*Science of the Soul and Existential Crises. The Personal Level* 13 After identifying ourselves as pure souls, what we are supposed to do is like the spiritual house cleansing; driving away negative energies which are incompatible or unconducive to our evolution, and firmly, constantly developing the conducive ones. It is the extent and gravity of the required self-regulation which makes Arjuna also wonder if one lifetime is enough to reach to that state of steadfast, unattached performer self-actualized. He asks Krishna what if the body dies without the fruits of our past actions being exhausted. Does a soul has to start all over again when it takes up a new body? Krishna gives some basic premises regarding this: no one can escape action. Whichever be the dominant tendency, action done with attachment to its fruit adds to karma. Righteous action like devotion, sacrifice and gifts, performed attachedly, with a firm mind does yield fruit according to the intent. Righteous action, performed unattachedly with a firm mind does not yield fruit. The balance of the previously accumulated fruits gets carried over in the next state of manifestation, i. e. life. The next embodiment of the soul is according to the dominant tendency of the action-fruits it carries with itself. Tendencies are flexible and their aggregate can be reconfigured too. In times like today’s, when we witness the majority of us being *rajas *and *tamas *oriented, going about life multitasking to be the fittest survivors, the prime purpose of life, spiritual health has been reduced to be a recreational activity in requirement of an appointment based session to attend to. Despite all the boasts of achievements and marks of greatness, we hanker for something to make it a full circle. But fulfilment evades because we miss the most crucial venture to invest and exhaust our resources and energies in. This, at last, compels some to take recourse in spirituality. In fact, the need for a self-initiated purgatory process for spiritual healing is witnessed at present than any other time in human history. Had it not been so, variety of self-proclaimed saints and gurus, scripturally qualified or not, would not have generated hysterical mass following. Nevertheless, the verisimilitudes of multiple paths and meaning derived from *Bhagavad Gita *revolve around only one phenomena; the theorem of the liberation of soul, its realisation of the Absolute and harmony within and without. Once a seeker stars off with the true knowledge of the inherent duality of his own personality and the concurrent dual reality of the Supreme, unmanifested cosmic being, permeating through all the organic or inorganic entities, governing the manifested nature through its three stages of cyclical progression; beginning, middle, and end. As it is, we all dream about ultimate satisfaction in our lives and Krishna provides us the formula.
13 We are constantly concerned about future now and hereafter and he shows us the way. But it is all conditional: we have to know the nature of that satisfaction and have to act for it. This masterpiece of mysticism, Krishna.s *Bha- gavad Gita *shows that the sanctity of the soul has to be preserved, and residing in the body it is not capable of doing it alone, so it develops the penchant for complete surrender to the Supreme God, the highest universal authority, the source of all and everything. When one says blood is thicker than water, one states the natural order of priority for a person in terms of bonding with and obligations towards the people related to us, and our blood relations, especially the core family becomes primary. On a higher spiritual plane, the essential lineage is traced to the Absolute Divine, God. Everything else, the transient material nature in the form of the basic eight elements in their numerous forms as bodies and its subtle qualities in their various combinations, becomes secondary. We just have to. wake up. to the reality of our soul, and train it to retain its essential purity. The qualities of the pure embodied souls, the passionate souls and the dark souls, as listed in *Bhagavad Gita*, serve as yardsticks to measure our own qualities by and to identify our personality type. While attributing all pure virtues and qualities to the persons of .divine properties. 14 Krishna, the supreme visionary warns Arjuna against the demoniacal men (*Asura*) who are dominated by the dark tendencies of lust, wrath and greed which he calls. destructive of the self. and. triple gates of hell. (16.3, 21). At the personal level,* Bhagavad Gita *works as an eternal practical wisdom guide. It presents a prototypical process assuring in a well physiological, mental, emotional and spiritual integrity and harmonized energies. There is no fixed threshold as to where and when to do for it, except for how to facilitate the self to reclaim itself and start internalising the comprehensive worldview of *Bhagavad Gita *effectively. It is in fact a school in itself which teaches humanity the science of soul in its entirety. And even if written in spiritual manner, the delineation of the reality of our soul, mired in illusion and mind, a force to reckon with when complacent to senses, is logical. Conceptually, mind is analogous to the biological phenomenon called neuron, the basic nerve cell to process and transmit information between the central nervous system; the brain and spinal cord. The role of mind in keeping the soul from redemption by signalling it the wrong way, can be explained by drawing parallel between the two. In *Bhagavad Gita*’s concept of the reality of an individual’s soul within and integral to the sphere of the cosmic reality, Mind functions in a human constitution like a neuron, the semi-permeable cell membrane as reason/intellect, ions as natural quality (*guna*) based desires, central nervous system as soul and the stimulus as multiple desires. Like a cell membrane, the intellect can also block some of the negative desires from the mind but not all. Mind when not activated by desires has the resting potential. However, due to the constant force of desire-based actions, the mind undergoes a change in terms of the shift in the proportional ratio of the qualities similar to depolarisation. And when, the ratio of the desires inside the mind reduces in proportion to the other differently combined desires outside it, the mind cannot withhold their entry and reaches the threshold potential. And then, it fires an action potential to the soul which based on the dominant quality of the powerful desires. Eventually, the ignorant soul obeys and incurs the consequential bondage. 15 Krishna as a perfect teacher, yogi and all-time guide, hands out the worksheets for the personality development and capacity building programs, to fulfill the requirement of freedom from the bondages. The exercise that we, the embodied ones need to take up is to replace the stimulus of *rajas *and *tamas *laced desires with *sattva-based* ones. Then the mind will it self be pure and inform the soul accordingly. Krishna necessitated. purity of food, sacrifice, austerity, and alms-giving. 17.7). Purity of austerity has further been divided into three categories: of body, speech, and mind. If earned and sustained firmly, according to this masterpiece of mysticism, *Bhagavad Gita*, this dynamic wisdom and its practice, coupled with a thorough devotion to the God or whatever terminology we use to assign to the unseen but eternal ruler and regulator of the cosmos, are the. spiritual safety valves. in a spiritually suffocating world. Fulfilling the spiritual quest of being permanently, comfortably established in the self has the potential to make us experience ourselves as integrated whole and streamline our lives around the principle of unity in diversity at every level of this vast spectrum of creation. 16 In this regard, even if Krishna is regarded without any divinity attached to him, he works wonders psychologically. His lessons make us crisis resilient: Gita. supports the role of duty and participation. Joyful participation in the sorrows of the world. In fact, it works on many levels of human experiences. It convinces us, like it did Arjuna, to set new paradigms in our life in terms of our identity, our duties, our goal and our relationship with the Supreme Divine. It makes us flexible to accept change as crucial to subsistence and evolution. It makes us accommodate death as one of the natural stages of body’s life cycle on earth. It makes us compatible with our surroundings at both micro and macro level. Fulfilling the spiritual quest of being permanently, comfortably established in the self has the potential to make us experience ourselves as integrated whole and streamline our lives around the principle of unity in diversity at every level of this vast spectrum of creation. *Science of the Soul and Existential Crises. The Community Level* 17 The existential crises which all sorts of sensate and insensate resources are going through at present, poses the threat of a big disastrous future. *Bhaga- vad Gita *lets us learn to address our vulnerabilities and the nuances of managing all sorts of consequential emergencies with a proactive, action-oriented approach which covers all sorts of tactics to minimise the risk of loss to the overall health of an individual, society and environment. It persuades us to make spiritual growth a vital aspect of our future oriented decision making at every stage of our life. If we let our soul remain with the role it mistakenly takes up, the risk gets manifold. *Bhagavad Gita *puts the onus on us to understand the perils of the transient, *Guna *oriented existence. It gifts us such a coping mechanism, Venkobrao says, that .it can be implemented as needed on a flexible and scalable manner in all phases of disaster management: (1) mitigation (prevention and risk reduction), (2) preparedness, (3) response, and (4) recovery (immediate restoration to build-back better).Further, *Bhagavad Gita.*s insightful multi-leveled directives for addressing any crisis enlightens us on the ever-increasing ecological crisis looming all over the world in some or other form. Mostly anthropogenic, such threatening shifts in the ecological equation between man and nature can be clearly understood if we measure our real attitudes towards universal natural resources and the worldview projected and preferred by Krishna. 17 His universe is a harmonized whole, a symphony of rhythms of life created and presented by God, and beautifully coloured canvas of ecosystems. Every visible or invisible phenomenon partakes and participates in the ecological harmony propounded by Krishna: That by which one indestructible Being is seen in all beings, in separate in the separated, know thou that knowledge as pure (10.20). A self-actualized being acknowledges this and identifies his part and place in this universal oneness; recognising one divine thread passing through one and all, including himself. This ecological wisdom is thoroughly reflected in Arne Nass’s ecosophy (ecological philosophy). He emphasises the same interrelationship of humans and their natural environment when he talks about. ecological harmony or equilibrium. A philosophy as a kind of sofia (or) wisdom, is openly normative, it contains both norms, rules, postulates, value priority announcements and hypotheses concerning the state of affairs in our universe. Wisdom is policy wisdom, prescription, not only scientific description and prediction. The details of an ecosophy will show many variations due to significant differences concerning not only the. facts. of pollution, resources, population, etc. but also value priorities. The value system in the ecosophy of *Bhagavad Gita *underlines the acknowledgement of the symbiotic relationship with the environment whereby exploitation or domination of one over the other is to be renounced. Significantly, this deep ecology of *Bhagavad Gita *is unmistakably realized by the self-realized pure soul: .The self, harmonised by yoga, seeth the SELF abiding in all beings, all beings in the SELF; everywhere he seeth the same For the comprehensive evolution of persons, societies and ecosystems, the wisdom of soul and its realization become the conditional premise of the formula of environmental conservation. It is the Core value which entails many instrumental values; a full range of value priorities, accommodative of different temperaments, which through the constitutional coordination at both personal and social level, can contribute in rendering the wide-ranging mechanism of conservation effective. Moreover, the degree of personal or social well-being and progress will be proportional to the degree of environmental sustenance. It is said that our realisation of self-occasions with the simultaneous realisation of the un-manifested, all pervading Supreme the Absolute Self is an underlying principle of everything, the innermost essence. Knowing one and not knowing the other is not possible because He is the sustainer of the whole cosmos; the splendour of the sun, moon and fire., .the vital energy of soil and sap of plants., and .the Fire of life. in breathing things. 15.12-14). 18 However, the dark qualities make man ignore this powerful fact in their ego. By virtue of their latent reason, they exploit whatever they can to fulfil their desires. Everyone is, directly or indirectly involved in this affront to the God itself. Self-recognised, we souls can also recognize the reality that the Supreme Self supports whole universe including all differentiated organisms and things. And such wisdom and purity promote love and peace, not hatred and violence.* Bhagavad Gita *marks a paradigm shift in the history of Indian spiritual consciousness. Although rooted in the tenets of broader Hinduism, it has expanded the scope and meaning of the basic concepts like soul, the God, nature, and their relation with each other. Casting off the extra baggage of rituals, rigidity and fixedness, these fundamental yet ever-evolving truths have been re-configured through an integrated perception. Readers like Bakhtin believed that the lessons in *Bhagavad Gita *ensure personal spiritual growth as well as social harmony through the common goal of liberation for all, through alternative paths, realizing love for both his transcendent and immanent form and thereby whole humanity: Restraining and subduing the senses, regarding everything equally, in the welfare of all rejoicing, these also come unto Me. Spiritual wisdom and evolution do not strictly impose with sectorial limitations. They have been so harmonized with human nature that spiritual aspirations are not the prerogative of any particular class. Anybody, having acquired the mandatory qualifications through devotion, knowledge, action can scale the heights of the ideal state according to their capacities. 19 The image of a world it projects albeit guardedly serves as a pattern for the most evolved civilization till date (Davis 2015: 116). Krishna, subverting the Vedic belief of social division, declared it to be operational based not on birth (*Janma*) but fruits of action (*karma*). He linked to the idea of soul; a soul gets embodied in a particular class based on. the different distribution of qualities and actions (*guna and karma*). 4.13), as determined by his previous births and actions. However, a person has the free choice in manipulating the flexibility in that distribution and can strive to endow himself differently. Besides, even social harmony and coordination is proposed to be ensured by each person sticking to the duty prescribed in line with his tendencies and not interfering with the other’s field of action. *Conclusions* 20 Conceptually all said, there has been a long order of sages, mystics and devotees of Krishna who have lived His codes of conduct in the *Bhagavad Gita *by example and have established themselves as perfect ascetics ( *yogi*) of wisdom, devotion and action, irrespective of their caste, class and community. Most of them belong to the medieval India when all these criteria were clearly demarcated and were not compromised with. The hymns composed by them still I spire people and their recital at some or other place is a regular in this part of the world. A few examples will serve the purpose of showcasing their ultimate identification with Krishna’s words in *Bhagavad Gita. *Kabir Das accedes to the idea of wisdom of soul and the enlightenment it brings: *Jab Mein Tha Tab Hari Nahin. Ab Hari Hai Mein Nahin, Sab Andhiyara Mit Gaya. Jab Deepak Dekhya Mahin *(When I [ego] was there, God was absent, when the inner flame / light shined forth, all the darkness disappeared). Rahim exemplifies pure sacrifice of alms giving in the following way; *Denhar koi aur hai, bhejat jo din raen, log bharam hum par karein, taso neeche naen *(The Giver is someone else, giving day and night. But the world gives me the credit, so I lower my eyes). Ravidas, a devotee of the Supreme in manifested and un-manifested form validates what skeptics question-mark: Hari [God] in everything, everything in Hari. He who knows Hari and the self, does not need any other testimony. the knower is absorbed. Sikhism owes many of its concepts to *Bhagavad Gita. *At present, there are some spiritual leaders, at least in as much as they can disseminate the scriptural principles effectively, who have written their own commentaries on *Bhagavad Gita *in order to enlighten with their sermons and different yoga practices. The prominent ones are: Sadguru Jaggi vasudev of Isha Foundation, Sri Sri Ravishankar of Art of Living, Mata Amritanandmayi and Brahmkumaris, Osho foundation, and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Maharishi Yogi.s proposal regarding .the influence of coherence and positivity in the social and natural environment generated by the practice of the Transcendental Meditation and Sidhi programs popularly known as the Maharishi effect. All in all, Krishna’s teaching finds resonance either within the souls or scriptures around the world, as most of the scriptural teaching do, because the obligation of sustaining life and conserving environs comes to the reasonable creatures. Manage this mountainous task is possible only through realising the soul’s true potential. 21 Followers of Krishna’s spiritual framework say it cuts across boundaries of cultures, countries and continents, and if they can provide answers and remedy to the concerns of the world it is beyond geographical and ideological boundaries. It is felt that the wisdom of their scriptures is the reason most of the major civilizations have survived thousands of years, while in the present time, which is terribly conflict-ridden at multiple levels, the Exploring Soul, Nature, and God healing power of spirituality is all the more significant. Many hope that the applicability, adaptability, and relevance of *Bhagavad Gita*’s spiritual doctrines contribute in transforming souls into equanimous beings and the frequency of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s .Maharishi effect. increases. KR IRS 18 2 23 -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. 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