Layers above pure soul

Our body is a very complex machine/vehicle and we are its driver, without our direction the body cannot go anywhere. As mechanic cannot repair vehicle without knowing the mechanism of the vehicle in the same way we cannot repair our psychological problems without knowing the mechanism this body works. We actually have two bodies one is Gross Body which can be seen by naked eyes and the second is Subtle Body which cannot be seen easily by naked eyes but can be understood and felt by experiences. Every one has such two types of bodies but its hard to differentiate between them. For example people judge easily someone by his looks and make a definition of him and behave with him in that way.

See the above picture of the punk. What do you think about him? Any normal person would start judging him on first sight by defining him like He may be rude, lost to drugs,aggressive,etc. But without knowing him personally how can we judge some one?

Lets see other example:

See the person in above picture. Any normal person (who don't know him) would think that he is a decent man playing with baby, a good guy, etc. But he is Pablo Escobar one of dangerous Drug mafias. But why we judge someone by just looks without meeting personally?

We judge people due to experiences we had in our lifetime. These experiences can be added to us by movies, or any other means which affects our psychology. Like in first example the guy who looks like a punk maybe a decent person having good morals and character but he changed his look like punk because may be he liked punk like look.

In this way everyone possess two types of bodies. We can understand this by considering thinking on ourselves. Just see yourself in the mirror/photograph and try to judge yourself (its hard I know it) by your looks from a third person perspective. And think once again that however you look and the judgement you get for your looks are you truly that? The answer would be definitely NO. Everybody has a personality within which he lies and works. And as explained in my last post this personality is developed due to temporary modes of Nature. So we should never judge anyone by just looks as everyone has a deeper personality which can be understood only by knowing that person.

Fig: Coverings of soul

The above image gives a conceptual understanding of the coverings on top of Pure soul. The Pure Soul (Atman) is covered under these two bodies The gross body is the body which is purely made of matter or atoms and the subtle body which is our personality developed due to influence of modes of Nature and False ego and we the soul is more deeper than this subtle body. All the psychological insecurities, qualities, etc is our subtle body. This cannot be seen by naked eyes but its existence cannot be denied. The soul here is called pure, because it is nirguna or without any qualities or personality.

So one should know him(her)self to be transcendental and should not fall prey to insecurities of the personality and should act beyond the boundaries created by the personality. The depression is one of the major disorder of today's world and person understanding and applying this knowledge will not have any depression or negative thoughts.   

How should I utilize this knowledge in normal life?

What would you do if someone becomes angry on you? dependent upon your personality and without this knowledge the you may react in different ways like counter anger, listen silently and hold grudges which will further lead to revenge, etc. But a person in this knowledge will keep himself silent and won't hold any grudges on the person becoming angry because he knows that only the modes of nature due which his personality has developed is making him acting like this but he is not the way he is acting instead he is soul. I think marketing or sales guys should learn this knowledge and utilize it in their works, it will definitely help them to bring in positive results. Because marketing or sales person needs to face many rejections and disappointments which can decrease his confidence but having armed by this knowledge he won't be affected by disappointments.

You can utilize this knowledge in any phase of life and act without any expectation knowing that you cannot control behavior of the person you are dealing with and he/she will act according to his/her personality.

I hope I explained in easy language if you have any doubts then ask in it comments.

If we all are same souls then why do we behave differently?

All living beings are souls including trees but every living being behaves differently even beings of same species behave differently what to speak of different species. But why is this? Why there are different types psychologies of humans? Why some are very aggressive,evil,good, matured, calm, rude, etc?

The answer for this question lies in Law of Karma and the gunas (qualities) of the body of living beings. Every living being has some inherent qualities in boundaries of which it works, enjoys, and tries to pursue dreams.

What are Gunas (Qualities)?

The material nature has three qualities/modes: Sattva (Goodness), Rajas (Passion) and Tamas (Ignorance). All living beings are bounded by these qualities and behave only in the boundaries of these qualities. Lets see what these qualities are:

1. Goodness: As the name suggests the person having this quality behaves good or kind. Behaviors like kindness, calmness, polite, happy, content,sympathy,compassion etc. all comes under mode of goodness. The person dominated by this mode/quality always sees good in everything, he is innocent, he wants everyone to live happily, he is very polite to others, he tries to help others, etc. There is a scarcity of this quality in today's modern society where people are becoming selfish and self centered.                                                                                                           

   

    Fig: Example of  action in the mode of goodness

                                                                                          
2. Passion: This quality indicates lot of desires to enjoy or sense gratification. A person influenced by this quality works very hard to fulfill his desires. Today's modern society is highly influenced by this quality. We can see everyone is just running to fulfill his desires and working so hard as if they are going to live forever with all their possessions and enjoy for eternity. Desires can be anything from having a beautiful woman or handsome and successful husband to owing a large mansion, cars, entitled for respect, etc such desires arise due to this quality. So any desire to enjoy or have something from this material nature comes under mode of passion.                                                       

   

   Fig: Example of action in the mode of passion

                                                                                                 
3. Ignorance: This quality indicates madness or doing anything without considering its loss to self or others. People influenced by this quality behave irresponsibly, they are attracted by different addictions, they are mostly depressed, not have any interest in spiritual knowledge,etc. They think that this world is Only truth and there is nothing beyond death. Again our society is highly influenced by this quality as there are very few who are interested in searching answers for important questions of life. The people in this quality are in illusion and too sentimental, the suicidal thoughts is the result of this quality.                                                                                                             

   

   Fig: Example of action in mode of ignorance attraction to addictions        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

   

   Fig: Example of action in mode of ignorance                               

                                                                                                                                                        

Dependent on the amount of dominating quality in a person his behavior is bounded. Every person has different amounts of these qualities it is not possible to have only one quality. But one quality dominates him and he behaves according to that quality. Mode of ignorance dominates animals as they are mostly engaged in killing, eating meat, or no intelligence to find answers to their existence.
Depression is result of the mode of ignorance, as a person who is not in knowledge identifies himself with the body and takes the sorrows seriously when depression further dominates he get suicidal thoughts.

One may think that if one's nature is already inherited then he is not responsible for bad karma, but this is not so. As explained in my last blog post that we are soul and we have minute independence to "select" difference between good and bad, so it is our choice and hence we are responsible for it. 

Now whenever you find people behaving unexpectedly you should know that they are behaving according to their inherited modes and they are actually not the way they seem and hence we should not expect anything from others, because everyone behaves according to mode they are influenced by.

How Law of karma is related with behavior of people?

I am learning all this spiritual knowledge from Bhagvad Gita As it is. The answer for this question is given by Lord Krishna in Bhagvad Gita. He says:

sariram yad avapnoti
yac capy utkramatisvarah
grhitvaitani samyati
vayur gandhan ivasayat

The living entity in the material world carries his different conceptions of life from one body to another as the air carries aromas. (Bhagavad Gita as it is 15.8)

You might have heard that our thoughts create our destiny its true spiritually, as we are part and parcel of God (Lord Krishna) we have power to enjoy as we desire (but its limited!) and hence we get a specific type of body to enjoy in next life. Suppose one girl is not happy with her looks and is envious of others beauty then she will surely fulfill her desire in upcoming birth by getting beautiful body. This applies to all living beings. Hence Lord Krishna says that living beings carries his different conceptions (desires & Karma) from one body to another and gets specific body to fulfill that desire. That is why Bhagvad Gita and other Vedic scriptures teach us to give up desires and become detached from these gunas (qualities). You will know the reason why detachment is taught in upcoming blog posts.

All these gunas are in our mind and it creates a illusion so that soul remains entangled, but we should control it with our intelligence received from scriptures like Bhagvad Gita. During war Arjun was also dominated by the mode of Goodness (Sattva) and he refused to fight with his own kinsmen, but Lord Krishna with the lamp of knowledge removed such attachment and Arjun won the war.

Fig: Visualization of three Gunas affecting a person.

Above is the visualization of how the three modes of nature is pulling us and we are entangled in it more and more. Scriptures teach us to get rid of all the three gunas not even goodness is allowed to be attached with. Because this world is of dualities and Good or evil is part of this world and we are beyond such gunas.

I hope I explained the modes of nature in easy language. If you have any doubts or suggestions please do write in comment section.