The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 5.4. Swami Krishnananda

Monday, June 22, 2020. 8:25.AM.

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita

Chapter 5: The Udyoga Parva of the Mahabharata - 4

1.

There is a difficulty. We have a difficulty always, and there is not a single moment when we are not in some difficulty because if there is no difficulty of any kind, in any sense of the term, at any place, in any aspect of our life, it would be difficult to imagine that we would be living and doing things in the manner that we do now. There is perpetual motivation in some direction in our life, and our life is a complicated network of involvements and relations. What is meant by ‘our life’? It is a large web of interrelations where everything is connected in some way, in some proportion, in some emphasis of intensity. It is my particular need or necessity felt at this hour, but my need or necessity is not unconnected with the environment in which I am living, and it is not possible to assure myself that I am totally free from any kind of association with my environment outside.

2.

The Bhagavadgita, therefore, goes to the root of human involvements, and conflict is    just this peculiar inability on the part of an involved individual to properly assess the nature of its relation with the environment in which it is involved. I am in a particular environment. Firstly, it is difficult to fully understand what this environment is. Secondly, it is also difficult to understand what my connection with this environment is. A twofold difficulty is there facing us every day. I would not be so foolish as to imagine that I have nothing to do with anything in the world. I seem to have some connection with things, but what are the things with which I am connected? A purely parochial outlook, which emphasises only a blinkered attention of the mind in a given direction, will say that this is the thing in which I am involved, and this is the thing with which I am connected as, for instance, when a person is up in arms against somebody, or against some circumstance.

3.

Very rarely does a human being find it possible to take all the factors involved in the circumstance into consideration, because we have a capacity to be prejudiced, and we are not incapable of that state. We are capable of a prejudice which is motivated by sudden sparks of emotion. We are not always judged by or motivated by an impersonal rationality of approach. It is true that we have reason, and that faculty is a blessing. But there are other forces operating within us, and we find that it is not always possible for us to blend these potentialities within us. I made a reference to this difficulty sometime back. Always we are laying emphasis on one side of the issue. A total picture rarely presents itself before our minds.

To be continued ...

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