Holy Dialogue (Pravachana Vakhyalu):
March 22, 2014: Actions arise out of desires & desires arise out of ignorance.
When a person doesn’t know that he is perfect, he desires to be perfect. This desire is to be satisfied or gratified & hence this turns into actions. Actions are done & to maintain the state of temporary happiness (gained from these actions), the person has to do more actions. Thus actions again tempt the person to desire more & more actions continue. This cycle continues endlessly.
Thus Manu says in Manu Smriti that to remove desire by enjoying them is like pouring ghee into fire to kill the fire!!!!
This ignorance can be removed only through knowledge about oneself. This knowledge is termed as Atma Vidya or Brahma Vidya.
The ritualistic people are termed as Mimamsakaas – people who strongly believe that rituals alone give ultimate Bliss & that these rituals are in themselves efficient to give happiness & that these rituals don’t need any external God for their fruits. Thus these were non-believers of God. They fully believed in the Vedas. The Vedas have two parts – Karma Kanda or ritualistic portion and the Jnaana Kanda or knowledge portions. These Mimamsakaas believe in the ritualistic portion. The knowledge portion comprises the Upanishads which tell that any action is limited and hence the results of those actions are also limited.
If a person does good deeds, then he attains Swarga or heaven. But even the heaven is not Eternal. Once the punyaas of the person are exhausted, he returns back to Earth.
The Eternal happiness is inherent in man. Each person is divine and is the Self of the nature of Nitya Suddha Buddha Mukta – ever pure, ever enlightened and ever liberated. But this Reality of one’s own nature is not known because of ignorance. This ignorance has to be removed. This is the ultimate goal of human birth.
---Excerpts from Sri Bhagavad-Gita