The Bhagavadgita – A Synthesis of Thought and Action-7 : Swami Krishnananda

21/04/2019
(Spoken on Gita Jayanti in 1973)
A Synthesis of Thought and Action-7.

If the world is a single unity, of which we are also an integral part, accepted, no object or person in the world relates to us in any personalistic fashion and, therefore, no one in the world can bring us happiness or sorrow. Our individualised happiness or grief is an immediate outcome of our so-called relationship with certain persons and things in the world which ultimately does not exist, and cannot be justified.

The Upanishads speak of the ultimate truth of things. Yo vai bhuma tat sukham: The Plenum is felicity. And what is the Plenum? What is this Bhuma which is the source of real bliss?

The Chhandogya Upanishad tells us:

Where you are not permitted to look on any object as an external something, that is the Supreme Plenum. But where you are drawn down to the level of an individualistic perception of such and such a thing being personally related to you, that is finitude of consciousness. It is not the true nature of things.

 Truth succeeds; untruth will never succeed. And what is the truth? The Plenum is the truth. And what is the Plenum? Wherein you are not to look upon anything as an isolated something or a disjointed object separated from your own existence, that is the Plenum.

If this is the truth, all your pleasures and pains should be untruth. Therefore, Arjuna, pleasure and pain cannot become the standard of judging the rectitude or otherwise of an action. That would be to base the action on a false foundation. You have to base your action on the concept of duty rather than on the concept of pleasure.

To be continued .