The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita - 5.1. Swami Krishnananda

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Monday, May 04, 2020.

Chapter 5: The Mortal and the Immortal-1.

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1.

The First Chapter of the Bhagavadgita pinpoints the basic difficulties which a spiritual seeker may face in the long run, in spite of the preparations that he might have made with all his logical conclusions and sincerity of purpose. 

In the earlier stages of our aspirations we do not fully realise the problems that are hidden deep, invisibly, beneath the outer layers of our personality, not directly connected with our daily life. 

We have an unconscious personality apart from the conscious one limited to this bodily existence, and this unconscious level of ours is larger in its content than the little expression of it we visualise outside as the body and its social relations.

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2.

There are fears of various types which keep us secretly unhappy, and many of the activities of life in the conscious level are attempts to brush aside these fears; and then we imagine that they do not exist at all. 

We occupy ourselves so busily with works of various types as a kind of outlet or counteracting power against these fears, usually known in the language of psychology as defence mechanisms. We protect ourselves by certain psychic mechanisms which we have formed within ourselves as a kind of self-deception, we may say, finally. 

This is the attitude of the ostrich which is said to bury its head in the sand when it is threatened with any kind of fear outside. It hides its head in the sand so that it cannot see things outside, and when nothing is seen outside, it thinks that nothing exists outside. 

This is not merely the ostrich’s way but, perhaps, the attitude of every human being when he is faced with insoluble difficulties.

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To be continued ....

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