Yatharth Geeta -Swami Adgadanand 475

Yatharth Geeta -Swami Adgadanand Ji

CHAPTER 8 Yog With The Imperishable God The sages of yore described the inner realm as thought or sometimes as intellect. In the course of time, functions of the mind were divided into four categories which came to be known as mind, intellect, thought and ego, although impulses are in fact endless. It is within the mind that there are the night of ignorance and also the day of knowledge. These are the days and nights of Brahma. In the mortal world, which is a form of darkness, all beings lie in a state of insensibility. Roaming about amidst nature, their mind fails to perceive the radiant God. But they who practise yog have woken up from the slumber of insensibility and begun to make their way towards God. According to Goswami Tulsidas in the Ram Charit Manas, his version of the Ramayana, even the mind possessed of knowledge is degraded to the state of ignorance by evil association. But it is re-imbued with light by virtuous company. This alternation of spiritual ascendancy and decline continues till the moment of attainment. After realization of the ultimate goal, however, there are no Brahma, no mind, no night, and no day. Brahma’s day and night are just metaphors. There is neither a night nor a day of a thousand years, nor even a Brahma with four faces. The brahmvitt, brahmvidwar, brahmvidwariyan, and brahmvidwarisht, four successive stages of mind, are his four faces, and the four main divisions of the mind are his four ages (yug). Day and night abide in the tendencies and operations of the mind. Men who know this secret understand the mystery of time- how far it pursues us and who can transcend it. Krishn then goes on to explain the deeds that belong to day as also those that belong to night : what is done in the state of knowledge and that which is done in the obscruity of ignorance.