Meaning: (Rath nabhi ara iva) means similar to the spokes of a wheel, (yasmin rucha) which has Rigveda, knowledge, (Sam) means Samveda, worship (Yasmin Prajanam) which is for the public, for the humans, (Sarva chittam) all the souls (Otam) is felt, (tat se manah) that is my mind (shiv sankalpamastu) should be having auspicious resolutions.
Prose meaning: Oh supreme intellectual God! Bless me that Rigveda, Samveda, Yajurveda and Atharveda should be present in my mind just like the spokes of the wheel and which should contain the pure conscious having the feelings for the public and humans, it should remove my ignorance and always filled with knowledge.
Definition: God is being worshipped to fill the individual’s mind with auspicious thoughts. What does it mean? The mind is filled with resolutions and alternatives. It is very unstable and does not get peace even for a second. Arjuns’ words narrate the difficulty in controlling it and stabilizing it.
The mind travels in all corners. Auspicious and inauspicious resolutions arise in the mind. Everybody knows that inauspicious resolutions are harmful for the interest of the society, nation and the entire mankind. Therefore it is necessary to restrict the flow of such desires, resolutions and bring in only pure and clean thoughts. The first three stages of the mantra describes the qualities of the human mind:
1.Our mind is filled with all the Vedas (knowledge) just like a wheel, which is filled with spokes. Our mind possesses complete knowledge of this world, Supreme world, materialistic world, spiritualistic world , soul and the Supreme Soul. In other words, whatever is associated with the human world.
2.The consciousness of every individual is in the mind. These two qualities of mind may generate doubts. The biggest query that strikes in our mind is that if our mind has the knowledge of entire world, then what is the necessity for education and training? The second doubt is that spiritual knowledge is considered to give salvation to the soul. A person who has the collective knowledge of soul and supreme soul gets salvation. If human mind possesses this knowledge, then why does he experience happy and sorrow things? Why does he undergo so much of pain and agony? Why does he overcome struggle in life? The biggest question is that why does he has to pray to develop auspicious resolutions in his mind? We have to fulfill the purpose for which the God has created us and find answers to our queries. We have to first understand the human mind. What is mind? Indian spiritual Gurus have described it as a part of our inner soul. Inner soul is collection of intelligence, soul and ego. Mind is the strength, which our mind thinks off. The soul is the power, which thinks. The capacity to differentiate between right and wrong is intelligence. Ego experiences all these things. This is a very broad classification of inner soul. We should understand that all these four powers are not different from each other, Truth is that they are four different names of consciousness. When our soul performs different tasks, it is known with different names. Few examples will clarify this point.
When the highest official of the district fulfills the duties towards public governance, he is called district administrator. When he gives judicial decision he is called district magistrate. The same person, sitting on the same chair plays two different roles.
Another example, highest judge of district is known with two different names,. When he deals with civil matters he is civil judge and when he hears the criminal cases he is known as sessions judge. Same judge, occupying the same chair is known with two different names. Yet another example, will clarify the point in a better way. Every individual is called with different names, A person can be a professor in the college , he may be a businessman at other time , a traveller while traveling in a plane, car or train, when he is purchasing, he is a customer, he fulfills multiple roles in the family and therefore known with different names. He may be a son, husband, brother, uncle, father, grandfather etc. A person’s name changes with the change in place, position, time relation, and action. The same can be said with relation to the four parts of our inner soul -mind, intelligence, consciousness and ego. However, all the names apply to the consciousness, When the function differs, the name of the consciousness differs. Hence in the above verse, the word ‘mind’ is not used for ordinary mind, it used to represent human consciousness. This human consciousness is a part of world consciousness, which is omnipresent, omnipotent, permanent, immortal and extremely minute in form. It is the treasure trove of all knowledge and science. These streams connect him to the life in the same way as the spokes connect the wheel to its center. The entire knowledge and science of this world rests in the consciousness, which is experienced every moment.
Consciousness of life is expressed, whereas consciousness of the world is hidden. Goswami Tulsidas has expressed this fact in the following way.
The basic consciousness is hidden, present in all directions, simple, happy, it has the knowledge , it bears the knowledge and provides it. Life consciousness is the confused state of mind. This confused state of mind is illusion and the basic consciousness takes the form of life from this illusion, Our religion and spiritual texts, express the same fact in different ways. Illusion, lack of understanding, anger, ignorance (due to excessive darkness of mind) are different names of the confused state of mind. These are basically false, but appear to be true due to ignorance and confusion. Goswami Tulsidas has termed them “Keet” and “:Markat” which means insect and spider respectively. The hunter who catches the parrot, uses a particular kind of stick, which is straight and has a long stick attached to it. He ties a fruit on its end. When the parrot sits on the stick to eat the fruit the stick turns upside down and the parrot also turns upside down. The parrot thinks that the stick has caught hold of it whereas the fact is that it has caught the stick. In this confusion the parrot comes into the trap of hunter.
A similar story about a monkey is also very interesting. There was a monkey, who was very enthusiastic. One day the owner wanted to teach him a lesson. He kept a pot with a small opening in the backyard. He showed a laddu to the monkey and put it inside the pot. Monkey looked here and there, he did not find anybody and thought of taking away the sweet. He put his hand inside the pot and caught hold of laddu and tried to take out his hand form the pot. His hand got stuck inside the pot. If he would leave the laddu he could have removed his hand from the pot. But he did not leave the sweet and thought that the pot had caught hold of his hand. The owner came with a stick and the monkey ran sway with the pot. The situation was very serious. The monkey was still believing that the pot had caught it hand.
Tulsidas has tried to explain these two instances. He says that the consciousness mind has the illusion of false and truth also. He suffers because of this illusion.
Ignorance and illusion is the root cause. We believe that it has combined with the consciousness. Though this knot is not true but it appears to be true. This is illusion. Due to this illusion the human mind fails to understand the knowledge and the man does not experience science. The illusion can be overcome with the knowledge and training of a Guru and can understand the form of knowledge and science. In another instance – take out a burning coal from the fire and keep it aside. After sometime you will see that it is covered with ash and the fire will submerge in the ash. Where did the ash come from? Has it come form somewhere outside? The ash has not come form outside, it is the transformed form of the fire, in which it has submerged. But the ash has covered its basic form of fire. We cannot say that there is no fire at that place, it is there but it is covered with ash. We are able to see only the ash.
Knowledge and science are within the human mind, but it is covered with ignorance and darkness just like the fire ,which is covered with ash. We need the proximity of a guru to wash out this ignorance . As soon as the ash is removed we can see the fire within it. Unless the disillusion does not get removed from human mind, the brighter side will not be visible.We need yog, devotion, (guru’s guidance, knowledge and understanding to remove this cover of illusion. What is the difference between distilled water and sewage water’ Both are of same form, both are water. The only difference is the filth . Distilled water is pure, clean and the sewage water is dirty, filthy. impure. We have to sieve the dirty water to make it clean, we have to carry several water purification processes to clean it. In the same way we have to remove the confusion and filth from our mind to bring life conscious-ness parallel to the basic consciousness. For this purpose we need a Guru, study classical texts and scriptures and take the shelter of yog and devotion.
As far as the second doubt is concerned i.e., how can the souls of all live forms be present in the mind? The above example has clarified this point also. The world consciousness is one and cannot be divided. There is no difference between the people, it only appears to be there. When a thorn hurts us we feel the pain, similar pain is experience by the animals. There can be difference in the intensity of the pain, but the pain is same. There is no difference in the happiness-unhappiness, sorrow-joy, fear-terror at the level of our lives, all the animals from an insect to an elephant there is no difference in experiences.
Therefore it has been said in the mantra that the soul lies in the mind, consciousness and in all the creatures. This is our soul, which contains knowledge-science in the form of spokes of the wheel. The soul should be filled with beneficial resolutions.
Let the soul be removed of all the filth and illusion from the mind So that we can meet the soul in the way the fire becomes visible when the ash is removed. We should be able to remove our ignorance and submerge in the world consciousness. Let us all pray the Supreme God that he fills our mind with auspicious resolutions.
