Gita Rahasya -Tilak
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CHAPTER X
THE EFFECT OF KARMA AND FREEDOM OF WILL
(KARMA-VIPAKA AND ATMA-SVATAMTRYA)
Although the proposition that, whatever thee is in the world, is the Parabrahman, and that there is nothing else besides the Parabrahman, is true in effect, yet, when one passes through the sieve of Spiritual Knowledge the various objects in the visible world, which are perceived by the human organ, one has to divide everything into two factors namely, (i) the daily changing, that is, non-permanent name-d and Form-ed Appearance of those objects, which is acutally visible to the organs, and (ii) the invisible but permanent Paramatman- Element, which is clothed in these Names and Forms. It is true that these two factors cannot be placed before the eyes individually, in the same way as a substance is analysed and its components separated from each other in chemistry. But from the point of view of Knowledge, these two factors have to be separated from each other, and for convenience of acientific treatment, they are respectively called ‘Brahman’ and ‘Maya’ , or the ‘BRAHMAN-WORLD’ and the ‘MAYA WORLD’. Nevertheless, as the brahman is fundamentally Eternal and Real, the word ‘word ‘world’ is suffixed to it merely for rhyme. The word ‘Brahman was created by somebody. I have considered, in the last chapter, what the pure form of the Atman and the highest ideal of mankind are, by searching with spiritual eyes, the Brahman-world out of these two worlds, which is not limited by Names and Forms like Time and Space, and is eternal, permanent, imperishable, immortal, and independents, and which, remaining at the core of the visible world, is the foundation of it; and strictly speaking, the pure philosophy of the Absolute Self ends at that point. But, although the human Atman belongs fundamentally to the Brahman-world, yet, like other things in the visible world, it is covered by bodily organs in the shape of Names and Forms, and these Names and Forms in the shape of the bodily organs are perishable- Therefore, every human being is naturally desirous of knowing how it is possible to escape from these Names and Forms, and to attain immortality ; and, in order to consider what mode of life has to be adopted for satisfying that desire, which subject belongs to the science of Karma-Yoga, we must now enter the Dualistic territory of the non-permanent MAYA-WORLD which is bound by the laws of Karma (Action). If there is fundamentally only one permanent and independent Atman, both in the Body and in the Cosmos, the questions which necessarily arise, are, what are the difficulties which are experienced by the Atman in the body, in Realising the Atman in the Cosmos, and how those difficulties can be overcome ; and, in order to solve these questions, it becomes necessary to expound what Names and Forms are ; because, as all objects fall into the two classes of the Atman or Parabrahman, and the Name-d and Form-ed covering on It, nothing else now remains for consideration except the Name-d and Form-ed covering. |
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