({Photo I took in Prambanan, Indonesia, in 2005. Looks like Astavakra Gita!}
Gurudev introduces Chapter 16:
CHAPTER XVI
Divine and Devilish Estates
Every system of ethics catalogues a series of virtues and vices, and strangely enough all such systems read the same although their Prophets belonged to different times and places. Irrespective of clime, creed, race and tongue, a good man is a good man. No doubt, there are slight differences between faith and faith, but such differences are found only in the Prophets' emphasis on the peoples' abstinence from certain vices and/or cultivation of certain virtues. And their special advice and appeals to the people are obviously determined by the sort of life lived by the majority of the people in their respective eras and areas.
The very same qualities accepted as virtues some three thousand years ago, are still regarded as virtues, and even today, those who live them are considered virtuous and noble. Strangely enough, we find that human beings are the same in this uproarious present as they were in the peaceful past. In this chapter, the entire mankind, of all times and of all ages, has been classified under three types: (a) the Divinely Good (Devas), (b) the Diabolically Fallen (Asuras), and (c) the Incorrigibly Indifferent (Rakshasas). However, the Rakshasic type is not taken up for discussion in the following stanzas, most probably because, for that type, no conscious self-development programme is ever possible unless it be broken, recast and moulded again by the relentless hand of adversity.
Earlier, (in Chapter IX) we had a discussion in which Krishna explained the three kinds of nature of the sentient beings, Prakritis. Later on (in Chapter XIII) the Field-of-Experience (Kshetra), and the Knower-of-the-Field (Kshetrajna) were discussed in detail. In conclusion, it was established that the Subject, the 'Knower,' is one in all "Fields."
The natural question of a brilliant intellect, at this stage of discussion, could only be how and why the experiences are so varied from individual to individual, even though the "Subject" is one and the same. It was explained (in Chapter XIV) that the "Field," being under the influence of different temperaments (gunas), no two individuals can experience a given field of happenings in the same fashion. After thus discussing exhaustively, how the Fields-of-Experience differ from one another under changing temperaments, we had a discourse from the Geetaacharya, (in Chapter XV) on the essential nature of the Infinite and Eternal" Subject," the Knower-of-the-Field. This Purushottama had been ably painted therein as the Transcendental State of Perfection and as Pure Knowledge.
Naturally, therefore, in the logical development of thought in the Geeta, this chapter discusses the types of manifestations that are available in the living world when the same "Knower", the one Eternal Spirit, expresses Itself through various "Fields." The logic of the Sixteenth Chapter can generally be a bit confusing to all hasty students; and there are daring critics who have come to the conclusion that, more often than not, "the Divine Song of the Lord is a rambling poem." This is very unfair. The sequence in the thought development in Chapter Sixteen is from the ideas not yet concluded in Chapter Nine and from the ideas merely touched upon during the explanations in the preceding three chapters.
Another severe criticism generally levelled against Hindus is that as believers in the Non-dual Reality, the Brahman, they have no respect for moral and ethical values. Some critics compare the devotional religions, semetic or otherwise, with Vedanta, and desperately strive to establish an unsubstantiated superiority for themselves. But here a lie is given to this criticism; how consistently Vedanta insists upon the moral virtues, as a prerequisite even for entering its portals, is evident from the chapters of the Geeta. And this chapter will reveal how exhaustively the Rishis had pointed out the mental contents of the good as compared with those of the bad.
The anxiety of the Geeta is not to classify mankind as good and bad, to promise a paradise to the good and to curse the bad to endless damnation in hell. The qualities enumerated here are the result of scientific observations made in the physical, mental, and intellectual behaviours, when life, the "Knower," pulsates through a DISCIPLINED "Field," and an UNDISCIPLINED "Field" of experience.
|| Chapter - 16 ||
Source: The Holy Geeta
