Commentary on the Bhagavadgita - 12- 3. Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday,  September 05, 2021. 9:14. PM.
Discourse 12 :
THE FIFTH CHAPTER CONTINUES :
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A PERFECTED PERSON : 3.
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The fruit of action that accrues through actions performed with a motive for fruit, this also is not done by God Himself. He is not thinking of giving us something. Neither does He take anything, nor does He give us anything. An automatic action takes place on account of the very structural pattern of the universe. Whether we go to heaven or to hell or we are reborn, we cannot say that God is thinking that we should be thrown somewhere or that we should be made to take rebirth. It is nothing of the kind. The universe is an automatic system of operation, and does not require an outside interference from God. Actually, God is not an outside thing, and is not an extra-cosmic reality. Nor is God capable of being identified with the cosmos itself. The divisions, the mutations, the limitations and the spatiotemporal conditioning which are the characteristics of the world cannot be attributed to God. In a sense, we may say there is nothing in the world which can be found in God; but in another sense, everything can be found in God because the values that we see in this world arise from a transcendence which is invisible to the eyes and uncognisable to the mind.

It is like the analogy of the snake and the rope. The snake is not the rope and, therefore, we cannot say that the rope has become the snake; and yet, the snake would not be there if the rope was not there. The rope is responsible for the snake, yet the rope is not responsible for the snake. The rope has never become the snake; therefore, we cannot say that the rope is responsible for appearing as the snake. Yet without the rope, the snake would not have appeared in it. Likewise, God is not responsible for anything that is happening in the world, yet nothing can happen in the world without God’s existence. God maintains a very crucial position: God is doing everything, and yet doing nothing at all.

Na karmaphalasa?yoga? svabh?vas tu pravartate: The natural tendency of existence itself is responsible for what we call action and motivation in any direction. N?datte kasyacit  God does not take our sin or our merit, because merits and sins are meaningful only in individualised existence where consciousness works through the body and sense organs; therefore, sin and merit cannot be attributed to consciousness that is not working through the sense organs and the individual apparatus of the mind. Universal Existence does not think through the mind and does not perceive through the sense organs. Hence, the characteristics which are of the mind and the senses cannot be attributed to God.

Therefore, what happens to our meritorious karmas and our sins, and so on? Is nobody punished for their sins? People are punished by their sins. The sin itself punishes us; somebody else, like a judge sitting in the court, does not punish us for our sins. A sin is a peculiar dislocated, maladjusted situation that an individual occupies in this cosmos; this maladjustment itself is the sin. The sin itself punishes us, and there is nobody else from outside to strike a rod on our heads. That is, a self-complete organism occupies a self-complete situation in itself, and its health and disease depend entirely upon the manner in which the components of the organism work. There is no third reality, no extra-physical reality coming and interfering with the wrong actions or the right actions of a person.

To be continued ...

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