Honestly, I have been thinking a lot about a comprehensive model for human existence: our preoccupations, propensities, potentialities, and predilections. This model is largely influenced by my understanding of the Srimad Bhagavad Gita and also the teachings of the master, Shri Ishwar Puri ji, whom I have been following now for about six years.
The human condition has some "givens" : this world as it exists, which we cannot change. In the Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Bhagawan talks of these factors in the Kshetra Kshetrajna Yoga, the 13th chapter. The Panchabhutas, the ten senses ( 5 senses of perception, 5 indriyas of action), energy, matter and biology, birth and death. All of them apply more or less the same way to all creation.
Man is unique because we have samskaras. We operate with an antahkarana, which is based on our propensities, our choices, and we operate through our "free will", which is driven by our prakriti or the three gunas. If we operate in this layer, we will continue to experience life as we do, full of dualities, and there will be birth and death.
The only way we can raise ourselves from this condition is by reaching out to Paramatma. It is Paramatma who gives each soul the qualities of love, intuition, bliss, aesthetic sense, and creativity. This is present in every human being in varying degrees, dormant or manifest based on one's samskaras. These intrinsic qualities of the soul can be tapped to reach the higher plane.
The basic layer I call GRAVITY, which applies to all creation.
The VIBRATION layer is where man operates with his Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha, Mada, Matsarya, driven by his gunas- his Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. His antahkarana is Chitta, Manas, Buddhi, and Ahankara. VIBRATION is the middle layer. By definition, vibration is a positive-negative combination in flux.
The third, which I call LIFT, comes from the five divine qualities that emanate from the soul, which is the home of Paramatma. These five are
- Love
- Intuition
- Bliss
- Aesthetic Experience
- Creativity
The illustration ( Thank you, Gemini!) is an attempt to depict this model.
Does this model make sense?
Discussion:
Claude:
Here's my honest take on the GRAVITY–VIBRATION–LIFT model:
What works well
The three-layer structure is genuinely clean as a teaching device: Kshetra-Kshetrajna (the given, unchosen substrate) → guna-driven antahkarana (the churn) → soul-qualities (the escape hatch). That's a real philosophical progression, not just a nice metaphor.
Mapping the six enemies (kama-krodha-lobha-moha-mada-matsarya) and the three gunas onto "VIBRATION" is apt — vibration as oscillation between poles captures dvandva (duality) well.
The five LIFT qualities (love, intuition, bliss, aesthetic experience, creativity) as things that are "beyond logic, time-space, and dualities" is a strong move — it distinguishes them sharply from mere positive emotions, which could otherwise get confused with the "good" side of Rajas/Sattva in the layer below.
Where it's thinner or could be pushed:
GRAVITY needs a tighter definition. Right now it's a grab-bag (pancha-bhutas, indriyas, energy, matter, biology, birth-death). Is gravity the field all beings are subject to, or a force pulling downward? If it's meant to parallel VIBRATION (flux) and LIFT (ascent), naming what GRAVITY actually does — pulls toward inertia/tamas, toward embodiment — would sharpen the triad.
The antahkarana placement is a little loose. You put chitta-manas-buddhi-ahankara inside VIBRATION, but buddhi is traditionally the discriminating faculty that can turn toward Paramatma — it's not purely caught in guna-flux the way manas and ahankara are. You may want to flag buddhi as the pivot point/threshold organ between VIBRATION and LIFT, rather than fully submerged in the middle layer.
How does LIFT actually work mechanically? You assert these five qualities "can be tapped," but the model doesn't say how — is it grace (Paramatma's initiative, per your "knock and the door shall open"), or sadhana (effort from below), or both? Since you're building a model for teaching, that hinge point (grace vs. effort, or their interplay) is probably the single most important thing to make explicit, since it's what a reader will actually ask you.
Samskaras do double duty. You say samskaras make man unique (paragraph 2), but also that they determine how dormant/manifest the divine qualities are (paragraph 4). Worth clarifying whether samskaras belong to the VIBRATION layer (as conditioning/vasanas) or sit as a kind of filter between LIFT and the embodied self — right now they seem to float above the three-layer scheme rather than inside it.
Overall: it's a good first-pass diagram — intuitive, memorable, scripturally grounded — but the biggest opportunity is making explicit how one moves from layer to layer (what triggers the shift from Vibration to Lift), since that's the actual teaching payload people will want.
My answer to Claude:
Very briefly, my understanding is that lift happens only through grace, but grace works with the pre-programmed samskara load. I am calling it pre-programmed because each one of us comes, as Ishwar-ji says, with a DVD, which decides when and how we seek the beyond. With that pre-programmed timing and trigger of my free will to lift myself up, I reach up for Grace, that is, LIFT
Claude:
That resolves the hinge point well — and it's a more interesting position than pure grace or pure effort.
The "DVD" is really doing the work of samskaras here: a pre-written seed of when and how the seeking-trigger fires, but the reaching itself is still an act of your free will operating within VIBRATION — it just so happens that free will's timing is already scripted. Grace (LIFT) then meets that reach. So it's not synergy between two independent forces; it's more like a lock (grace, always available, "knock and it shall open") and a key that only turns at the pre-programmed moment (the DVD triggering your will to reach).
That's worth stating explicitly in the model, since it answers the question a reader will inevitably ask: "then why doesn't grace just lift everyone all the time?" Your answer is — it does stand ready, but the DVD determines whose hand reaches for the door, and when.
Finally:
Buddhi is within the VIBRATION layer. No amount of intellectualisation using Buddhi can lead to God or liberation. It is a common fallacy of popular Advaitins that if you think hard enough, you can reach God through the mind which gets Jnana. True Jnana does not come from Buddhi. It comes from a spark of grace = LIFT that is intuitive and erases all the noise of the mind - Buddhi. A simple example is to follow the Buddhi logic to answer, 'Why am I unhappy!?" It will always create a victim mindset. It will never accept that in the VIBRATION layer, change and flux and duality is inescapable and the result is a sense of despondency. The one thing a man can do is give up his adamant confidence in his own Buddhi. He can say, "Oh, Lord, I am confused. I don't know. Lift me from this morass of analysis paralysis!" Then grace descends.
ईश्वरः सर्वभूतानां हृद्देशेऽर्जुन तिष्ठति ।
भ्रामयन्सर्वभूतानि यन्त्रारूढानि मायया ॥ १८-६१॥
तमेव शरणं गच्छ सर्वभावेन भारत ।
तत्प्रसादात्परां शान्तिं स्थानं प्राप्स्यसि शाश्वतम् ॥ १८-६२॥
Bhagawan says in the Gita, the design of this creation is that in the layer of VIBRATION, man moves in circles ceaselessly, as he is subject to Maya=the Guna complex and the samsakara load. But Ishwara or Bhagawan rests in each heart as the seed - that is soul which has those five qualities. To trigger these qualities, one reaches for grace. The only LIFT he receives is from surrender to Bhagawan in all respects. Then man is lifted by grace to a zone of peace and permanent bliss.
