The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita - 8.3 Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Monday, November 23 2020. 05:51. PM.

Chapter 8: The Yoga of Action-3.

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1.

In a mythological style, in the form of a beautiful image, Krishna says that the Creator produced the individuals in the early days of creation, with a message to everyone. The great God who created us seems to have spoken to us thus, at the time of creation: “Children, I have created you, but I have created you together with a duty.” 

To be born as an individual is also to be born with a duty inseparably. If we are to be free from duty, we have to be free from individuality itself. So, when we were born as individuals at the time of creation, at the origin of things, we have been sent by the Creator with a commission to perform a duty in the form of yajna.

 “Sahayajnah prajah srishtva purovacha prajapatih; anena prasavishyadhvam esha vo’stvishtakamadhuk” is a famous verse which sums up the principle of spiritual action. Individuals were created together with the principle of yajna, or sacrifice. The obligation to perform a duty is a call to sacrifice. And action performed as a sacrifice becomes a divine worship, and it shall not bind. Any action which is performed without the spirit of sacrifice involved in it but with the selfish intention of the fulfilment of an individual or personal motive shall bind, and bring sorrow to the individual.

2.

Now, what is this yajna, or sacrifice, with which we are born, and which is the message given to us by the Creator in the earlier days? What is yajna, in whose spirit we are expected to perform action or do our duties? 

This is something very crucial for us to remember. The concept of Deity is brought forth as an important item in the understanding of the nature of sacrifice. The word ‘Deva’ is used in the following verse, which speaks of co-operative action as the form of every type of sacrifice. 

The Deva is a superintending Deity. “May you be propitiating the gods (Devas) by means of your actions, activities or duties, and in return may the gods bestow upon you their blessings.” This is a mythical form given to an important scientific principle or a philosophical point involved in the performance of any action.

3.

The binding character of action consists in the neglect on the part of the performer of the action in regard to a principle that is inseparably involved in the performance thereof. We have noted on an earlier occasion that we are not the sole agents of action, and that it is not true that everything is decided by us. The agent of an action is not one single individual, on account of which, the fruits cannot be expected by us, solely. 

The important invisible factor which conditions actions of every kind is what is termed the Deity, or the Deva, in this context. There is a spiritual guiding element existing as an intermediary reality between the apparent individual agent of action and the fruit that is to accrue therefrom, the motive with which the action is performed and the ideal towards which activity is directed.

4.

Our actions are directed towards some end; this is the nature of every action. It is a means to an end. Now, this end is remotely placed away from the agent of action, and there is something in between, in the middle of the agent of action, and the end aimed at through that action. 

That principle which is in between is the Deva, the Deity, the god, the spiritual conditioning factor, an ignorance of which is the cause of failure in the fulfilment of any purpose. To be ignorant of this principle is to be ignorant of the whole process of right action. In religious parlance, the performance of worship to gods, deities, angels, or whatever we call them, implies an inward attunement of ourselves with a transcendent principle which lies between the subject and the object, ourselves and the end which we are aiming at. 

God Himself is descended, as it were, in one degree of reality in the context of our existence, in the level of reality in which we are, and to be ignorant of this fact is to be ignorant of the existence of God Himself. In one degree, in one form of intensity, God is present between us and that which we are aiming at through our performances. But we are ignorant of this secret.

 As we are involved in space and time, we are phenomenal individuals, and our consciousness is not resting in itself, but is moving through the apertures of the senses externally towards the objects located in space and time, we are unable to be conscious of the presence of this spiritual element as a transcendent reality between us and the end of our actions.

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To be continued ......

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