The Three Root Desires :1.

The necessity to be in a state of accordance, assonance and harmony with the world outside is not merely a requirement on the part of yoga practice; it is essential even for a reasonably comfortable life in this world. The world is not so very unimportant as to deserve our neglect totally or to assign to it a kind of secondary importance in relation to our own self.


I mentioned previously that the world is called the secondary self, the gaunatman, in the sense that it is something that is foisted upon our personality by an involvement of our consciousness in a very specific manner. Most people cannot be sure as to how they are involved in this world. Everything is taken for granted, usually. That something is happening in the world, and we are seeing it happening, and we have to do something with it, is a crude, rustic way of interpreting things. But things do not unnecessarily or randomly happen in the world, so we should not take them lightly.

The world's importance arises on account of our consciousness being involved in it. The content of consciousness is what is important—or rather, the very existence of a thing is conditioned by the extent of involvement of our consciousness in it. If the consciousness is withdrawn from a thing, it does not exist for consciousness.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ...