are controlled , centrally by the mind. For example, if we see a nice peace of sweet meat, eyes and tounge tell the mind to pick it up and mind transmits this to the hands and them the process of eating takes place. This is done very quickly. Hence all the activities are centered around the mind. Hence mind is power ful than the senses.
Intelligence is more power ful than the mind, For example, if eyes see poison and tongue wants to taste it, intelligence discirminates it as dangeorus and hence controls the mind not to execute the fuction of eating.
Hence intelligence is more powerful than the mind.
At this point one may wonder , if intelligence is powerful than the mind, how is it going to help me? This brings us at the point of understanding Bahgavad Gita. Main function of intelligence as shown above is to discriminate good from bad, right from wrong, and Bhagavad Gita, is the wisdom which awakens the intelligence for a human being.
AS soon as I say awaken the intelligence , it is obvious that people may get offended thinking , it is outrageous to think that people in general have sleeping intelligent in today’s world. Without giving to much thought on the claims made by the false ego, if one reads further, one will understand why people’s intelligence are sleeping.
AS we see around us , every one is engaged in working hard, day and night, going home to his or her family, eating , sleeping , mating and then waking up again in the morning working hard and just waiting for the weekend to do the same , i.e eating , sleeping ,mating and defending. We today claim to posses a higher intelligence than the animals, and hence are very proud of our technological and economic improvements , but if one looks at the results of such a intelligence work, one will find, that we have become slaves to technolog y and have become more unhappy over the years due to this . In all this false pride and glamour of technological and economic development , we fail to realize that the higher intelligence given to us is being wasted in developing better ways of eating , sleeping , mating and defending, which even animals are doing it , that to without much mental stress and anxiety. They are surviving on the products supplied by the nature. This brings us to the point which should make us think that this higher intelligence is being misused by us and hence needs to be directed to a proper source of knowledge which would make it more meaning ful. Bhagavad Gita says, higher intelligence awarded to human beings is to inquire about God, his relation with him and how to attain that relation. This is what Gita teaches .
So if one takes the study of Bhagavad Gita, serioulsy , his intelligence awakens to the real wisdom and since it is powerful than the mind, it has the strength to control the illusory and unwanted desires of mind and the senses. This will make one more foccused on the ultimate goal , and revive the original constitutional position of the soul and engage him or her in activities which are beneficial to the soul , instead of running after a mirage of happiness created by the mind. Since the living entity is a spirit soul and not the body, it is necessary to find out what are the activities which will make the soul happy. All the material activities , of today’s world, of so called entertainment are just satisfying the mind for a while and then again gives a soul a sense of dissatisfaction and hence are temporary. The path to true happiness and understanding of the self lies in the study of Bhagavad Gita.