Translation and Commentary
by Jayaram V
sattvānurūpā sarvasya śraddhā bhavati bhārata
śraddhāmayoyam puruso yo yacchraddhah sa eva sah
Translation
sattva-anurupa = according to sattva; sarvasya = in everyone; sraddha
= faith;
bhavati = manifests; bharata = O descendent of Bharata; sraddha = faith; mayah =
made up of; ayam
= this;
purusah = personl; yah = who; yat = that; sraddhah = faith; sah = that; eva
= surely; sah = he.
Meaning
"O descendent of Bharata, faith manifests in
everyone (or everywhere) according to sattva. A person is made up of faith only.
He is surely what his faith is.
Commentary
Sattvānurūpā sarvasya
śraddhā bhavati: Sradda means
trust, faith, belief, or confidence. A
person's interest and inclinations in doing
things and accomplishing goals depend upon
his beliefs and faith. We have heard in the
previous verse that three different forms of
faith manifest in beings according to their
essential nature. However, which of the
three gunas are responsible for this? What
determines our faith and spiritual behavior?
Know for sure that it is sattva, neither
rajas nor tamas. In shaping our character
and our behavior, rajas and tamas play a
negative role, while sattva plays a positive
role. Sattva promotes goodness and divinity
in us, while rajas and tamas suppress them.
Thus a person is divine to the extent he has
sattva in him. If sattva is completely
suppressed a person becomes demonic in his
thinking and actions. What happens when you
remove light completely from a room? It
becomes totally dark, so dark that you
cannot see see anything. The same situation
develops in the consciousness of a person
who loses his sattva completely. He becomes
demonic, devoid of any divinity or humanity.
He cannot discern things clearly. as his
mind becomes clouded with dark and evil
thoughts. We hear about such people
everyday, people who commit heinous crimes
without any remorse. Have you ever heard
about people who would not repent even when
they are on a death row? Those who have lost their sattva or
goodness completely fall into this category.
Such people have little chance of
redemption, unless they open themselves to
light and wisdom and show willingness to
change themselves.
If sattva is partially suppressed a
person becomes this worldly and displays a
mixture of divine, human and demonic
qualities. Most of the humanity in the world
belong to this category, who are somewhat
religious, somewhat human and somewhat
devilish. When sattva is fully predominant
and the other two gunas are completely
suppressed a person becomes perfect in the
practice of yoga and achieves liberation.
These are rare individuals, whom we revere
as saints and sages. They are born
occasionally to let the world know that
human beings have the ability to become
divine through self-effort and
self-transformation. Through their own
example, they show us what sattva can do to
us if we are willing to discipline ourselves
and work for our liberation. Through their
lives and actions, they remind us that human
beings have a higher destiny and a greater
role in the times to come.
Śraddhāmayoyam puruso: A
person is made up of his or her faith: this
is a great assertion. A person's life is a
cumulative result of his or her past and
present beliefs. Your beliefs determine how
you relate with yourself and the world in
which you live. "I think therefore I am,”
said a great philosopher. A more appropriate
expression would have been, “I believe
therefore I am." You become what you
continuously think and believe in. Our
thoughts shape our lives; but our thoughts
are in turn shaped by our beliefs. Although
we are rational beings, we are guided mostly
by our beliefs. Pay attention to your own
thoughts and actions for a day and you will
realize how far they are rooted in your
beliefs. A person is a sum total of his or
her beliefs. Our lives are shaped by our
beliefs. On the path of yoga, they become
our obstacles since in the course of our
lives we form a deep attachment with our own
beliefs and cannot just let them go. If you
want to gain perfection on the path of yoga,
at some point of time, you have to let go of
all your beliefs, including your beliefs
about yourself, God and religion. Only then
you can free yourself from the world and its
attractions.
Yacchraddhah sa eva
sah: A person is according
to his or her faith. Faith does not means
only religious faith. It includes your
entire belief system, upon which depend your
worldview and your conception of things.
Since our mental faculties are not equipped
to discern truth entirely, we have to depend
upon our beliefs to fill up the gaps in our
understanding and to make sense of the world.
For the mind, beliefs are a great way to
manage the complexity of our world and
remain focused on the essential aspects of
our survival. From a theological
perspective, our beliefs are the residue of
our past to which we cling because of our
desires, egoism and attachment. If you look
at life in general, you will realize that
most of the conflicts and confusion in our
lives arise from our beliefs. Beliefs
are responsible for conflicts and
differences of opinion, because you can
always dispute beliefs and attach an opinion
or argument to them; where as you cannot do
the same with facts, which speak for
themselves. You may distort facts based upon
your beliefs; but you cannot change the
truth of things. We have so much confusion
and commotion in the world because our
knowledge of the world and things is a
mixture of facts and beliefs and we are
seldom sure of what we know.
Our beliefs are the seeds from which
manifest our karma and our latent
impressions (samskaras). They in turn act as
the seeds for the future course of our lives
and the lives to come. Therefore, if you
want to transform yourself, first you have
to increase sattva and suppress both rajas
and tamas. Secondly, you have to review your
beliefs and know how far they are true and
whether they are based on truth and your own
experiences or rooted in your prejudices and
the social conditioning to which you are
exposed. If you cannot validate your beliefs
by your own experiences, because we cannot
experience everything in a limited lifespan,
then we have to validate them by other
means, such as the knowledge and wisdom you
receive from your guru or the knowledge and
wisdom you find in the scriptures,
especially in the Vedas, which are
considered inviolable by Hindus. If you
discern right beliefs from the wrong ones by
cultivating discriminating intelligence
(buddhi), it will lead you in the right
direction towards light and liberation.
