The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 16.3 - Swami Krishnananda.

 =================================================================

==================================================================

Saturday, December 11, 2021. 8:00. PM.
The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 16-3.
(The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita )
Chapter-16. Understanding the Essence of the Mind - 3.
(Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti).

=====================================================================

The stability of the cosmos, the integrality of action in the universe, the system and methodology that we see in nature is indicative of the presence of sattva guna at the back of the operation of the dividing activity of rajas. Unless sattva, which is the equilibrating force, is at the back of this distracting energy we call rajas, there would not be meaning in things. Two and two will not make four because the connecting of one figure with another figure, and coming to a conclusion that the connection results in a third meaning, is possible only if there is logic among divided objects, and what we call logic is nothing but the operation of a unifying meaning in the midst of divided subjects and predicates. If there were only subjects and predicates without any kind of linkage between them, there would be no sentence, and no proposition would logically be possible.

Therefore, we cannot have only divided objects and nothing more, nothing less. This dividedness of things is an apparent phenomenon; it is one of the functions of the properties of prakriti, but there is a basic integrating power in the very same prakriti which makes us see meaning in things. Otherwise, chaos would be the meaning of this world. Even to understand that there is such a thing called chaos, we must have a unifying factor within us. Otherwise, there would be no one to know that there is chaos. Chaos cannot know chaos. So there must be something which is other than chaos to know that there is chaos. Again we are forced to accept the presence of some significance other than a mere dividing activity.

So the world is made up of an intricate relation obtaining in an unintelligible manner among these three aspects of the operation of prakriti – sattva, rajas and tamas. And where are we as human beings? We are not merely witnesses of this cosmic operation. We are not enjoying the drama of God's action as if we are outside it. We are in it as anything else is. So where comes our action in this world, which is made in this manner?

 Kim karma (BG 4.16): What is action, what is not an action, inaction, and what is wrong action? Questions were raised, and it was told to us that it is necessary to know what action is, and so on. How are we to know what action, etc., is in this circumstance of a great involvement? If it is true that the world is made up of prakriti, a thing which the Bhagavadgita accepts as the original matrix of all things, then action, as we understand it, is a simple operation. “I have done this work today.” When we make a statement of this kind, we seem to refer to the performance through our bodily organs of something which is dictated by a feeling or thought. We have nothing more to say and nothing more to consider about our actions. “There was a thought in my mind, a determination of my will, a decision of my feeling which propelled my body to move in a particular direction. That is action.” But this is a simpleton's answer.

Action does not take place so easily in a localised form because this thing we call our thought, our feeling, our determination, our understanding, our will, is again to be probed into. What does this mean actually? We said that our thought propels our limbs to act or move in a particular direction, and we call this our action, but what is this propulsion? It is our mind. But what is our mind? The Sankhya philosophy is the answer once again. What is the mind? Where is this mind? We may say, “It is in me.” What other answer can we give? This is an unphilosophical answer. 

This was the defect which Sri Krishna pointed out in Arjuna: “You lack philosophical insight. You lack sankhya. Sankhya buddhi is not in you; therefore, you have no yoga. Where there is no sankhya, there is no yoga. Where there is no right understanding, there is no right action.”

To be continued ...

========================================================================