Philosophies of India

SR No.: 007309
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
Publication Year: 1953
Total Pages: 709
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 34 MB

Page 418

BHAGAVAD GITA
of those of little understanding: the worshipers of the gods go to the gods, but My devotees come to Me.'
"
Definite ideas, circumscribed notions and forms, the various personalities of the numerous pantheon of divinities, are all regarded as so many aspects, or reflections, of the shades of man's not-knowing-better. They all convey some truth-approximately and with varying shades of imperfection; yet they are themselves parts and effects of the cosmic play of māyā, representing its operation in the sphere of the intellectual and emotional organs. They share in the qualities of the gunas. For example, mankind's purer, more spiritual conceptions of the divinities originate where there is a predominance of sattva guņa (clarity, goodness, purity); wrathful, irascible, emotional views of God (where the deity displays an excess of activity) spring from the impulses of rajas guņa; while semidivine beings of malevolent character-the gods of death, disease, and destruction -are born of the darkness of tamas guna. The aspects and personifications of the divine essence will seem to vary according to the prevalence of one or another of the gunas in the nature of the devotee; and thus it is that the deities of the various races, culture periods, and levels of society conspicuously differ from each other. The Supreme Being itself, in its absolute aloofness from the interplay of the gunas--though itself their source-is far from stooping to interfere with the particular propensities of the differing human types, but rather encourages and fortifies every pious inclination, of whatsoever kind, since of every human being it is itself the inner force.
"Whatsoever devotee seeks to worship whatsoever divine form (rupa) with fervent faith. . . ." The "form" (rupa) is the phenomenal manifestation of the transcendent divine essence in the garb of a divine personality, a godly individuality, and this is worshipful because accommodated exactly to the worshiping mind and heart. It may be a divinity of the 96 Ib. 7. 21-23.
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