Sri Hanumatpresaka Swami: Many writers on yoga, mysticism describe this non-striving state of consciousness as the highest level of experience, but from this Vedic model we can see that it is high, but realistically it is not even spiritual.
I Am My Head
Next the Paramatma offers us the material nature agitated by the mode of passion. In the mode of goodness I’m aware of the football game but without desire. When the mode of passion comes in I accept it then I begin to have material desires. I see that it is Brazil against Argentina: “My wife’s sister is married to a Bazilero. We are Argentinian. She bet her sister $500 of my money on this match. We have to win!”
At this point the identification, body image, shifts from the heart to the head.
Carl Jung used to relish visiting different cultures and interviewing then to understand their world-views. In the Tavistock Lectures he mentions that one time he was talking with the Hopi Indians in the Southwest USA and he mentioned something about “thoughts in his head”. When he said this the Hopi kind-of looked at each other and moved away from him. Being Carl Jung he was sensitive to these subtle things and asked, “Oh! Forgive me. Did I say something wrong?” The Hopi looked at each other and then one of them said, “You said that you have thoughts in your head, but only a mad-man has thoughts in his head. A sane man has thoughts in his heart”.
One black poetess in South Africa commented, “A women thinks with her belly. A man thinks with his heart. And a white devil, he thinks with his head”.
We even say this: Learn it by heart.
The physical, material element, mind is subtle. We’re are still on the mental level. We haven’t even got to space or touch yet. This is a very subtle point to comprehend and probably you will have to hear it over and over again to get the sense of it. We are like the moon. He is way up in the sky, but one full-moon day while looking around he notices his reflection on the earth. A little vanity creeps in and for a better view he looks to see his reflection on the white sands of the deserts of Rajasthan. Now he is really getting fired-up so he looks at his reflection on the beautiful marble palaces of the Taj Mahal. Finally he just can’t contain himself so he looks at his reflecion in a little lilly pond in the Taj gardens and now he is in ecstacy swooning at his beauty. But, unfortunately it the street-dog, Rajasthani Red’s, night for his annual bath and like it or not he jumps into the pond where the moon is “situated” and causes a huge disturbance in the water. The moon (250,000 mile away) begins to scream and carry on, “I’m dying, I’m dying”.
This is how we, the soul, identify with grosser and grosser levels of material bodies, mirrors. And when the bodies change we think we are changing.
Prabhupada commented that the brain is like the office and the mind is like the business. If there’s a fire in the office is the business destroyed? Usually not. You reconstruct the office. There are many examples of people with brain damage who have used the remaing brain tissues in new ways to control the motor functions etc.
I am my head. Identifying with material nature in the mode of passion we identify with the cerebral lump. Your cake is bigger than my cake. How can I get your cake. We Argentinians have to win.
Oomph! Pumph! Humph! Gluptzch!
Now the paramatma agitates the material nature with the mode of ignorance. He offers you a gross body with which to physically join the game. If you take it then your gross bodily existence begins.
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