Page 19 - Vedanta Sandesh_Aug 2020

Gita Reflections

rienced as good and bad, joyful or traumatic. What may bring

happiness to one person may bring sorrow to another, that which
is success for me can be a failure for another. Thus it is a matter

of our individual perceptions.

All opposites experienced at the level of the mind are created by
the individual self. They are created by my iccha and my dvesha.

Iccha is raga-what I personally like and dvesha is what I person-

ally do not like. It is my likes and dislikes alone that create the
bundle of opposites for me. It is so interesting to see that on a

rainy day the farmer is elated with joy as the rains pour down as
a flow of life and energy but at the same other people might be-

come crancky as the rains come down simply because they wish

that everything was nice and dry as they went out of their homes.
So here we can see how our individual likes and dislikes give birth

to opposites. Once we are trapped in the net of these opposites
then not only do we get busy and distracted trying to handle

them, but these strong likes and dislikes veil our intellect making

it incapable of seeing things as they are. Our perception gets dis-
torted, and ridden with anxiety and fear. This alone is moha. As a

result all our goals and means towards various goals also come to

become distorted and unsteady. Thus it is of prime importance to
handle desire and aversion by surrendering to the Lord and liv-

ing as a humble istrument of Ishvara, thus

paving the path of freedom from an ex-
istence which is limited.

Vedanta Sandesh 19

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