The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 17.3 - Swami Krishnananda.

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

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

Wednesday, January 05,2022. 7:00. PM.

Chapter 17: The Meaning and Purpose of Sacrifice : - 3.

(The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita )

(Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti).

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

Many a time we have heard it said that work is worship. It is written on placards and we read it in textbooks, but the meaning of it might not be clear to all people. Unless the contemplation in the mind becomes the same as the action that we perform, worship cannot be work and work cannot be worship. Our idea and our doing have to be identical, but rarely is it practicable for earthbound human individuals to identify their contemplative aspect with their operative aspect. Doing seems to be an expression of a part of our personality. Not only do we not melt into action when we actually perform actions, but even the whole of our personality does not engage itself in action. We are not entirely engaged in action in the totality of our personality at any time. Such a kind of call never comes except when we are drowning in water, or we are dying. Normally, we never operate wholly in all the levels of our being at any moment. Such an occasion does not normally arise. So on the one hand, the whole of our personality, root and branch, does not rise into action whenever we do anything. On the other hand, we do not melt in action. We maintain our hard, flint-like personality. We are persons. I am what I am, and my action is different from what I am.

So our actions cannot be called karma yoga, they cannot be liberating, inasmuch as we have not become one with our action. Therefore, actions cannot be worship, however much we may write it on the walls. So yoga is a difficult thing to practice. It is the communion of our being with the very operation of our being. This is what is meant by saying that action and existence are identical at a particular level. God's existence and God's activity are the same. To be is to act, and to act is to be. There is no difference between these two operations. But that action is of a different nature. That is why it is liberating. It is not the action that we can contemplate in our minds, the movement of hands and feet. It has not a purposive individually motivated action in a direction given in space and time. It is a total action.

It was very hard even for a mighty mind like Arjuna to grasp what it could be, so he went on raising questions again and again as to how knowledge and action can be combined. “They seem to be different things. My mind does not feel competent to absorb this teaching. The idea of an action cannot be action, knowledge cannot be working, and thought is not the same as doing. The object is not the subject; we cannot understand how they can be identified, much less considered as having any kind of relationship between them.”

The difficulty of this kind arises because we cannot think beyond our skins. The purification necessary for the practice of yoga can be well appreciated here. The minds of people like us are not purified enough. Therefore, we are unable to even receive this teaching. The meaning of it is not clear. How is such a thing possible? It is because the mind is not transparent yet; it is turbid. It has more of rajas and tamas. It is motivated by external motion and stagnation, which is tamas. The transparency we call sattva has not yet adequately manifested itself in us. Most of the time we are agitated, anxious, and confounded more than tranquil, sober and composed in ourselves. Hence, this teaching on a theme which is the pinnacle of composure cannot easily be received by a distracted mind. So the Bhagavadgita does not end here. It goes on until a stage is reached where it becomes absolutely necessary to be face to face with the entire setup of the cosmos. Until we actually see what is in front of us, we will not be able to understand the kind of life that we live in this world.

To be continued ....

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