Commentary on the Srimad Bhagavad Gita- Discourse 6.8 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday,February  06, 2021. 09:40. AM.
Discourse 6: The Third Chapter Begins – The Relation Between Sankhya and Yoga -8.
Post-9.

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Those in the higher stage should not condemn people who are in lower categories and follow one view of life. This is what the compassionate Lord says: sakta? karma?yavidva?so yatha kurvanti bharata, kuryad vidva?s tathasaktas cikir?ur lokasa?graham (3.25). We should not think that we are superior to a child that babbles and crawls. Its existence is as valuable and as meaningful to the cosmos as ours, so we must cooperate with it. Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj was like that. If a child came, he would behave like a child; if a sick man came, he would appreciate him; if a rich man came, he would appreciate him; if a dancer came, he would appreciate the dance; if a musician came, he would appreciate the music; if a scholar came, he would talk on philosophy. Whatever be the object in front of the sage, that is reflected in his mind. A sage never considers himself to be superior to others.

The world is not made up of superior and inferior items. In this large machinery of the cosmos, which part can be considered as superior and which part inferior? A nut and bolt in a machine is as important as a pulley or an engine. The wheel of a car is as important as the engine. Hence, those who are blessed with the knowledge of total detachment from involvement in objects, and are established in Sankhya and yoga, should encourage other people to move in the right direction, and should not condemn them. As a matter of fact, we should behave as other people behave.

The great sage does not put on airs. He behaves like a normal human being. He is not an opponent of the existing conditions of life. He is a reformer by the harmonising features that emanate from him, and he does not become a source of conflict. There is no condemnation or sense of inferiority towards others. There is a systematic method in the process of education that gradually takes the child up from the state in which it is; and the best teacher is he who does not tell what he knows but tells what is necessary for the student. He must be able to appreciate the condition of the student, the stage in which he is or she is, and his teaching should be commensurate with the degree of the knowledge of the student. Then only is there a rapport between the teacher and the student.

Digressing a little from the great subject of Sankhya and yoga, Sri Krishna says there should not be an airing of knowledge. The higher we are, the simpler should we look. The greater we are, the smaller we should appear to people; this is a saint. Nobody can know that the saint is a great man, because he does not appear as a great man. In this context, Sri Sankaracharya says in his commentary on the Brahma Sutras that he is the knower of Brahman, by looking at whom, nobody will know whether he is a fool or an intelligent man, whether he is a good or a bad man, or what kind of person he is. Nobody will be able to assess what kind of person he is. Such a person is a Brahmana, a knower of Brahman.

To be continued ...

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