The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita - 4.5. Swami Krishnananda

04/04/2020.

Chapter 4: The Struggle for the Infinite - 5.

1.

#The love for immortal existence can be interpreted as a love for existing as ‘this individual’ for an endless period of time. 

##People are frightened by the very idea of the abolition of personality in God-realisation. And there are philosophies which repudiate such a possibility, because if we are abolished, what, then, remains? 

###If the aspirer ceases to be, what is he aspiring for? 

####This frightening situation may shake us from the bottom, and we revert, once again, to the old cocoon of bodily existence and social relationship. And the Mahabharata war would not be!

2.

#Arjuna says, “I bid good-bye. Here is my grandsire, Bhishma; here is Drona, my Guru; here are my cousin brothers, all come from the same ancestor; the same blood is flowing through the veins of everyone. 

*What can be a greater sin than to aim an arrow at the venerable Bhishma, on whose lap I sat and listened to stories when I was a child? 

*And what greater sin it could be than to contemplate the destruction of social values, and cause sorrow and pain to those who are related to me and who depended on me for sustenance? 

*Am I to aim against the world which is so beautiful and grand, and which is full of such values?” 

##The human society in which we are living is, indeed, meaningful; and today we cannot see a greater meaning in life than human society. All that we are working for, studying for, day and night, is only for human society. We know that there is nothing else in our minds. Though we may have organisations, we may be spiritual leaders, we may be anything, all this is for human society and not for cats and mice, or for tigers, trees and mountains. 

*We are concerned only with our own species. A frog loves only the frog, and the frogs form a frog united nations organisation, and so on. 

*We are just puny creatures with all our boasted understanding, and Arjuna’s arguments really strike a poor note before the mighty Krishna, who was listening to all this harangue. 

###“What a pity! A hero speaking like this! I thought you are made of a better stuff. At this crucial moment you are failing. Having renounced kith and kin, homestead and chattel, and taken to the path of God-realisation, you are still speaking in terms of humanity, in terms of your personal immortality, and in terms of justification of the values of the world of Nature. You want to have the same earthly satisfaction even in God?”

To be continued ...