GEETA FOR US

When mother conceives a child, child comes in contact with nature comprised of ‘sat’, ‘raj’ and ‘tam’. These relate to sato-gun, rajo-gun and tamo-gun. Every human being, at all moments in his life, cultivates any of these.

It is not true that a person who has once cultivated ‘tam’ cannot switch over to ‘sat’. There are several examples of persons who, in their earlier parts of lives, had been cultivating ‘tam’ but in later part of their lives they switched over to ‘sat’ and throughout their remaining lives, they cultivated ‘sat’. Shrimad Bhagvat Geeta teaches us how to dispel the dark and how to attain the light. Person who cultivates ‘sat’ is called divine and a person who cultivates ‘tam’ is called devilish.

On this auspicious day of Lord Krishna Janmaashtami, I will like to cite here few shloks (verses) from pious Geeta to point out difference in between person owning divine nature and a person owning devilish nature.

Shloks 1 to 3 of chapter 16 of the Geeta run as follows:

Abhaym satva-sanshudhirgyaanyogvyavashthitih.

Daanm damashch yagyashch swaadhyaaystap aarjavam. (1)

Ahimsa satyamkrodhastyagah shantirpaishunam.

Dayaa bhuteshvaloluptvam maardavam heerchaplam. (2)

Tejah kshamaa dhrutih shouchmadroho naatimaanitaa.

Bhawanti sampadam daivimbhijatasya Bharat. (3)

In these three verses, Lord Krishna address Arjun as Bharat and tells him that nirbhayata, aatmshuddhi, adhyaatmak gyaan ka anushilan, daan, aatm-sanyam, yagyaparaayanataa, vedaadhyan, tapashya, saralataa, ahimsa, satyata, krodhvihinata, tyaag, shaanti, chhidranveshan mein aruchi, samast jeevon par karunaa, lobhavihinata, bhadrataa, lajja, sankalp, tej, kshamaa, dhairya, pavitrataa, irshya aur samman ki abhilashaa se mukti divya gun hain, jo daivi prukriti se sampan devtulya purushon mein paye jaate hain.

In shlok 4 of chapter 16 of the Geeta, Lord describes a person cultivating devilish features. The shlok runs as under :

Dambho darpoabhimaanashch krodhah paarushyameva cha.

Agyaanm chaabhijaatasya Parth sampadmaasureem.

Meanings: dambh, darp, abhimaan, krodh, kathorataa tathaa agyaan aasuri swabhaav waalon ke gun hain.

It cannot be thought that a person can own all divine qualities at once. For cultivating and owning these qualities, one has to win over Idriya vishay, man and buddhi and theirafter, has to listen to the voice of soul. Gradually a person can own all these qualities.