There are three sections that the Vedas explain and directly
address the basic kinds of problems:
Karma Kanda: the
ritualistic portion is prescribed to clear the impurity of the mind.
Upasana Kanda: deals
with worship and meditation and helps deal with restlessness of the mind and
Jnana Kanda: helps us
attain highest knowledge.
Karmas when done
with understanding will clear it of the
impurities of the mind is the idea of:
what limits us from understanding. They are the actions of what we do,
for example doing ritualistic prayers clear the impurities of the mind. Because
of human nature, the mind perceives what it gets. Karma Kanda has to do with
the perception and the response we give to that. To help us understand this
further, Ram uncle gave us an example of how we pre judge a person based on
color, age, what a person wears etc. We can change this response by performing
actions which having a good intent.
Upasana Kanda helps
us overcome the restlessness of the mind and how you get close to the supreme
being. In this phase you are asking yourself what am I trying to achieve? The
scriptures say to control your mind you should meditate or think about God (we
had done this in the beginning of class). The last phase that we learned about
was Jnana Kanda, when you achieve Jnana you are with God. To achieve this you
must get rid of all the ignorance in your mind. We also talked about
perceptions and their responses. They are driven by our desires. There are two
things that the Vedas tell us, “raga” and “dvesa”-which mean likes and dislikes
respectively.
We concluded
class today with getting our Likhita Japa books. These notebooks are for us to
write in and put in the ashram. They are put in front of the idol to bring more
power to the deity, help us quieten our mind and help us focus.- Ameya Ivaturi
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