Gunas, Ticks, and Yogananda

Apart from the British proverb in the heading, what else than avoiding ash trees while it thunders can save you - from what, to what, and how far? And which part of your self - could it be the Ox part, for example? Such things are no small matters to know about. But for those who are religiously "hypnotized" by tight drivel without a foundation, many "easies" are not easy due to built up, inner blockages. That is what religious verbiage does to some. It is a sad thing.

It is favourable to commit yourself to creating jolly decent successed instead, and attain to tactful measures as you push upwards. You may grow to find in time that religious speaches, insults, and drivel offer only poor or no successes by and large, as opposed to springs of good water.

In Hindu literature, three gunas appear: tamas, sattva, and rajas. In Samkhya philosophy, they are conceived of as fundamental operating principles or 'tendencies' of prakriti (Mother Nature).

Guna is literally 'string' or 'a single thread or strand of a cord or twine'. It can mean 'a subdivision, species, kind, quality', or an operational principle or tendency. it is held that the entire creation is carried out by these three major gunas.

1. Sattva, originally "being, existence, entity, has been translated to mean balance, order, or purity.
2. Rajas, originally "atmosphere, air, firmament", leads one to activity.
3. Tamas, originally "darkness", "obscurity", has been translated to mean "too inactive", negativity, lethargy, dullness, or slowness, and usually associated with darkness, delusion, or ignorance.

The gunas may be convenient abstractions fit for classifications ut to a level. Yet there is no evidence that gunas are parts of the real world - they are categories that are ascribed onto phenomena by persons and in literature. Ramakrishna speak of them as robbers in the wood, meaning that humans have to go beyond them eventually, to gather favours of meditation.

A Gunas Tale by Ramakrishna

Once a rich man was passing through a forest, when three robbers surrounded him and robbed him of all his wealth. After snatching all his possessions from him, one of the robbers said: "What's the good of keeping the man alive? Kill him." Saying this, he was about to strike their victim with his sword, when the second robber interrupted and said: "There's no use in killing him. Let us bind him fast and leave him here. Then he won't be able to tell the police." Accordingly the robbers tied him with a rope, left him, and went away.

After a while the third robber returned to the rich man and said: "Ah! You're badly hurt, aren't you? Come, I'm going to release you." The third robber set the man free and led him out of the forest. When they came near the highway, the robber said, "Follow this road and you will reach home easily."

'But you must come with me too", said the man. "You have done so much for me. We shall all be happy to see you at our home."

'No," said the robber, "it is not possible for me to go there. The police will arrest me." So saying, he left the rich man after pointing out his way.

Now, the first robber, who said: "What's the good of keeping the man alive? Kill him", is tamas. It destroys. The second robber is rajas, which binds a man to the world and entangles him in a variety of activities. Rajas makes him forget God. Sattva alone shows the way to God. It produces virtues like compassion, righteousness, and devotion. Again, sattva is like the last step of the stairs. Next to it is the roof. The Supreme Brahman is man's own abode. One cannot attain the Knowledge of Brahman unless one transcends the three gunas." [Rap 218-19, cf. 267-68]

Great Bible Inconsistencies

Now what if God has already decided to destroy all and sundry? Will it be by tamas-guna in the front seat or some other way? The three gunas would not be destroyed then if they did not really exist in the outer world in the first place -

The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah during the reign of Josiah:

"I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth," declares the Lord, "both men and animals. I will bring distress on the people and they will walk like blind men. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord's wrath. In the fire of his jealousy the whole world will be consumed, for he will make a sudden end of all who live in the earth." [Zephaniah 1:1-18, passim]

Either it will be true, or it will not. When God promised something to someone deep asleep in the Old Testament - whether vast tracts of lands for Abra(ha)m and his descendants which they have not got yet [Genesis 15:12 ff, Exodus 32:13], a tent with eleven curtains of goat hair [Exodus 26:7], ritual service around a chest of acacia wood [Exod 25:10]] - all of it instituted "for all time" but abandoned - and a lasting dynasty for Jews that crumbled and was destroyed - what he promised and instituted, did not manifest as he said or wanted anyway. That is all in the Bible. So let there be hope - hope can be a cheap thing.

But an additional dilemma arises, akin to "Too much of a good thing is a bad thing": If God's promise to Abraham should happen to come true, the planet would be fabulously overcrowded. Just consider: "I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever." [Exod 32:13]." It sounds nice to some, but happily for all of us they are not coming true.

According to current estimates, there are about 200-400 000 million stars in the Milky Way. The newest estimates gained by the Hubble space telescope are that there are 500 000 million galaxies in the universe, each with about 300.000 million stars, give or take. Thus, one estimate is there are 150 000 000 000 million stars around us. Compare that vast number to how many thriving inhabitants the Earth can hold, and get terribly dismayed. Some impressive-looking promises had better not come true! It happens "all the time" in the Bible, also.

As for another big promise, [Gen 22:17], how many grains of sand are there on Earth? To form an estimate, count how many grains makes a spoonful. Using a similar way of counting, plus some additional information, mathematicians at the University of Hawaii tried to guess how many grains of sand are on the world's beaches. They came up with 7,500,000,000,000 million grains.

Loose estimates are not the problem in this, but hard-headed belief in foolish or rash or just seeming promises that go blatantly unfulfilled. All promises in the Bible have not been fulfilled, and some of that God's promises never will and never can. Therefore there may still be time for innocent fun and development. And if it is seen that the Christian's God is faking and unreliable, as judged by his non-deeds in the Bible and by the fact that many of his promises there go thwarted and unfulfilled to this day, there is perhaps a measure of sound hope in bearing in mind the Bible was written and edited by Hebrews who tried to make their God look impressive.

Anyway, to be true to one's fit word is very, very good, and tends to be crucial for a man.

A bit of smartness is allowed: When Jesus says that the gospel will be preached to all nations before the end of the world comes [Mark 13:10 ff], it matters not to bring the gospel to all nations of the world, for example on Borneo, and further. That might save the world from ultimate disaster according to God's Word . . . Do your part in hindering an ultimate bad thing. Hope actively.

We have to be fair and live up to the Spirit of Truth, or what?

"The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger. On that day you won't be put to shame [but not to death?] Sing, Daughter of Zion; shout aloud . . . Be glad and rejoice with all your heart. God . . . will take great delight in you. At that time I will gather you . . . bring you home. I will give you praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes," says the Lord. [Zephaniah 3:8-18, passim]

In these passages we are told that the whole world will be destroyed, but not all - if "restored fortunes" means something substantial. There is a saying: "You cannot eat your cake and have it too": You cannot utterly destroy the planet, make it devoid of humans, and next let the people live on to praise there. However, you can get outsmarted by great belief in tommyrot. It seems to help very little to scare a lot by drivel, or have some unmentioned cards in your sleeve, or speak against yourself (two chapters earlier).

Alarming, self-contradictory Bible sayings to deal with

It is a good thing to be warned well in time - and handle things professionally, including self-contradictive Bible sayings. There are well over a hundred of them.

In the scare perspective, it may seem of little worth to try to go on, but still do. After all, the apostles that Jesus allegedly said had got the Spirit of Truth: "When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. [John 16:13]." The evidence is that that God-Spirit failed to do that. And the apostles and others believed and taught that the end of the world was near in their generation or so. But it did not come to pass. What came to pass was that millions of Christians became martyrs, aided by a belief that theirs was the end of time. They were wrong.

So the Jesus prospects (above) should be discarded - untrue is not really all right. Further, these Jesus passages and all the others were not really necessary for non-Jewish followers either; that is what all the apostles and the Holy Spirit concluded throughout Acts 15 and Acts 21:25, and formed a New Deal. Beware of a phoney Spirit of Truth and false apostle teachings about how near the end of the world was as well.

Such things matter to realise thoroughly, to avoid making the mistake of misplaced trust. You can go for a rewarding, fulfilling and blossoming marriage, then, and trust in Ramakrishna who was asked, "Revered sir, is a man liberated only when he dies on the bank of the Ganges?" Ramakrishna answered, "It is the Knowledge of God alone that gives liberation. The Jnani will certainly attain liberation wherever he may die." [Rap].

Much adversity and no salvation (no liberation) may finally be reaped by being taken in by a parading massa of inconsistencies that might well foster future misfortunes where even the details of your sex-life is guru decreed. Now man and woman were supposed to function above the animals. Savoury autonomy is part of it. Mending one's predominant thoughts to escape from wishful thinking is better than no own future. Allow yourself feelings and feel into fit persons of similar interests as you have. One of them you might want to marry.

Thunder and lightning

As part of the good life, what about the traditional saying, "Avoid an ash, it can save you"? It can be understood in more than one way. In one highly unlikely sense, the ash is the world - in Norse mythology it is the world tree.To derive benefit from a saying, think and assess, ascertain if you can, gauge likelihood and so on, and with Bible sayings too. Is the threat of destroying the world just for scaring people into obedience, for example?

Be that as it may, in Britain it is thought that you improve your chances of survival if you do not seek shelter under it (repeatedly) during thunder and lightning [Dp 255].

Nearly 2000 people yearly are injured by lightning strikes. In the USA between 9-10 percent of them die. Contrary to popular notion, there is no "safe" location outdoors. But shelter is possible in a car.

Common fears hinder clear thinking and staunch inspection and adequate judgement. Now in dealing with teachings, try to detect which are serious teachings and which are flaunted goods, for example.

Much adversity comes on the back of fool's obedience.

If your ideas are appreciated, they may blossom and bear fruit in this world. Cultivate moderation on earth anyhow.

Go on making hay

If you see no fit solution ahead, continue to make hay anyway. Put your talents and other assets to good use. To understand significant things you read, is one form of making hay. Right? To avoid the fate of the carefully milked, used farm animals and martyrs, one has to examine how farm animals and sectarians really live, what the doings are. Some sides of it may surprise you too.

Yet we had better not get overawed or much impressed by the brilliance that is later discarded for what is called higher and better teachings. It is good to be solidly and carefully aligned to the best and fit teachings right from the start.

Here is what Yogananda says he did:

Future . . . no more for me
. . . I swallowed, transmuted all
Into a vast ocean of blood. [Au 129]

Why contain a vast ocean of blood if it can be avoided? Tick in the wood might think it swell, though. Yogananda could have got lots of ticks on his side if they were not swallowed by him.