When material nature is unconscious how is it the doer?

Transcript

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so we say that the soul is not the doer but middle nature is the doer but then middle nature is unconscious so how is it that middle nature is reacting to material nature actually material nature is unconscious but middle nature is activated and supervised by consciousness supervised is Upadrashtam Mantra ultimately Krishna is supervising middle nature and middle nature is activated also by our desire so I will give you two examples to illustrate this suppose there is a television with multiple channels on it, say we will start with three channels now if I turn on a particular channel there is a predefined set of programs that will play over it now that predefined set of programs has already been arranged by the TV manufacturer in consultation with the channel producer or whatever now my choice is which channel will I turn on and after I choose a particular channel then the particular metaprogram automatically starts so material nature is like that TV channel that TV, the three channels are goodness passion importance and my choice is basically which channel to choose and as soon as I choose a particular mode, the way I think, the way I desire, the way I act, the way I perceive all that will to some extent turn like a pre-programmed mode pre-programmed pattern so in that sense at one level the doer is or at one level the overseer or at one level the arranger he makes the arrangement for material nature to happen or to act in whatever way he likes but it is I who am the initiator I am the trigger so for a particular for the for the overall system of the television to work there is someone else who is the boss who is making it happen but for a particular program’s running, I am responsible similarly for the existence of this body-mind-soul mechanism body-mind mechanism and for my institution’s mechanism and for my having certain subhava or there are certain impressions in my mind by which I tend to act in a particular way all that has been arranged by the supreme lord but what choice I make that is something which is up to me that’s why although the Bhagavad Gita says that I am the doer but Krishna’s instructions conclude with that therefore do as you desire at first Krishna said you are not the doer but now Krishna is asking Arjuna to do something do as you desire and Arjuna also says so what it indicates is that actually in 18.16 so Krishna describes what is the inclusion so when I think that I am the kevalakarta that I am the only doer that is the illusion so essentially the idea that we are the only doers that is an illusion but certainly we are doers and material nature is like a pre-arranged TV program or I could say a pre-set pre-patterned computer program and we just make one choice and that program runs accordingly so the other example to understand this of how material nature is the doer is to recognize that material nature is not just unconscious in the sense that matter itself is conscious unconscious but material nature is supervised by the conscious being and she is of course supervised by Krishna so in that sense this example of this TV channel or computer program that is inadequate because the TV channel or the computer program they are not conscious but material nature is conscious and that’s why material nature is also in one sense reciprocal that’s why how it works is when we have some weaknesses when we have some areas where we are tempted then material nature tempt us exactly in that area only it tests us, it forces us to become stronger so in that sense the point which I am making is things are not as simple as just a TV program there is also an intrusion operating the program and that intrusion also prompts us to make certain choices but ultimately it is we who make the choices that’s why Krishna later on says that in 18.59-60 the 61 is the famous one Ishwara Sarva Bhutana Vrindesha Vrindesha prior to that Krishna says that actually you are bound by your sabha sabhavaje me kaunteya nivadhyasve na karna kartum ekchisi anmoha kartum ekchisi anmoha we are bound by sabhavaj Krishna is talking about sabhavavad sabhavavad is that actually we are all products of our sabhav in modern psychology this is called as genetic determinism we are all determined by our genes our inclination, our dispositions our behavior, they are determined by our genes so does Krishna agree to that? No, Krishna says that you can go beyond that by pamye va sharvam lakshya sarva bharve na bharat so Krishna talks about our being controlled by the material nature in 18.59-60 then in 61 he says that there is a god who controls the material nature Ishwara Sarva Bhutana and therefore in 62 he says what should we do? pamye va sharvam lakshya sarva bharat then we can go beyond the pushes and pulls of our sabhav so the illusion is to think that we are the only individuals and material nature acts in the sense that it acts or is considered conscious in the sense that it is overall arranged by the supreme consciousness of the lord and it is specifically activated by the injection of our consciousness in it