The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 6.3. Swami Krishnananda

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Thursday, August 20, 2020. 5:01.AM.
The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita
Chapter 6: Beauty and Duty in the Bhagavadgita-3.
(Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti)
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1.
The Mahabharata was a big medley of the coming together of individuals, many people joining together and deciding things for themselves – a mob, a crowd gathered together in a field of action, operation, the meaning of which to some extent was clear to each one, but its basic principle was not clear. Some sort of an understanding of every performance in our life we do have, but occasionally we find that this understanding is inadequate. There are knotty, difficult situations in our lives when our usual understanding seems to be inadequate. We have our daily routine which we conduct fairly well with our understanding, and we do not feel that we are inadequate in the understanding of our daily performances, but there are certain occasions when we find that our understanding is not adequate to the purpose. Then it is that we run hither and thither for help from a superior understanding. This superior understanding is not to be confused with any person, though, unfortunately for us human beings, the manifestation even of this superior understanding happens to be through a person only. Sometimes it happens to be in a group of people.

2.
I had occasion sometime to mention that the beauty of a painting is not in the ink and the canvas, though the painting contains nothing but the ink and the canvas. You would be wondering, “What is beauty if not the presentation of the pattern of the ink on the canvas?” It is not possible for anyone to clearly say what beauty is. It is a super-personal manifestation in the context of the personality of the ink and the canvas. That is why it is so attractive that we go on gazing at it and are drowned in its perception. Beauty is inexplicable. That is why it is so attractive. We go on gazing at it and are drowned in its perception. It is not capable of understanding through mathematical equations. Mathematically it is very easy to understand what a painting is – so much of ink and so much square feet of canvas; so much area it occupies geometrically, and so it is easy, mathematically very simple to understand. But beauty is not mathematics, and duty is also not mathematics.

3.
There are two great difficulties in life: the understanding of duty and beauty. Neither of these will be clear to our minds, though only these two things control our lives. There are only two things that pull us vehemently in their direction: beauty and duty. We cannot escape the call of duty, nor can we escape the call of beauty. Neither of these can be really understood, however much we may wrack our heads.

To be continued ....

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