The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita - 12-1 : Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, July 31, 2021.7:48. PM. 
Chapter -12. God and the Universe - 1.
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By the time we reach the Seventh Chapter of the Bhagavadgita we are touching a new realm of being, and the whole perspective that was presented before us in the course of the earlier six chapters suddenly changes, as if a curtain has been lifted in the dramatic portrayal of the Gospel. There is an introduction of the soul of the seeker to the empyrean of the Creator, a subject which has not been adequately touched upon during the earlier course of the studies.

There has been a particular emphasis laid in the first six chapters upon the individual, the duty of the person, the integration of the psychophysical complex. There has been an admonition in the earlier chapters to the individual, or man as such, in his capacity as a soul which aspires for the realisation of higher values, so that this task of self-integration gets completed when we reach the theme of the Sixth Chapter, wherein we place ourselves in the context of a total preparation of ourselves to leap into the beyond.

The individual is suddenly set in tune with the universal in the Seventh Chapter. The great Master tells at the commencement of this section that this aspiration is a great blessing. And very few in this world can have the satisfaction of having received this divine blessing, viz., love of God, and a complete preparation of oneself in the direction of God. It is not that everyone will be fit even to contain the idea of the Absolute in one’s mind, let alone have a direct contact with it or an experience of it. Even the entertaining of the notion of the Absolute is a grand achievement. It is a great achievement indeed if any one of us can satisfactorily contain in our minds the nature or structure of the Supreme Being. That shall be regarded as an attainment in the practice of Yoga. A whole-souled aspiration for God even in its initial stage is superior to all verbal knowledge, intellectual acumen, or scriptural learning.

Very few will be inclined to turn to God. Most people are distracted in the direction of the objects of the senses. People are in search of satisfaction which is empirical, physical and egoistic. The bliss of God is not the concern of the ordinary man; it is impossible even for thinking and understanding. Not many have this endowment by which the mind will agree to turn to God in His reality. But even among those who are truly aspiring for the realisation of God, only some will really succeed in the attempt. It does not mean that everyone who files an application will be chosen, because success in this path of the Spirit is hard to attain in the case of the individual who is lodged in the body and limited to the empirical categories of the mind.

With this cautious introduction the Teacher of the Bhagavadgita takes us to a picture of the cosmos, which is concisely explained in a few words. The whole universe is constituted of the five elements and certain phases of the universal consciousness, the elements being grosser than the latter—earth, water, fire, air and ether—the mind, intellect, ego. Here the teaching resembles, to a large extent, the cosmological explanation offered by the Samkhya system. We have touched upon this theme earlier on some occasion.

To be continued....

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