Gita essays 30
At the end of chapter
16, Lord Krishna had stated that sastra
is
the pramaṇa in
determining what is right and wrong and that one who discards the scriptural
injunctions and acts according to the promptings of one’s desires cannot attain
the highest knowledge of Athma Jnanam.
This generates a doubt in Arjuna’s mind about the fate of those who
worship with faith and sincerity but without the knowledge of the scriptures
and hence indifferent to the rules and procedures of worship due to ignorance.
So he asks the Lord in verse 1:
“What is the condition of
those people who ignore the scriptural rules and worship with faith? Is it satva,
rajas, or tamas, O!Krishna?” (17-1)
Lord
in his reply first states that the faith may belong to any category satva,
rajas or tamas according to one’s temperament. Faith being an attribute of the mind is
invisible like the mind. But it can be
inferred on the basis of three factors, Lord points out. They are; 1) type of deity worshipped, 2)
motive of worship & 3) mode of worship. Lord prefaces his analysis with the remark
that one is made of one’s faith, because the truth one sees is determined for
one by one’s faith. If a person’s innate
tendencies are characterized by satva, then his faith will lead him to
the pursuit of knowledge and spiritual growth. If they are characterized by rajas,
then his faith will drive him to the pursuit of material happiness resulting in
sorrow and suffering. If it is characterized by tamas, then his faith
will land him in ignorance and delusion.
In satvic
category, the deity worshipped is satvic devatha like Siva,
Vishnu, Rama, Krishna etc, and the motive of worship is spiritual growth and
the mode of worship is one turned inwards, not highly physical or verbal but
mental and this worship contributes to spiritual growth. In rajasic category comes the worship
of rajasic deities like yaksha, rakshasa, gandharva devathas,
and they are worshipped for material growth and the mode of worship is highly ritualistic,
extrovert, with pomp and noise, verbally and
physically oriented. In tamasic
category falls the worship of tamasic devathas like spirits and ghosts,
mode of worship involving blood and sacrifice of physical beings with deities
invoked in skull and in burial ground and worship involves hurting and torture
of one’s body with the motive of hurting or harming others. Briefly stated faith in God and worship is satvic
when it is used for spiritual growth, rajasic if used for material
benefits and tamasic when used for hurting others and oneself.
After
this analysis of faith, Lord voluntarily chooses to analyse four other areas; ahara
(food), yajna (worship), tapas (austerity), and daanam
(charity). In
the choice of one's food, in the type of sacrifices one will engage, in the
kind of Tapas one will undertake and in the quality of charity one will make,
any one of the three types of classification can be discernible. According to our
scriptures, the food that one takes has a great influence on one’s
personality. Food also is an important
contributory factor in spiritual pursuit can be seen from a passage in Chandogya
Upanishad (7-26-2) that reads as : “āhāra śuddhau, sātva suddhi; sātva śuddhau,
dhruva smr̥ti; smr̥ti labdē, sarva granthinām, vipra mōkṣaḥ” which means that
if the food is pure, it will make the mind pure and if the mind is pure, the
memory becomes firm i.e. a person will be able to receive the knowledge,
Self-knowledge and also retain it; dhruva smr̥ti; and, when a person gets
Self-knowledge, that is liberation. Lord
Krishna talks about satvic, rajasic and tamasic food respectively in the
three verses, 8th, 9th and 10th as
follows:
Foods
which increase life, purity, strength, health,joy and cheerfulness , which are
sweet, soft, nourishing and agreeable are dear to the Sattvic people. (17-8)
The foods that are bitter,
sour, saltish, excessively hot, dry, pungent and burning which cause pain,
sorrow and disease are liked by Rājasic people. (17-9)
That food which is
not properly cooked, which lacks nourishments, which is stale, tasteless,
putrid, rotten and impure refuse, is the food liked by the Tamasic people.(17-10)
We can summarise Lord’s categorisation
shortly as:
Satvic
- Food which is delicious, which gives longevity, health, strength, and
happiness.
Rajasic
- Food which is excessively bitter, sour, salty, hot, pungent and which causes
pain
Tamasic
- Food which is improperly cooked, without nutrition, putrid, stale, left over,
and impure.
In Chandogya Upanishad guru Uddalaka tells his son and sishya,
Svetaktu “Food when eaten becomes
threefold. What is coarsest in it becomes faeces, what is medium becomes flesh
and what is subtlest becomes mind”. (6-5-1). As per Swami Paramarthananda this statement means briefly as follows: The food that we consume has got three layers; sthula
bhaga, the gross part; madhyama bhagaḥ, the middle portion and sukṣma
bhagaḥ, subtle part. The sthula bhagaḥ, the gross part of the food
will only cater to the taste and it will be evacuated as a waste; then there is
a madhyama bhaga, the middle portion, which does not contribute to the
taste; but contributes to the physical nourishment in the form of
carbohydrates, fats, minerals, salts, etc. And the sukṣhma bhaga, subtle
part of the food, will contribute to the nourishment of the sukṣhma sariram;
all the subtle 17 organs of sukṣhma sariram, including the mind and
sense organs. The type of mind that we
enjoy; whether we have a calm, spiritually friendly mind, or whether we have a
highly restless extrovert mind, and whether our sense organs are alert or dull,
are determined by the sukṣhma bhagaḥ. So if a person is interested in the
nourishment of the sukṣhma sariram, which is very important for
spiritual sadhana he should choose satvic diet which will be good
for sukṣhma sarira growth; rajasic or tamasic food may
nourish the physical body, but it will not be nourishing the subtle body that helps
spiritual growth. So only satvic diet is supposed to be conducive
to spiritual growth.
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