The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity- 3.5. Swami Krishnananda

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04/03/2020.
Chapter 3: The Aranya Parvam of the Mahabharatam-5.

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1.

#As I gave a homely example, it would not be possible for the husband to suddenly kick away the wife and go to a meditational mood. He has some duty to the house. The house is this body and everything that is there, and the furniture of this personality, our property, is not easily forsaken with impunity. I do not say that everyone should pass through this stage of wilderness, but mostly everyone passes through that. 

##Everyone falls into a pit, and then wakes up. “Oh, I’m sorry. Here is a pit. I shall not go in this direction.” But we will know it only after falling, not before. Nobody can instruct us not to go there. Desires, instincts and impulses are irrational, like naughty children. 

###They will not listen to any advice, and we have to fall and break our neck. Then we will say, “I made a mistake. In future I will not go there.”

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2.

*Then what happens? 

#In spiritual life what is required is sincerity, honesty of purpose, and a genuineness of acquisition. They say there is nothing else required except that. Yet, even very sincere souls are sometimes put to a hard test. We cannot say that the Pandavas were not sincere. 

##They were very sincere, good souls, but they had to undergo this difficulty. What a hardship!

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3.

#In one place, Kunti prays to the Lord to express the troubles all her children had to pass through and the mysterious way in which God’s help came to their succour. 

*And in the end, old Bhishma regretfully states, 

##“What a pity, my dear people! You are good souls, with great mastery in warfare, indomitable strength, great learning, and a person like Krishna as your friend. With all that, you had to suffer untold misery in life. Indeed, mysterious is fate. Providence is difficult to understand.” 

###This is what Bhishma uttered in the end. With such security and facility, such hardship had to be faced and could not be avoided.

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4.

#All of us, all spiritual seekers, are basically good persons. 

##A sincerely aspiring spiritual seeker is a great asset to this Earth. They are what we call the salt of the earth. Such people are rare to find. 

###A soul that seeks satisfaction in a super-mundane reality, and longs only for that as the only worthwhile thing, is a great manifestation of force, a divinity on Earth. 

####And Yudhisthira stood for that ideal of super-mundane aspiration and righteousness, what we call the righteousness of the kingdom of God, but that righteousness also had to tread the path of thorns. 

*Why should it be like that? 

**Even today, people are not able to understand why such good souls should have been exiled into the forest. For what fault were they exiled?

To be continued ...

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