Heat and Cold: these are stimuli that are felt and experienced by the body, at the body level. Whether in heat or in cold, thoughts, we know, do not expand or shrink, and the ideas cannot shiver or perspire. All these reactions can only be felt in the body, and therefore, Krishna is indicating by this pair that all the vicissitudes that may visit the body, such as health and disease, youth and old-age, etc. Pleasure and Pain: By the second pair-of-opposites, the Lord is symbolically indicating all the destinies suffered in the mental zone. Pleasure and pain are experienced not by the body but always by the mind. It includes all the tyrannies of our different emotions which might threaten the mental arena, at one time or another in a man’s life. Hatred and love, affection and jealousy, kindness and cruelty… a thousand varieties of emotions may storm the ‘within’; but none of them is an excuse, according to Krishna, for the diligent and the sincere to lose hold of himself from the steadfastness in his contemplation. Honour and Dishonour: The last pair-of-opposites shows how no threat of any sotrm in the intellectual zone is a sufficient plea to sympathise with an individual who has fallen away from the State of Perfection. Honour and dishonor are evaluated and reacted to only by the intellect. Thus, by the three pairs-of-opposites from the three worlds of body, mind and intellect, Krishna is trying to exhaust all possibilities of obstacles in man’s life. Then He adds that in all such conditions, the Supreme Self is to be the object of constant realization for one who is perfectly self-controlled and serene. He ever remains unruffled in all circumstances – favourable or unfavourable; in all environments – good or bad; in all company – wise or foolish.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 14:38:21 +0000
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