Spiritual Message for the Day – The Doctrine of The Bhagavadgita by Sri Swami Krishnananda

Baba Times Digest© | 18 April 2015 21.45 EST | New York Edition

The Doctrine of The Bhagavadgita

Divine Life Society Publication: To Thine Own Self Be True by Swami Krishnananda

The chapters of the Bhagavad Gita may be said to indicate the progressive march of the spiritual seeker by graduated steps towards the achievement of the goal. What one sees in the beginning while looking at things with open eyes is a field of turmoil – a historical conflict and a difference between one thing and everything else.

We see the world in this manner. Everything is at sixes and sevens, everyone distrusts everyone else, everyone wishes to use and utilise everyone else, everyone is suspect about everything outside. Everyone has to guard oneself from every other person, though it is true that one cannot completely ignore the presence of this multitude of the variety of persons and things in the world. This is the picture of the field of battle.

Every moment of time we are facing such a situation. It is an inward battle, manifesting itself as an outward conflict; an irreconcilability within reveals itself as a physical irreconcilability and a practical difficulty. This is what is happening to us every day from morning to night, from moment to moment. We have to be cautious and look around in all directions, noticing what is happening, how we can adjust and adapt ourselves to the movement of conditions around, which are not uniform always, but vary from day to day and sometimes several times even in a single day. We have to face this world of irreconcilability. Why should we face it? Because we are in it. We have entered the field willy-nilly and while we are in the field, we cannot absolve ourselves from the necessity to handle the situation in a requisite manner.

This is what they call the need to perform one's duty. Duty is what we are expected to do under a given condition; therefore, the colour and the contour and structure of duty also changes according to place, time and circumstance. What is duty in this place may not be duty in another place. What is duty at this time may not be duty at another time. What is duty under these prevailing conditions may not be duty under different conditions. Desha, kala, paristhiti (place, time and condition) decide the nature of what we are expected to do, so that we cannot have a textbook of the nature of duty anywhere in the world. We have to use our common sense, our feeling, and our understanding. Understanding is the word that will be underlined when we move forward through the chapters of the Bhagavad Gita. The word buddhi, reason, is emphasised always.

We find that this world is often too much for us. The large army of people, the entire humanity, seems to be facing us, staring at us, and telling us that we should be cautious: Beware! Sometimes we look much smaller than the world, which is larger, like the Kaurava army which is larger than the Pandava group. The world which is objective in its nature occupies a larger area in space and time than our individuality, our personality. We seem to be singly facing the world, which is like a vast ocean in front of us.

While it is emphasised that we have to face the world, we will also feel that it is not an easy affair. How will one person that I am, be able to confront the sea of humanity, this vast world of space and time? Yet we are told again and again to get up and gird up our loins for doing what is necessary. What is necessary? This requires not only a personal understanding within, but also guidance of a specific nature.

We may, in a mood of inadequate understanding of the circumstances prevailing, imagine that we can do something. There are people in the world who feel that they can conquer the whole of nature, face humanity, rule the world, become kings and emperors, dictators. Such feelings some may have, but these are only types of initial enthusiasm.

The world has not come under the control of any dictator finally. It has thrown them all out by producing historical circumstances, political conditions, and social catastrophes. In this situation, where one is not sure of whether it is possible to do anything at all in this world, one can throw down one's arms: "I shall not take up my weapon of effort in any way when now I realise that I am not up to the mark in my relationship with this power of humanity, the world of nature. This is not for me." So goes the defeatist attitude, which overpowers a person after a while, though there was initially a feeling that one could do many things.

Spiritual seekers, who have in the beginning felt a spurt of aspiration, begin to feel now that they can renounce the world and work vigorously for attaining God in this birth itself. This is what Arjuna felt: "Let the Kauravas know who I am."

We can see in the discourses given by Arjuna on the Pandavas' side, described to us in the Udyoga Parva of the Mahabharata, prior to the commencement of the war: "What do they think they are? They do not know the power of my Gandiva. Let me twang my bow and see that their hearts quail." All this was told in the preparatory discussions in an audience, but, when, actually, the confrontation was on hand with the magnitude of the forces in front, the assumed confidence and valour flew like mist before the sun and a totally different mood overpowered the very same person who said he will twang the bow and break the hearts of the enemies.

The field of confrontation judges us. We will know ourselves only when we are faced by the opposite party. When nobody is opposing us, we cannot know what we are. Even the power of God Himself cannot be seen unless we oppose God. There are people who opposed Vishnu, Narayana. Then only He manifested Himself as a ferocious man-lion, Narasimha, or as a Rama or Krishna.

When we are confronting the world, it shows its strength, and we also will show our strength only when we are confronted. When we are losing everything, we will put forth all our energy to save ourselves.

Excerpts from: The Doctine of The Bhagavadgita - To Thine Own Self Be True by Swami Krishnananda

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