Slokam 3

The Paramathma ignores Hiranyaksha. He goes about securing the uplift of Earth. Hiranyaksha does not believe that the Boar is the Paramathma.  Hiranyaksha tells Narada that “this is only a forest animal”. The Paramathma then decides that Hiranyaksha is asking for trouble. He sets down mother earth securely, and decides to take on the challenge of battle.

This confrontation of the Paramathma with Hiranyaksha is not only a  symbolic enactment of the conflict between our ego and ignorance on the one hand and the complete illumination of the Paramathma.

At a higher level, this confrontation represents the imbalance of the gunas within us.  The Paramathma represents the complete balance of the gunas. Hiranyaksha represents the ascendancy of the rajasic guna.  The battle between the imbalanced gunas manifests as our karma or sequencing of life’s events. 

Our contribution towards progress is the attainment of the objective of balancing the gunas.  This balancing is not the function of the mind. It is the function of consciousness.  The gunas reside in our consciousness, but manifest through the mind, in the form of the events of life.   These events that occur are fed back to us through the senses.  Using this feedback,  we have to consciously recognize that the events are caused by the imbalance in our gunas. Using the information we have to adjust the balance between rajasic, tamasic and sattvic gunas.  The function of the mind is to interpret the events and understand which guna is in ascendancy, and which is being suppressed (or submerged).  It may be that sattvic guna is the ideal state to attain and therefore it should be in dominance during our lifetime.

However, any imbalance in the gunas will manifest as the ego or ignorance within us. So the ultimate objective is for the consciousness to be completely freed from being caught up in battle between the gunas. Which means that the gunas must be in a complete state of balance.  Once this state is attained, the forces of life that cause the disturbance to this balancing act, will immediately come to an end and our consciousness will attain a state of permanence and tranquility.

May we invoke the Paramathma’s guidance in continuing the onward journey towards attainment of eternity and tranquility.