Prof. Anil Kumar: Swami! In reality, the entire human race is one and the same, its basic core being divinity. Why then do we not react in the same way? Why do we think and act differently?

Bhagavan: Humanity may be one, but people act in different ways. No two are alike. This is the law of nature. Thought, words and actions depend on time and circumstances. Here is an example. A tender fruit is sour in its taste; an unripe fruit is astringent, while a ripe fruit is sweet. All the three are the stages of the same fruit, aren’t they! It is sour, then astringent and finally sweet. How does it happen? Why? The change of taste is due to the passage of time. No one has filled the ripe fruit with sugar. So, I say yetti matiyo, atti gati; yetti sthitio, atti sampatti (Telugu verse). ‘As is the mind, so is the destiny; as is the position, so is the affluence.’

In human life, there are three important aspects, ‘doing’, body; ‘thinking’, mind; ‘being’, Atma. Body desires, mind thinks and atma experiences. You should have broadmindedness. You should never be narrow-minded. When examination results are published, why don’t you feel happy that so many have passed the examinations? If in the spirit of a large heart, you look for your result, you will definitely find your number in the newspaper along with those of other candidates. It is but narrow-­mindedness if you look only for your own number unmindful of others.

Another example: Suppose you feel happy that in a group photo everyone has figured nicely. If you then look at your own figure, you will be known to be broadminded.

Human life is a combination of three attributes, trigunas. The three work in perfect union as the three wings of a fan. Just as a chutney is made of tamarind, salt and chillies well ground, so also human life has trigunas, well mixed. You also must have known pan, which Indians chew. It has three ingredients, betel leaf, betel nut and lime, of green, brown and white colours respectively. When the ingredients of three different colours are chewed, you get the red colour.

Similarly, in human life all the three gunas are intermixed. But spiritually, basically and fundamentally, the core of the human being is sat, ‘being’, cit, ‘awareness’ and ananda, ‘bliss’. Sat and cit together confer ananda.

An example: Here are two separate things, water and sugar. When you mix the two it is neither sugar nor water, but syrup. So also water is sat, sugar is cit, forming the syrup ananda. The triune trigunas (three attributes) and the basic nature of sat, cit, and ananda mixed with deha, body, manas mind, and buddhi intellect, interacting with pravrtti, the external world, lead to anekatva, that is diversity or multiplicity or plurality.

Source: ‘Satyopanisad’ by Prof. Anil Kumar Kamaraju