Sharanagati

“Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intelligence and false ego—all together these eight constitute My separated material energies. Besides these, O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is another, superior energy of Mine, which comprises the living entities who are exploiting the resources of this material, inferior nature. All created beings have their source in these two natures. Of all that is material and all that is spiritual in this world, know for certain that I am both the origin and the dissolution.”[1]

The natural elements are the first step. Air, heat, earth, water, fire – all these are the basic principles of the constituting parts of our world. These are the gross elements. The body is made up by these gross elements. More than two-thirds of this body is made of water. Then the finer elements are the mind, the intellect and the false ego. They are also like material, but a little bit more delicate. Therefore it is more difficult to control them and they are more powerful also. Whatever you do on a bodily, material platform, that is more or less easy to control. But the mental activities are more difficult to control. We were discussing that often: all these eight different elements – the five gross and three subtle – constitute the lower energy of God. But because they are also coming from divine source, therefore they also should be considered as divine in a final vision. Whatever is taken from matter will return to matter. Body is taken from matter, it will return back to matter. Life or death – that is very close to each other. Life means that matter is organized in a certain way – by some power; and this power is the soul power. When the soul is present, it just exercises its organizing power over matter and the body can function. When this organizing power is missing, the body cannot function. Therefore we should not identify ourselves with the body, because this is only one instrument that is functioning under the direction of our soul. The body is just like the hardware, the instincts and the rules of material life are just like the software and the operator is the soul. So: you live according to the rules through this body. You take the experience. We are living in a world of experience. People usually are not ready to learn through hearing, they want to learn by experience. This is an inferior type of learning. But who is ready to learn after hearing?! It is very rare if somebody is ready to accept a good opinion. I do not know how it is with Bulgarians, but Hungarians…! It is very difficult to impress them with something. They will say “yes” and add “but”. Still it is a little bit better than Indians, because they will say “yes” but act the opposite. So there are different levels of accepting or not accepting. But it does not matter what characteristics different nations have, because we have to control our own present nature – in order to purify our existence. Not to live and judge on the bodily platform, because this is inferior energy, but to come to some higher level. What level? We should come to the superior energy. Ourselves, as spiritual sparks of consciousness, we are always under some influence: influence either of the material energy or the superior energy. It is up to you which control you choose.