Scripture makes our sight right by Chaitanya Charan Das
Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 15
Our eyes are among our most used and most relied sources of
perception. To make sense of things and make decisions, we want to see things
and mold our actions accordingly.
Yet these same eyes on which we rely so much can mislead us,
as is encapsulated in sayings such as “all that glitters is not gold” or in
metaphors of animals killing themselves by pursuing mirages. What such sources
of wisdom convey is not that we reject our visual perception, but that we
complement it, indeed, root it in our intelligence. It is our intelligence that
enables us to see right in the sense that our intelligence helps us come to the
right understanding based on our perceptions.
This principle of using our intelligence to make our sight
right applies all the more so the spiritual arena wherein we can see nothing –
neither our own spiritual essence, the soul; nor the immanent spiritual essence
of everything, God. And even our intelligence on its own can’t make much
headway in comprehending these spiritual realities. To grasp them, we need to
not only root our sight in our intelligence, but also root our intelligence in
scripture.
When we study scripture diligently and internalize the
worldview taught therein, we infer unhesitatingly from visible material
realities to underlying spiritual realities. The Bhagavad-gita (15.11) asserts
that the deluded can’t perceive the soul, neither its transcendent nature nor
its imprisonment in material existence. But the same verse concludes that those
with the eyes of knowledge can see the soul.
To help us perceive thus, scripture offers us not just
intellectual comprehension through its philosophy but also spiritual
realization through its delineation of the process of yoga. Diligent yoga
practice activates our latent spiritual perception, thereby enabling us to
perceive and delight in spirit, thus making our sight eminently right.
No comments:
Post a Comment