Downward (Lectures)

Expressions researched:
"downward" |"downwards"

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

Introduction to Gitopanisad (Earliest Recording of Srila Prabhupada in the Bhaktivedanta Archives):

Now, this material world is described in the Fifteenth chapter of the Bhagavad-gītā as a tree which has got its root upwards, ūrdhva-mūlam. Have you experience of any tree which has its root upwards? We have got this experience of a tree, root upwards by reflection. If we stand on the bank of a river or any reservoir of water, we can see that the tree on the bank of the reservoir of water is reflected in the water as trunk downwards and the root upwards. So this material world is practically a reflection of the spiritual world. Just like the reflection of the tree on the bank of a reservoir of water is seen downwards, similarly, this material world, it is called shadow. Shadow. As in the shadow there cannot be any reality, but at the same time, from the shadow we can understand that there is reality. The example of shadow in the, shadow of water in the desert, suggests that in the desert there is no water, but there is water. Similarly, in the reflection of the spiritual world, or in this material world, there is undoubtedly, there is no happiness, there is no water. But the real water, or the actual happiness, is in the spiritual world. The Lord suggests that one has to reach that spiritual world in the following manner, nirmāna-mohā.