Gita 14.08 The mode of ignorance begins with not knowing and leads to false knowing

Transcript

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thank you Krishna is speaking over here about the three modes of material nature and herein he speaks about the mode of ignorance he says this mode of ignorance that it is born of the mode of ignorance it deludes all living beings Pramada is madness Alasya is lethargy and Nidra is sleep it bounds binds them so essentially when Krishna is talking about the three modes over here he is actually guiding us towards slow and steady progress by which we can learn to move towards fulfillment, we can learn to move towards a deeper understanding of ourselves so the mode of ignorance is often characterized by inactivity or inertia or completely thoughtless activity Tamastva Ajnaana Jamviddhi so it is born of ignorance and Mohanam Sarvadehinam and it leads to illusion so ignorance and illusion is in some sense similar now Krishna has talked about the difference talked about two of them by mentioning them separately at some other places in the Bhagavad Gita and towards the end in his concluding inquiry he asks Kachchidaita Chutham Partha Tvaiye Kaagre Na Chetasa Kachchida Gyaana Sammoha Pranashtaste Dhananjaya so he asks Kachchida Oh Arjuna, have you heard properly and have I this Agyaana Sammoha Agyaana is ignorance, Sammoha is illusion, deep illusion Pranashtaste Dhananjaya have they been destroyed so we can say to some extent that Agyaana and Sammoha are related and what is the relationship Agyaana is a state of not knowing, ignorance as it is said and illusion is a state of false knowing so for example if we are going along a road and suddenly there is darkness, the power goes off the road is plunged into darkness then the state of darkness is the state of ignorance but suppose we are going in a desert and we need some, we are desperately thirsty and then we see water and we rush towards it but actually it turns out to be a mirage you know seeing nothing is ignorance seeing something that is not the way it is that is illusion and both of them are bad one can lead to the other so here Krishna says that actually the mode of ignorance is Agyaana Jam Vidhi, sorry it is born from ignorance which might seem like a tautology ignorance is born from ignorance but there is something more going on over here the technical word is Tamas which is translated into English as ignorance, so Tamas basically means darkness so Tamas Agyaana Jam Vidhi that means the mode of mode which is dark, the mode which is darkening it is born of ignorance and Mohanam Sarvadehinam and it deludes so when we are in ignorance and then we act we actually go into illusion and we don’t know what to do and we still try to do something and by that we go into deeper illusion, by that we end up bound by that we end up in greater trouble because our conditionings are extremely extremely because our conditionings tend to overwhelm us so the way to deal with or to overcome our conditionings which can be of different types, all the three modes condition us, the mode of ignorance conditions us to and the result of that conditioning is that we end up dragged towards Pramad Alasya Nidra Bhees Pramad Madness so when we are not cautious about how we are living or what we are doing we act in terribly self destructive ways Alasya we often end up becoming very lazy people who are mad they just can do anything under the spell of that madness Alasya when we are lazy laziness results in a deep level of frustration where a person just doesn’t know how to how to do anything to improve one situation one just simply existing doing very little at all so that Alasya is is something which makes human beings who are capable of doing constructive activity it makes them practically powerless just don’t do anything, don’t feel like doing anything and we often only stay in the same problematic situation we are but we often end up making our situation worse after all we do need to deal with whatever situation we are facing and if we don’t deal with it just like if I am sickness and if I don’t do anything about the sickness now if it is a minor sickness the body may heal itself but if it is a major sickness then far from healing itself the body is going to make things worse for itself I am going to make things worse for myself by neglecting if I just become lazy about it Nidra, sleep now Krishna has said Mohanam Sarvadehinam it deludes all living beings so we will see later how the three modes are essential components of material existence and in that sense by their very existence they are not necessarily bad so it is only when there is excessive indulgence in them that they become bad we all need to sleep and less sleep can become a problem if people sleep less then they cannot be alert enough when they function they cannot live their life constructively they end up become overwhelmed by the negativity by negativity irritability because sleep is a biological necessity so it is not that sleep has to be given up per se sleep has to be regulated but sleep is one thing and sleeping is a biological necessity oversleeping is a psychological pressurization on us so that means we just want to avoid the responsibilities of life avoid the problems of life and we find an escape way through sleeping so at one level the mode of ignorance is going to affect all living beings because sleep is necessary for all living beings in mohanam sarva dehinam it comes but when so we need to sleep but when we seek pleasure in sleeping when we see sleeping as a means to run away from life’s challenges as a hideout from life’s challenges then that becomes we are getting deeper into bondage to ignorance and illusion so in this way the mode of ignorance it begins with not knowing and it ends with false knowing and with that false knowing we go deeper and deeper into bondage