Having declared about the great qualities
of a human being, now, the Lord proceeds to list down qualities of those who
are exactly opposite to the men having the great qualities, as explained in the
3 earlier verses
Verse 4
Hypocrisy, arrogance,
self-conceit, harshness and also anger and ignorance, belong to one who is born
in a demoniacal state, O Arjuna!
Dambhaḥ is putting on a show—making
a show of that which is really not there.
Dambhaḥ is a show of something which is not
there, that is, Hypocrisy.
Hypocrisy is, certainly, one of the cheapest
poses assumed by the vicious. To them, all their superficial glow of goodness
and purity, of religiosity and sincerity are but attractive hoods to cover
their deadly motives and ugly intentions.
These are men who are not endowed with Trikarana
Shuddhi.
They think something, speak something else and
act in a totally different way.
Darpaḥ is pride over something
which is already there. So, either way there is some show. The only difference
is that in one case there is nothing and in the other case there is something,
but it is a big demonstration, adumbration and advertisement of one’s great
importance.
It is difficult to sometimes
understand, which one of these qualities come first in such beings.
They exhibit hypocrisy because
they have pride or the inner pride makes them Hypocrites?
Abhimāna is
being intensely self-conscious, always thinking of oneself, always looking in
the mirror, being fond of oneself, and imagining that all people are thinking
of us only, while nobody is thinking of us.
This arises out of the basic
ignorance, Avidya, ignorance about
one’s true nature as SELF.
Man forgets he is divine, so, it
must follow that he is a human being with a body, with a mind, with an
intellect.
Whatever he thinks himself to be,
it is but natural that he is conscious about that identity and goes out of way
to nurture and cherish that identity.
Krodhaḥ is anger. Lord has given the
qualities in such a manner that one obviously leads to the other.
When a self-conceited, arrogant,
hypocrite, conscious and thinking always about one’s physical identity, one’s
own preferences, likes, dislikes etc., when he looks at the world
around him and whenever he finds that the world's estimate of him is different
from his own estimate of himself, he revolts within and hence his wrath (Krodha) at everything around him.
Pāruṣyam is
cruelty, a cruel nature. We feel very happy at the suffering of other people.
Even if we do not actually commit an act of cruelty, we would like it to be
committed by somebody else. Or if we ourselves do it, it is still better.
Needless to say, it is the
combination of all earlier qualities that makes a man cruel by nature.
Anger follows from conscious about
one’s physical identity or ego, when the society or a part of society does not
accept our nature.
And, to those who do not accept us
the way we have understood ourselves to be, cruelty crops in. We tend to
inflict cruel acts directly on those who condemn our ego, our nature or, if
that is not possible, we show our cruelty to some other beings who have to
helplessly accept our cruel nature. If they do not get human beings, they go
the extent of being cruel even to the horses/cows etc. which they maintain at
their place.
Ajñānaṁ means
ignorance, which is the basis of all topsy-turvy perception of things and wrong
evaluation of the world—a lack of spiritual knowledge.
He knows not himself, that he is ignorant of the
scheme of the world around him, and consequently, he is blind to the right
relationship that he should maintain with the world around him.
This ignorance of oneself and one's relationship
with the things and beings around is the secret cause that generally forces one
to revolt against the environments and act quixotically.
These are qualities of
human beings who behave like demons, a pain-giver, killer, exploiter and
destroyer. The good qualities and the undivine qualities are, therefore,
characterizations of human beings.
Love.
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