Vice and Virtue

Virtue is a problem to liberation just as much vice is.  One must rise above both.  There is a story in the Bible about Abraham who was given instructions by God to take his son to the top of Mount Sinai and sacrifice his son.  Just before he was about to sacrifice his son, God told him to stop.

To all human understanding this is wrong and God should never have asked this.  However, the test was two fold

1) A test of true and total surrender to the will of God

2) A test to see if even while performing the act with surrender, if there was any reaction in his mind that this action is wrong.   If there was a reaction and judgement value of wrong, then one has not truly gone beyond virtue.

Of course, this cannot be understood or explained unless one is on the threshold of overcoming Sattwic guna. 

It took me a long time to realize this.  After having done some culturally questionable action, my mind was constantly nagging me that I had done something wrong and I should be punished.  This reaction is wrong and one has to make an effort to rise above the concept of virtue and vice.   However, this concept of “sinned” can only be eliminated if one is truly immersed and God and does only those actions approved by God.

Yogananda has described that during meditation, if one is sufficiently advanced one can see a triangle.  The top of the triangle will be yellow referring to Sattwic guna.

The lower left is red displaying Rajas guna and the lower right is black referring to Tamas gune.   Usually, one color is brighter than the other suggesting a predominance in one particular guna.  When one is on the verge of liberation, all the colors are equally bright and the center shows a brilliant white light.

Last night while I was strugging to fight the emotions of I have sinned and I should be punished, I repeatedly saw the white light of God throughtout the night.  The more my eyes were fixed and gazed above, my prana and mind would withdraw from the body and I would see the white light.  Again and again, the emotions I have sinned and should be punished came up and brought me down to the physical universe.

I tried again in deep meditation to slowly overcome it

An advanced disciple is called a Hansa.  Just like the hansa is able to differentiate between milk and water, the disciple has to be able to discern between the pure vibration of the spirit which gets mixed with one of the 3 gunas in the agna chakra.  With every spiritual vibration, it stimulates the gunas too.  At the agna chakra one  has to be very alert and differentiate them and only focus ones gaze on the pure vibration of the spirit.  When he can do this, the disciple is called a hansa. 

This is very similar to the explanation given by Sanatakumar to Narada muni about the course of events a disciple has to follow for liberation.  For a more detailed explanation, the reader is referred to the book written by Rajmani Trigunait.