Three Areas Where The Asura Fails To See Arrangement In The Background

“According to the law of karma, a man takes his birth in a high family, or becomes rich, or very well educated, or very beautiful because of good work in the past. The demoniac thinks that all these things are accidental and due to the strength of his personal ability. He does not sense any arrangement behind all the varieties of people, beauty, and education. Anyone who comes into competition with such a demoniac man is his enemy. There are many demoniac people, and each is enemy to the others. This enmity becomes more and more deep-between persons, then between families, then between societies, and at last between nations.” (Shrila Prabhupada, Bhagavad-gita, 16.16 Purport)

Download this episode (right click and save)

The asura can’t make heads or tails of anything. Since they refuse to accept the spotless authority that is the Vedas, they are left to their own experiences, which are limited. The same with the brainpower gifted to even the most widely recognized scholar or scientist.

A wise person accepts information from authority through hearing. For instance, if the parents tell the child to not put the hand in fire, the instruction should be accepted. The less intelligent person will make a test for themselves. They will place the hand in fire and get burned. Of course, even this is not perfect information. The same experiment will have to be repeated many times until a conclusion is reached, one that could have been accepted at first from the authority figure.

The asura is left to speculate about different aspects of nature. Where there is evidence of a higher arrangement in the background, the demon-like person, who is strongly against God, is unable to see properly.

1. People

No two people are alike. Not even supposedly identical twins. They can pass for each other in adulthood, but the discerning eye is able to see the difference in identity. Indeed, the appearance may be similar, but there are still two separate brains, which causes divergence in desires, preferences, dispositions, natures and the like.

This difference is due to a higher arrangement. If a man and a woman unite to bring a new person into this world, there is no way to guarantee what that person will look like. There is no way to assure what occupation will be followed in adulthood, how they will handle the threefold miseries, and whether or not the intelligence will be sufficient for entering complex fields in science and technology.

2. Beauty

There is the saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” The idea is that what I find to be beautiful, you may not share the sentiment. This is also true because not every person appears the same way. There are different features to the face. Some people are more muscular than others. These differences are not due to a random collision of chemicals. There is some higher force at work in the background.

3. Education

Just because both parents are doctors does not mean that the children will be similarly capable when they grow up. Not every person excels in the same way. Different teaching methods exist for this reason. People have their own way that they learn best.

The areas of variety extend to practically every aspect of nature. If there were no higher arrangement in the background, then everything would be the same. There is also intelligence to consider. Objects such as fire have known and discernable properties. The reaction of fire with different objects is predictable. There is sameness. There is a guarantee of certain outcomes to result based on injecting certain conditions into an experiment.

Much time in speculation could be saved by consulting Vedic teachings. The reason there are varieties in people is because every individual is different. They are fragments of the spiritual energy, emanating from the Supreme Spirit.

ममैवांशो जीवलोके जीवभूतः सनातनः।
मनःषष्ठानीन्द्रियाणि प्रकृतिस्थानि कर्षति।।

mamaivāṃśo jīvaloke jīvabhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ।
manaḥṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛtisthāni karṣati।।

“The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal, fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind.” (Lord Krishna, Bhagavad-gita, 15.7)

As those sparks enter the manifest world with a kind of covering, there are varieties within beauty and education, as well. The three modes of material nature combine to form a type of suit, worn temporarily, that is identified as a species. Even within the same species there are varieties, as the combination of goodness, passion and ignorance is not identical.

The higher arrangement in the background has also created a way to escape having to accept such suits permanently. There is something known as the svarupa, which is the real form of the spirit soul, manifesting when in the liberated state. That achievement is possible through dedicated practice in sanatana-dharma. It is for this purpose that the representative of the Supreme kindly descends to this world to disseminate the most confidential and important information.

In Closing:

Despite so much variety to find,

Asura to the truth is blind.

Not accepting in background a force,

Only chance or personal effort of course.

People, education and beauty sets three,

Hand of Divine there not to see.

Through eyes of guru’s vision lens corrective,

Svarupa returned through bhakti path elective.