Commentary on the Srimad Bhagavad Gita- Discourse 7.2. - Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Sunday,March 07, 2021. 10:40. AM.
Chapter-7. The Third Chapter Concludes: The Knower of Reality.-2.
Post-13.
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Having known this, the knower of Reality, or the tattvavit, is na sajjate—is not attached to anything. He does not even hold an opinion on anything, because to hold an opinion is to pass a judgment, which is nothing but a localised notion that we entertain in regard to something; and no wise person can pass a judgment on anything in this world because to judge a thing is to eliminate factors which are invisible and uncognisable, and yet contributory to the occurrence of a particular event. Judge not, lest you be judged. If you judge a thing, you will be judged in a similar manner by the forces of nature. Whatever you do to the world, that will be done to you. Do unto others as you would be done by. ?tmana? pratik?l?ni pare??? na sam?charet (M.B. 5.15.17): That which is not good for you should not be meted out to others either. This is an ethical consequence that we may draw from this scientific and philosophical conclusion that the gunas of prakriti alone operate in this world and they constitute all the solid objects—mountains and rivers and the solar system and all our bodies, and everything we can think of in heaven or on earth. Knowing this, he is not attached to anything. He remains unbiased, unconcerned. He is a witness of the drama, just as the audience in an enactment of a drama is not attached either to this actor or that actor, knowing very well that all the actors perform a mutually correlated activity to produce a definite effect. Just as the audience does not get attached to any performer in a drama, so is the case with the knower of Reality. He is not attached to anything—iti matv? na sajjate. Totally unconcerned and wanting nothing does a knower of Reality live.

What is his attitude towards people who do not know this Reality? Ignorant people who behave very foolishly and get attached to things—what is his attitude towards them? This is suggested in the next verse. Prak?ter gu?asa?m??h?? sajjante gu?akarmasu, t?n ak?tsnavido mand?n k?tsnavin na vic?layet (3.29): Those who do not have an insight into the nature of prakriti’s actions get attached to particular objects of sense; but we should not disturb their feeling or condemn their outlook of life. We should not tell them that their outlook is totally wrong and that their perception is erroneous. Condemnation is something unknown to the knower of Reality. The teacher in a school does not condemn the ignorant child, or the student. An efflorescence of the mind of the student is attempted by the teacher, who is a master of psychology. Sri Krishna is a master of psychology and he acts as the best of teachers before a student like Arjuna, and thus he expects every knower of Truth to also behave as a good teacher of mankind, and not a judge of mankind. The teacher does not judge the student as good or bad, but as someone who is in a particular state of evolution from which he has to effloresce and flower into a larger dimension of knowledge. The teacher is sometimes called a spiritual midwife, in the language of Socrates. The midwife does not create the child, but brings the child out. So is the case with the teacher. He does not thrust knowledge into the ignorant person. He does not interfere at all with the mind of the student, but enables the mind to undergo a transmutation by the dexterous psychological activity of the teacher, so that knowledge manifests itself automatically from the otherwise ignorant mind.

A person who taught Plato and Socrates once made a humorous analogy that even a buffalo knows geometry. How can he say that a buffalo knows geometry? For that, an illustration was given. Imagine there is a triangular field, and a buffalo is standing at one of the angles. At another angle there is a man with a bundle of grass, who calls to the buffalo. Will the buffalo come directly, or will it come through the other angle? It knows that this line is shorter than the other line; this is the geometrical knowledge of the buffalo. So, some knowledge is inherent even in a buffalo. A monkey knows that stones that are thrown will not hit it if it hides behind a tree. This is the monkey’s logic. We cannot say that the monkey does not have logic. It knows how to grab the fruit that is in our hand when we are unaware of its presence. When we are aware, it will not come. When we are unaware, looking away, it will come; and if we pursue it, it knows how to hide itself. So there is an incipient wisdom present even in the lowest category of creation. Therefore, the wise one is he who acts as a good mentor and does not judge things as good or bad. He is a divinity itself. T?n ak?tsnavido mand?n k?tsnavin na vic?layet: The one who is k?tsnavit, knowing all things, should not interfere with those who know things only partially. People who have only a fractional knowledge of things should not be judged as inferior by the one who has a complete knowledge of things; and no student is considered as totally unfit by a good teacher.

To be continued ...

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