Читать книгу The Three Energies. The Forgotten Canons of Health and Harmony - Rami Bleckt - Страница 16

The guna of ignorance is practically never needed and has to be avoided and ignored.

Why does it have to be avoided? As previously mentioned, this energy is similar to a nuclear weapon: once under its influence, destruction and ruin immediately follow. Just consider how much time and resources are needed to manufacture, for example, a Mercedes or BMW. Huge institutions are involved in this – two hundred and fifty thousand employees work for BMW in Germany only! And now, think of how much energy and time are needed to destroy a new car? One wise Ayurvedic doctor once told me, “Everything bad in this world happens quickly and unexpectedly.”

Recently I had a conversation with one acquaintance that lives in northern Israel. There was some trouble in his family: he had to go to hospital due to a bad cardiogram result, even though for many years he had enjoyed good health and used to work at least twelve hours a day. Even while being in hospital, while receiving phone calls from colleagues, he would talk only about his job. He was completely oblivious to the cause of his illness and had little interest in changing his lifestyle. This is the typical attitude of someone in passion, and if passion is not transformed to goodness it degrades to ignorance.

Ignorance in the form of diseases, scandalous break-ups in relationships, free, burglary and accidents generally come into our lives quickly and unexpectedly. If we are wise and sattvic, we will be able to notice the signs that imply their approach, and avoid them easily through a proactive lifestyle and mentality. Even the situations that come due to karma and are unavoidable, we can accept with gratitude, tranquility and love; thus by the influence of sattva, we can come out from a bad situation as a winner. There have been many great politicians and military leaders who were able to turn their mistakes and losses into great victories.

One of the signs of ignorance is performing useless and meaningless activities: checking emails ten times a day, pointless chattering on the phone, watching the 384th episode of a TV series, as well as any aimless and meaningless activity and inactivity. “There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all,” stated Peter Drucker, a management specialist.

Ignorance is dangerous and must be avoided at any cost. Even two minutes of association with an ignorant person can later cause one to unexplainably become aggressive, fatigued or ill seriously.

Despite all this, ignorance is also needed to some extent. For example, correct sleeping (sleep as a state of consciousness belongs to ignorance), demolishing old buildings, etc.

We are composed of an eternal spirit, souls that are beyond the gunas and transcendental in nature, yet we are within material bodies which are tamasic (ignorant) in nature. Some may find this statement offensive: How is it that my body or the body of my loved ones are in ignorance when we have such beautiful eyes, nails and hair? Undoubtedly, the eyes are the mirror of the soul and if a person is spiritually advanced, in sattva, then their eyes are truly attractive. But if they were to be plucked out and put on a plate, it would be impossible to enjoy them anymore. Regarding hair and nails – Judaism says that if a pregnant woman walks on nails, she will suffer a miscarriage. In Vedic culture it is believed that if a hair falls into food, all the food is contaminated and should be thrown away.

Just imagine what would happen to our body if we forgot to brush our teeth or did not wash ourselves for a few days. We would stink and our friends would pray that we keep our mouth closed. Similarly, if we are in tamas (selfish, jealous, greedy), even if we brush our teeth, we will still give of a foul odor when we talk. Modern research shows that if one lives for sixty years, twenty years of these are spent sleeping, four years going to the toilet and even more for eating. Our physical body requires all this time, and usually the lower our consciousness the more it requires; yet as soon as the soul leaves the body, the body begins to rot and decompose.