Commentary on the Srimad Bhagavad Gita- Discourse 5.1. - Swami Krishnananda

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Friday, August 28, 2020. 9:58.AM.
Discourse 5: The Second Chapter Concludes – The Establishment of the Soul in Universality -1.
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1.
The impulsion to act arises due to the compulsion of prakriti’s modes, which always revolve and rotate in a cyclic fashion. Like the incessant movement of the spokes of a wheel in motion, the gunas of prakriti—sattva, rajas and tamas—keep perpetually moving and never resting. Inasmuch as everybody—myself, yourself, and all things—is constituted of these essentials of prakriti, the mutation which prakriti perpetually undergoes has a direct impact upon our individual existence, and we also undergo the same mutation. Whether we want to or not, we are forced to act in a particular direction. The whole point is: In what direction are we acting?

2.
Action by itself is something like electricity, which is neither good nor bad. Action is a kind of impulsion in some given direction. The effect that action will produce depends upon the direction of the action. The direction depends upon the mind and the reason of a particular individual conditioning the movement—just as a driver steers the vehicle in a given direction though the engine does not know the direction in which the driver is making it go. Prakriti is like an engine which moves; therefore, when it moves, everything also moves, but the direction in which it moves depends upon the intelligence of the driver. In the case of the individual, it is the reason or the understanding, the viveka shakti, that is responsible for the direction.

3.
The direction can be twofold. It can be a movement away from the centre or it can be a movement towards the centre. All movements away from the centre are called centrifugal movements. All movements towards the centre are called centripetal movements. Our activities, our works, our performances of any kind may take us away from ourselves more and more, or they may bring us nearer and nearer to our own selves. That is to say, our works and deeds in this world may be either integrating or disintegrating. When we do work, we may feel exhausted, and feel we have had enough of everything; or we may feel energy, enthusiasm, and we would like to do more work. The energy comes from the integrating faculty operating behind our action. Our soul is the centre of everything. The more is the force exerted by our soul, the greater is the integration that is taking place in our action; it is a cohesive, harmonious action in which we get involved. But if the soul is practically dead, as it is in most people, the sense organs take the upper hand, and instead of the soul motivating the direction of the action, the sense organs start controlling the movement, and they pull us out of ourselves.

To be continued ...

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