Zitat von Vedanta am 7. Mai 2017, 14:37 Uhr

Class on Hinduism (8^th Part, 5^th continuation)
HH Shri Satyanarayana Dasa Babaji Maharaja

Sometimes hot, sometimes cold, that‘s how the mind gets its nourishment. Of course, that is a material nourishment and there is another way of getting nourishment, which does not depend on all this. And this is what Kṛṣṇa is going to teach. Otherwise, materially we are always looking for relation in the form of love and hate. Not only love. It is not that we are only looking for love relation, we are also looking for hate relation, because we also want that nourishment. That also increases blood circulation in your body [laughing amongst audience]. Right? When you are a little angry or upset, blood circulation is more than normal. This is how the human mind functions. In Sanskrit they have nice words for this: raga and dvesha. Love and hate, like and dislike. All the time, this is what we are doing.

If you want to study human psychology,
it is based primarily on these two things:
Love & Hate.

I like this, I don‘t like this. I like this, I love this, I hate this. This is how you make decisions. Whether it is your food, your dress, your living style, education … everywhere. If you can actually understand what are the parameters a person likes and dislikes, you can predict about this person what he or she is going to do or not. It is very easy. If you can study a person‘s likes and dislikes by living and observing, then you can actually make predictions about that person. Because these are like two programs inside you which are making you work. You may think that you are independent.

You may think that
you make independent decisions.

That is a BIG illusion.

Because you don‘t know what thought is coming in your head next second. So what brings this thought into your head? What is the program lying inside you? The program of like and dislike, love and hate. That‘s what is popping up in the thoughts all the time. And when these thoughts come, you think this is your thought. As if you have thought it. No, you have not thought it. There is some other guy sitting inside who is just throwing this wave continuously. And when it comes, you are actually forced to decide, mostly we just follow the thought. Sometimes, when you are intelligent, you decide not to go on it. So our live is running on these two currents of raga and dvesha. It‘s like a river which has got two banks of love and hate on opposite sides. It‘s actually only one thing, like the river is only one, right? But it has two sides. So the same thing in us, we have this energy inside. Sometimes we are on this side of the bank, sometimes we are on the other side of the bank - it‘s the same river. But we think: „Now, I am doing good“ and „Now, I am not doing so good“. But there is not difference. One who is seeing from above, for him it doesn‘t make any difference. But when we are inside it, we make distinctions. So this duality arises.

In the [Absolute] Truth,
there is no duality, it is only reality.

But our mind makes duality out of reality. This is the job of the mind. As soon as something hits our mind, we divide it into two. We choose either this side or that side. But the thing which is coming has not these two sides to it, it is only one.

Now, Arjuna is making that. First he was standing on the one bank of the river, the hatred bank. Because, remember verse no. 23:

yotsyamānān avekṣe 'haṁ   ya ete 'tra samāgatāḥ
dhārtarāṣṭrasya durbuddher   yuddhe priya-cikīrṣavaḥ

I shall observe those who have assembled here for this battle ready to fight and wishing to please the evil-minded son of Dhṛtarāṣṭra, Duryodhana.

- Bhagavad Gita 1.23

He is calling them evil-minded, i.e. Arjuna is standing on the bank of dislike. And now, he swims and goes to the other bank and starts saying:

Well, these are my friends!!

You will see what Arjuna says in verse 28:

arjuna uvāca
dṛṣṭvemaṁ sva-janaṁ kṛṣṇa   yuyutsuṁ samupasthitam
sīdanti mama gātrāṇi   mukhaṁ ca pariśuṣyati
vepathuś ca śarīre me   roma-harṣaś ca jāyate

Arjuna said:
O Kṛṣṇa, seeing these kinsmen present here, desiring to fight, my limbs are becoming numb and my mouth is parched. My body is trembling and the hairs on my body are standing on end.

- Bhagavad Gita 1.28b-29

Before, he was calling them as rascals, right? Now, he is saying: „They are my kinsmen“! You see how quickly he changed? This is the mind‘s trick. When the mind is running in these two grooves, then you cannot see the reality. Are they his enemies, or are they his kinsmen? Or are they both? Or none? There are only four possibilities. Either they are neither friends nor foes, or they are friends, or they are foes, or they are both. Arjuna is now confused. This is the confused state of human mind.

When we are in a confused state of mind,
obviously, we cannot make decisions.

Because decision is made when we have clarity of thought. When we are unable to decide whether this is actually for my benefit or not for my benefit, then we cannot make a decision. Either you have to know that: „I love it“ and you make a decision to have it, or you know that: „I hate it“ and then you make a decision to not have it. But when you are not sure which way it is, then you say: „I don‘t know what to do“. Then you just scratch your head. Arjuna is falling into that state of mind.