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Chapter 15
We have touched many soft or hard, hot or cold objects, but is there any difference, because of the touch, in the self?
We have tasted bitter, pungent, sweet, astringent sour and saltish food, but have these left any effect, on the self?
Similarly, we have experienced different kinds of good and bad scents. But is mere any difference in the self, because of those different scents?
An Important Fact
The five senses of hearing, sight, touch (skin), taste and smell, have affinity respectively, for five organs of actions—tongue, feet, hands, genital organ and anus. If one who is deaf, is also dumb; oil robbed on the sole of his feet, has a healthy effect on his sight; hands can be used to touch an object, because of skin; control over the tongue, controls the genital organ; smell makes its entrance through nose, while it makes its exit through anus.
The five sense-organs, the five organs of action and the five senses, are formed respectively,out of portion of the mode of goodness, the mode of passion and the mode of ignorance, of each of the five subtle elements.
Five subtle Elements |
Portion of the mode of goodness |
Portion of the mode of passion |
Portion of the mode of ignorance
|
Ether |
(Sattva) Ear |
(Rajas) Tongue (The organ of speech) |
(Tamas) Sound
|
Air |
Skin |
Hands |
Touch
|
Fire |
Eye |
Feet |
Sight (colour)
|
Water |
Tongue (for taste) |
Genital organ |
Taste
|
Earth |
Nose |
Anus |
Smell
|
The mind and the intellect, are made of the Sattvika portion, the life-breath is made of the Rajasika portion while the body is made of the Tamasika portion of the mixed five elements.
Visayanupasevate:- If a businessman, stops his business at one place and starts it at another due to some reason, so does soul migrate, from one body to another, and It starts enjoying the objects of senses, in the new body also, as it did in the first body, because of Its past habit. Thus an embodied soul, has to be born in good and evil wombs, because of its attachment, to sense-objects.
God has bestowed this human body upon us, to enable us to attain salvation, rather than to enjoy pleasure or to experience pain. As we can feed a cow which is given to a Brahmana as a charity, but we cannot lay claim to its milk, so can we make proper use of the body bestowed upon us by God, but we cannot enjoy, the objects of senses with it.
An Important Fact
The more the embodied soul enjoys, the objects of senses, the more It is attached, to them. This attachment leads it to rebirth and all sorrows. In fact, the pleasure born of contact with objects of senses is illusory and source of sorrow, but these seem pleasant in the beginning out of ignorance, (Gita 18/38).
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