Commentary on the Srimad Bhagavad Gita- Discourse- 8- Post-3. - Swami Krishnananda

 

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Tuesday,  May   04, 2021. 02:21. PM.
Chapter-8.The Fourth Chapter Begins: The Avataras of God-3.
Post-3.
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When a fever arises in the body, it is a very painful and very unpleasant thing that is taking place, but it is a healing process. A big war is taking place within the body, and a heightened form of energy rises up into action in order to drive out all the toxic forces. In this war, sometimes the soldiers in the battle who drive out the toxic elements also die. The warriors do not always come back hale and hearty. Many of them perish. The white corpuscles in the blood are supposed to be the warriors, and when they die there is pus in the body. That pus is nothing but the blood corpuscles dying in the war for the sake of our welfare. Soldiers die for the nation. Nations survive; soldiers die. In the same way, these poor white cells fought with the elements that came as toxins, and when the toxins were too powerful—like Ravana and Kumbhakarna—many of these cells died, sacrificing themselves for the welfare of the body.

Similarly, the manifestation of God is with an ultimate purpose. It is not with an individual, motivated, localised purpose. God does not descend for your sake or my sake, or for this country’s sake or that country’s sake. There is no such thing as ‘mine’ and ‘his’ for God. The total intention of creation, taken in its completeness, is the intention of God. He wants the health and the harmony of the entire creation in the same way as we want the health and the perfection of the entire body. We do not want part of the body to suffer and part of the body to be healed by medical treatment. What is the good of it? If we are partially sick and partially healthy, we cannot be regarded as healthy at all. As a good medical practitioner, God takes the view that the entire body should be protected. It is not enough if only some limb is protected; and if for the sake of the protection of the entire organism which is the body, some part has to be eliminated, He will eliminate it—by a cyclone or something like that. But God does not always come as a disease or a threat or a Narasimha. He can also come as a friend, a well-wisher. Suhṛdaṁ sarvabhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati (5.29): “Knowing Me as the friend of all beings, you shall attain peace.” A terror like Narasimha, or a fearsome force like Bhagavan Sri Krishna, yet the kindest, most merciful, most adorable, is the manner in which incarnations come.

“Whenever dharma declines and adharma rises up, I will manifest Myself.” Dharma is the integrating force; adharma is the disintegrating force. That which keeps society, the world as a whole, intact as an organic completeness is dharma. Dharma is a cohesive force, a cementing element, even in the midst of the worst of diversities of being. Adharma is the opposite. It cuts into pieces all the unity that we can have anywhere—brother fights with brother, the husband throws away his wife, the wife deserts her husband, the son sues his father, and nobody wants anybody. These kinds of terrible, diversifying situations can be the outcome of adharma working with great rapacity, which comes as Hiranyakashipus, Ravanas and Kumbhakarnas, etc., or as destructive cosmic forces.

It is the intention of God to see that His creation is in a state of harmony and well being. I ask you to remember that the universe is made in the same way as our bodies are made, so the universe works in the same way as our bodies work. As the anatomical and physiological functions protect this body in a requisite manner, there is a cosmic anatomy and physiology, in the light of which the balance in the cosmos is maintained. For the sake of this there is the avatara, which is the coming of God for the sake of protecting dharma—that is, to establish the power of unity against the destroying and disturbing elements that go out of the centre. “Then I incarnate Myself.”

To be continued ...

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