Commentary on the Srimad Bhagavad Gita- Discourse 3.2. - Swami Krishnananda

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10/04/2020.

Discourse 3: The Second Chapter Begins – Sanhkya Yogam -2.

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1.

I hinted yesterday that the spiritual seeker mostly finds himself in this predicament when he cannot handle the world properly. In one condition of the mind, the world is an object of delight and enjoyment—as a property. In another condition of the mind, it looks like an obstacle from which the earlier we extricate ourselves, the better. We wish to free ourselves from all our entanglements in the world. 

But a third stage comes when the world reacts in an adverse manner upon the mind that has thought it to be a redundant tail, as it were, of its perception. Then it is that there is actually a humiliating coming down of the aspiring consciousness, and a last moment’s feeling that perhaps everything is over and nothing is possible. 

It appears that even the great  Swami Sri Adi Sankaracharya  had this experience the day before his enlightenment. It was all dark. 

There was no light on the horizon. After years of austerity, he was crawling on all fours due to the weakness of the body. He thought the tapas was over and he had achieved nothing. 

There was a complete dejection of the spirit.

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2.

This predominantly spiritual despondency of a spiritual seeker is also called yoga. 

The First Chapter, which is nothing but a description of the weeping of Arjuna, is called Visada Yoga: the yoga of the dejection of the spirit. 

This dejection is not a morbid, melancholy mood of the spiritual seeker. It is a healthy realisation of the impossibility of an individual being to face this world of values alone, and the need felt for a higher assistance. It may be a Guru for one person; it may be God Himself for another. 

Therefore, in the utter helplessness of not being able to know what actually is to be done, Arjuna asked what was his duty par excellence. 

What was his duty in this world? 

This was the question of Arjuna, which he couched in various styles of expression according to the tradition of that time.

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3.

The answer of Sri Krishna is that all this is a kind of blabber which an ignorant mind resorts to for self-justification, under the impression that ignorance is bliss. 

“Neither do you know what you are, nor do you know what the world is. How do you make judgments of this kind, that you shall do or you shall not do?"

"On what grounds do you make a statement that this has to be done and this should not be done?"

"What is the rationale behind the ethics, morality, and the justification for any kind of action in this world?"

"What is the ground on which you base your argument for embarking upon a particular project of this type or that type?" 

"Is it merely an impulse of the instinct, or the force of the sense organs, or the appetite of the biological organ?"

"Or is it a well-reasoned-out structure that you philosophically constructed for the purpose of rising high into the sphere of a spiritual conclusion?" 

"Neither do you know yourself, nor do you know the world, Arjuna; yet, you speak as if you are a wise person.”

To be continued ....

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