Study of the Bhagavadgita : Chapter-2 : Post- 5. - Swami Krishnananda

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Wednesday, September 02, 2020. 10:55. AM.
Chapter 2: The Background of the Bhagavadgita-5.
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1.
When you go to work in a factory or an office, you will find certain peculiar conditions prevailing which you cannot regard as yours, or as palatable to you. You would like to shunt them off and push them out, show them a stepmotherly treatment, or wish that they would not be there at all. And there are other circumstances in the very same place which you would eagerly like to have, or wish they would continue for as long as possible. But whatever be your wish and your attempt to adjust yourself to these circumstances, you are in a state of tension. You will never find in this world only that which is not yours, nor will you find only things which are yours. They will all be mixed up. Even under your nose just at this moment you will find there are two factors operating: that which you would like to have and that which you would not like to have; something pleases you and something displeases you. So pleasure and pain, love and hatred, like and dislike condition our very existence.

2.
The king uttered these words, perhaps not knowing their implication. He was blind, physically as well as mentally. He could not see things because he was born blind, but he could not understand things properly because he was intellectually ignorant. This question was raised before Sanjaya, the counsellor, the minister of Dhritarashtra, and this question is raised before every one of us in this world of action, which is the world of righteousness.

3.
The Bhagavadgita in its entirety, in all its eighteen chapters, may be said to be telling you nothing but this much: how you can blend action with the principle of righteousness in a state of harmony. Act you must. You cannot escape from the performance of the deed. Some kind of engagement is always there, and no one can be free from doing something. The Gita will tell you that even when you are apparently doing nothing, you are engaged in that particular action of doing nothing. Therefore, not doing anything is an impossibility.

To be continued ...

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