The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity- 3.3. Swami Krishnananda

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10/02/2020.

Chapter 3: The Aranya Parvam of the Mahabharatam-3.

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1.

I was casually mentioning yesterday that we live in different levels of personality, not only in one level. We live in all the fourteen worlds at the same time. We are the physical body – yes, right. We are also the sense organs; that is also right. We are the prana, yes. We are the mind; that is also true. And we have a reason, an intellect to think. That is also correct. Now, all these layers of our personality are valid expressions and reasonable levels, requiring justifiable attention. We cannot over-emphasise any particular level. 

Sometimes, in an over-enthusiastic mood, we are likely to lay excessive emphasis on one particular level. It is said that harmony is yoga, and it should be understood as harmony in every blessed thing – harmony in eating, harmony in daily routines, harmony in social behaviour, harmony in your performance of office work or vocational duty, and also harmony in your duty to the inner layers of your own personality. When it is said that yoga is balance, there is a wide meaning inside this statement. 

#Anything can be stuffed into it. Balance is yoga. “All life is yoga,” say some yogis.

#Sri Aurobindo was fond of emphasising that all life is yoga. What is meant by saying that all life is yoga? 

And if, at the same time, we say that yoga is balance, then all life is balance. It can be any kind of balance. It is a very great joy to believe that life is balance, and we are not supposed to upset the balance.

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2.

#In the adolescence of spiritual aspiration certain turmoils of the psyche may manifest themselves in different degrees of expression, and they can be of any shape : 

##one thing in me, one thing in you, and in different persons it is different things. 

###Each one has to write for one’s own satisfaction, at least in one’s own mind, an autobiography of one’s own self. You need not write a book. 

#At least you may be aware of your own autobiography : 

*How was I when I was a little boy? 

*How was I when I was a little girl? 

*What was I doing? What was I thinking? 

*Am I thinking the same thing now? 

*Why should I change my mind now? 

#Traverse your thought through the whole gamut of the life that you have lived from your childhood days, as far as you can remember in your mind. Much of it you may remember, and some minor details you may not remember. You will be surprised at the varieties of experience that you have passed through, and the multitudinous variety of your likes and dislikes, many of which have been dropped as meaningless but which appeared very meaningful in earlier days. 

*“When I was fourteen or fifteen, what were my likes and dislikes? 

*Are they the same today when I am fifty or sixty? 

*Why have they changed? 

*Was I right at that time, or am I right now?” 

#Compare your own status in different levels of your advance in psychological development. This is what I mean by saying to write your own autobiography in your mind, and judge yourself. 

*“What has happened to me today, and what are the justifications for my outlook today as it is?”

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3.

#What are the difficulties of a spiritual seeker? 

These are the difficulties the Pandavas had to face. They had even to be exiled into the forest. The third Parva of the Mahabharata is called the Aranya Parva, or the Vana Parva. The exuberance of a tentative placement in luxury and security gave place to a sudden bolt from the blue, unexpectedly come from the skies, as it were, and the royal prince seated on the throne found himself in the thick of the forest. 

##Oh, what a pity was Yudhisthira’s fate!

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To be continued ....

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