Verse-32
Chapter 18 — Moksha Sanyasa Yoga
Verse 32
🕉 Original Sanskrit Shloka
adharmaṁ dharmamiti yā manyate tamasāvṛtā
sarvārthānviparītāṁśca buddhiḥ sā pārtha tāmasī
🕉 English Translation
Jis akal par chaya agyan ho,
Samjhe dharma hee jo adharma ko.
Nikale arth ulta har baat ka,
Isee buddhi ko tamasi hai kaha.
📜 Translation
English
O Parth! The intellect enveloped by tamoguna which perceives unrighteousness as righteousness and similarly sees all things in a perverted manner-that intellect is tamasic.
The satvic intellect has the ability to make distinction between right and wrong and the inspiration to adopt the right, in rajasic intellect there is the inability to make right distinction, but here the nature of tamasic intellect has taken a distorted form.
Not to be able to make the right distinction is a different matter but in accordance with one's values and stubbornness to hold the wrong as right and also obstinately exhort others to accept it in the same manner is the baseness of life. For virtuous actions like keeping religious company, service, remembrance of the Lord, etc. there is no time but when it is enquired as to why time is being spent in playing cards, or watching obscene indecent scenes on television then the reply is received that it is done for passing time. There is no interest in reading holy scriptures, contemplation, good conduct but the reading of journals, magazines and novels which have a contrary effect on the character is considered to be the sign of modernity! Uselessly singing and dancing, indecency, bad scenes, scenes which break the bounds of decorum, to give plays the name of cultural programme, to indulge in conduct which goes against religion or religious traditions, to believe in self-acknowledged limits of decorum, in the name of secularism for one's own personal and political selfish ends-all this comes within the preview of this. To call righteousness and the signs of righteousness, propensities etc. as hypocrisy, to glorify the situations, devoid of righteousness-this is the state of tamasic intellect.