DISCRIMINATION- ATTACHMENTS AND AVERSIONS

Extracts of Holly Gita translated by Chinmayananda

DISCRIMINATION The blessing, because of which man is considered superior to animals, is his divine faculty of discrimination. An intellect, strengthened by its own intrinsic capacity to distinguish between the Real and the unreal, the right and the wrong, is the mighty instrument of self-development in man. When this instrument is destroyed, man comes to behave in no better way than a biped animal; panting on the path of existence, bullied by its own lower instincts of miserable passions and low appetites. aturally, he fails to ma!e any true gain out of his life"s chances, and finally destroys himself. ATTACHMENTS AND AVERSIONS Attachments and aversions of the sense-organs for their respective sense-ob#ects are instictive, and natural, in every one. The sense-ob#ects by themselves are incapable of bringing any wave of sorrow or agitation into the "within." We get agitated and disturbed not at our senseorgans, but in our mind. The mind gets disturbed because, when the stimuli reach the mind, it accepts, in its inherent mischief, certain types of stimuli as $%%&, and their opposites as 'A&. Thereafter, it gets attached to the stimuli it experiences as good and develops an aversion for the opposite type of stimuli. ow the mind is prepared to suffer the agonies of existence in the sorrowful plurality. Whenever it comes in contact with the infinite number of ob#ects outside, it pants to court the things of its own attachment and labours to run away from the things of its own aversion. This excitement of the mind is truly "its tragedy."