Transition States

Bhagavad Gita As It Is

Srila Prabhupada

Chapter 15. The Yoga of the Supreme Person

Chapter 15, Verse 1.
The Blessed Lord said: There is a banyan tree which has its roots upward and its branches down and whose leaves are the Vedic hymns. One who knows this tree is the knower of the Vedas.

Chapter 15, Verse 2.
The branches of this tree extend downward and upward, nourished by the three modes of material nature. The twigs are the objects of the senses. This tree also has roots going down, and these are bound to the fruitive actions of human society.

Chapter 15, Verse 3-4.
The real form of this tree cannot be perceived in this world. No one can understand where it ends, where it begins, or where its foundation is. But with determination one must cut down this tree with the weapon of detachment. So doing, one must seek that place from which, having once gone, one never returns, and there surrender to that Supreme Personality of Godhead from whom everything has began and in whom everything is abiding since time immemorial.

In Social Systems Theory bifurcation means branching. In the Vedas the term anga means branch. This process is also called a phase transformation.

According to Butz (1997), “ A system moves from a previous order to a new and more complex order by virtue of a chaotic transitory period.”

According to Prigogine and Stengers (1984), this fluctuation or singular moment or bifurcation is inherently impossible to predict as to whether the transition will be towards higher states of order or disintegrate into chaos.

Hence, the system may be reacting to external, internal, vertical, and horizontal pressures as it attempts to survive.

Transitions are weak links in a system whether it is an organism or level of human organization.

One can observe that a baby calf or deer may have only seconds or minutes to get it’s legs after birth to avoid the wild predators that are only meters away.

Gaudiya Vaishnavism has a very long lineage. It has been nearly extinct several times as previously to the time when Krishna spoke the Bhagavad Gita to Arjuna.

There has been many angas or branches since Bhaktivinoda revived Gaudiya Vaishnavism just over 100 years past.

One may observe the different camps diksa – ritvik, and mathas as the Caitanya Nsringha and IPBSYS or Pure Bhakti.

There are several lines operating under what is diksa ISKCON currently.