Sri Krishna as Revealed in All Our Levels of Reality 3. Swami Krishnananda

(Spoken on May 1, 1983)
01/12/2018
3.
We are, at the present moment, in the political, social, and physical level of existence. We are overly concerned with our political associations, requirements and involvements. Whatever be our spiritual, moral or philosophical longing in our leisure hours, there is no gainsaying that as a citizen of a particular nation a person is conscious of his or her involvement in what is called the national setup. There is an involvement in human society, in the community to which one belongs and from which relationship one cannot easily extricate oneself. And there are the fundamental involvements which are the ingredients of our own psychophysical individuality. While it is true that we are units in a politically organised nation, and are individuals related to human society in a particular manner and not totally independent of human relations, there is something more about us than what is visibly available in this manner.

We are apparently a physical frame we call the body, and this is a level which weighs very heavily on our shoulders. For all practical purposes in our life we consider ourselves as the physical body only. We do not seem to be concerned with anything else, though on rare occasions we manifest that particular feature in us where we seem to be concerned with our mental life much more than the physical or bodily life. We are all very well aware that the sanity of the mind, the inward peace and the composure of the psyche are of greater consequence in our life than merely the well being of the physical body. But there is something very crucial and a point which is easily missed by us, namely, the capacity of our understanding itself. Our longings, our likes and dislikes, and all the projects in which we engage ourselves, our very outlook of life, is nothing but a kind of interpretation of our own understanding.

Thus, there is a level in our own being which is not merely political, social or even that which is related to our community existence—not merely the physical or the psychic, but there is a rational element in us, and the importance of the reason in us is well known to every one of us. If the reason fails, we know what will happen to us. There is no greater treasure in life then a well-balanced reason which can think correctly, logically, systematically, precisely. If there is a confusion of the working of the reason, all the apparatus of the psyche will topple down and we shall cease to be human beings for any practical purpose, though we may be physically alive.

To be continued ..